“Yellowstone” star Wes Bentley opened up in an interview with Men’s Health about almost losing everything to drug addiction after filming the hit movie “American Beauty.”
Many of us know Bentley as Jamie Dutton, the icky adopted son of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton on the hit Taylor Sheridan series, “Yellowstone.” But way back in 1999, Bentley became one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood for his role in the popular Kevin Spacey and Mena Suvari film, “American Beauty,” which has aged absolutely horrifically.
Just as fast as Bentley’s career shot into the stratosphere, it plummeted to the ground, according to a seemingly tell-all March interview with Men’s Health that began recirculating recently. Bentley said he discovered psychedelics, mushrooms and ketamine when he moved to Hollywood, and that he still believes in their mental health qualities for others today.
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“But I ended up going down the cocaine and heroin route,” Bentley told the outlet. “Hard drugs. Hard partying. You’re in clubs and you’re at after-parties, and there’s cocaine, and eventually it became heroin.”
Bentley apparently considers himself to be a hyper-competitive person. “I wanted to be the most impressive drug addict ever,” he said. Addiction took nearly a decade of Bentley’s life away from him. (RELATED: ‘Yellowstone’ Star Leaks Details On Season Five)
“That period was incredibly dark. I did really dangerous stuff. I went downtown. I went and hung with really shady people. I wasn’t trying to kill myself or anything. That was just me: Go far. Be the guy who went the furthest,” Bentley described.
He called that period of his life “the fire,” and it only concluded when he met his now-wife of 12 years and started to rebuild himself from nothing. “I lost everything in the fire. I had no car, I had no clothes, I had no money—I was $400,000 in debt,” and he had a pretty bad reputation within Hollywood for bungling auditions or working while high, according to the interview.
Bentley eventually got through court-mandated rehab (which he said didn’t hold the first time after he was arrested for passing a counterfeit bill), but 12 steps seemed to do the trick. His competitive nature seemingly hasn’t faded, though, as rumors surfaced recently over Bentley vying for Costner’s top-billed title on “Yellowstone,” which is pretty audacious considering he’s part of an ensemble cast under Costner’s lead.