Musician Willie Nelson made a shocking announcement about his lifestyle.
Nelson, 86, revealed he quit smoking weed during an interview with KSAT first published Saturday.
US musician Willie Nelson performs at the 2019 MusiCares Person Of The Year gala at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on February 8, 2019. – The 2019 MusiCares honor US singer-songwriter Dolly Parton as the Person Of The Year. (Photo credit VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)
“I have abused my lungs quite a bit in the past, so breathing is a little more difficult these days and I have to be careful,” the country music star said.
“I started smoking cedar bark, went from that to cigarettes to whatever,” he added. “And that almost killed me.”
“I don’t smoke anymore – take better care of myself,” Nelson said. (RELATED: Willie Nelson Cancels Tour Due To ‘Breathing Problem’)
The “On The Road Again” singer recently said pot kept him alive in a profile published in April by Rolling Stone.
“I wouldn’t be alive,” Nelson said. “It saved my life, really. I wouldn’t have lived 85 years if I’d have kept drinking and smoking like I was when I was 30, 40 years old. I think that weed kept me from wanting to kill people. And probably kept a lot of people from wanting to kill me, too — out there drunk, running around.”
Nelson first smoked weed in 1954, but didn’t really start using drugs until he moved to Austin in 1971.
“I’m an experimental sort of fellow,” Nelson wrote in his 1988 autobiography. “In the fairly short period of time that I used it, acid taught me several profound things.”