Celebrity Journalist Becomes Homeless Meth Addict in NYC
Kevin Sessums Reveals Survival Story in Brutally Honest Memoir:
‘I Left it On the Mountain’
Life seemed pretty damn glamorous for Kevin Sessums. He had a six-figure salary in the 1990’s working as a star writer for Vanity Fair, renting a 2,000-square-foot loft in Lower Manhattan. He rubbed noses with New York’s famous and artistic elite, once working as Executive Editor of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine. You couldn’t call him just a journalist though, he was a Hollywood insider; he smoked a spliff with Heath Ledger in Prague, he named celebrity confidante’s Jessica Lange, Madonna, and Courtney Love his ‘three blonde muses’, and he once fiddled with a box of Kurt Cobain’s pubic hair whilst dawdling around Courtney Love’s house. Sessums saw both of their pubic hair that night actually, as Love took a bath naked during their interview, quite a normal incident it seemed for Sessums.
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Author: Kevin Sessums
Photo: Matt Edge for the New York Times |
"‘Cocaine came first, then the whores’. It was only a matter of time."
He lived a lavish life; flying East to West Coast to greet and party with his interviewees, such as he did at the Pulp Fiction event he attended with Quentin Tarantino, John Travolta, and Sharon Stone in 1995. He spent his 49th birthday that year at an Oscar party with Jessica Lange as his date, holding her award she’d won for Best Actress between his legs in the back of her limo, much to the disdain of her publicist.
You could say it was all glamorous, ‘tacky glamour’ Sessums called it; until the excessive partying, late-night booty calls from an assload of prostitutes and a crystal meth drug addiction consumed him. ‘Cocaine came first, then the whores’. It was only a matter of time.
By early 2012, he was depleted; he’d contracted HIV, was ruining his health and going broke. Spending all of his savings left him homeless in New York City and unable to take care of his two dogs. “When you can’t take care of your dogs you know you’re in trouble”, says Sessums.
You could say it was all glamorous, ‘tacky glamour’ Sessums called it; until the excessive partying, late-night booty calls from an assload of prostitutes and a crystal meth drug addiction consumed him. ‘Cocaine came first, then the whores’. It was only a matter of time.
By early 2012, he was depleted; he’d contracted HIV, was ruining his health and going broke. Spending all of his savings left him homeless in New York City and unable to take care of his two dogs. “When you can’t take care of your dogs you know you’re in trouble”, says Sessums.
He sexualized everything and everyone, sometimes he’d just scribble down words like ‘pussy’, ‘dick’, ‘fuck’, on pieces of paper. |
Now aged 59, Sessums works as Editor of San Francisco’s LGBT magazine ‘FourTwoNine’, a happy and changed man, “with no desire for recreational sex just to fuck”, he doesn’t go to bars, he’s not on Grindr, he prefers to go for walks, ride his bike, go out with his dogs. He carries in his pocket a mini-statue of the Hindu God, Ganesh as a daily reminder of his spirituality and sobriety. He’s living a lifestyle that is worlds away from what those days in NYC offered him.
Reflecting back at his own path to spiritual redemption, Sessums tells his extraordinary story in a second memoir, ‘I Left It On The Mountain’. He provides an unflinching look into a past filled with all-night meth orgies, liaisons with the Devil as he drift into a state of overdose, and ultimately buckets of tears shed for the utter desperation that he felt to find out how to self-forgive. The process of writing the memoir was therapeutic for him, a search for enlightenment. |
'The thing is, Sessums had found himself in a familiar milieu of famous people by 1995; he’d become addicted to drugs and sex, constantly battling the animalistic side of himself. He’d see hot guys walking down the street, and find himself staring at the veins in their arms, fantasizing about shooting up with them. He sexualized everything and everyone, sometimes he’d just scribble down words like ‘pussy’, ‘dick’, ‘fuck’, on pieces of paper. One of which, actor Michael J. Fox happened to find after their interview and later confronted him about: ‘It was a litany for a word association game’, laughed Fox. Under the humiliating circumstance, Sessums downed the rest of his vodka.
Inhaling crystal meth was his choice of high, paired with some pretty gay whore he’d find through the Manhunt sex website; he favored the youthful ones with concave cheeks, the ones who knew how to be naked. One turned out to rape him; ramming pieces of crystal meth up his ass while he lay on his bed passing out, forgetting about everything, his senses totally burned away. Sessums would binge into the early hours of the morning before meeting his interview subjects, such as the night before interviewing actor Daniel Radcliffe for The Daily Beast, fucking as he inhaled the narcotics deep into his lungs. He was doped into delirium.
Inhaling crystal meth was his choice of high, paired with some pretty gay whore he’d find through the Manhunt sex website; he favored the youthful ones with concave cheeks, the ones who knew how to be naked. One turned out to rape him; ramming pieces of crystal meth up his ass while he lay on his bed passing out, forgetting about everything, his senses totally burned away. Sessums would binge into the early hours of the morning before meeting his interview subjects, such as the night before interviewing actor Daniel Radcliffe for The Daily Beast, fucking as he inhaled the narcotics deep into his lungs. He was doped into delirium.
The destructive behavior went on for years. One could ask how he managed to keep such a high profile job in this mental and physical state. It was just a routine for him at this point though; He would attempt to obliterate the previous few hours with his ritual of shower, protein shake, a banana, three cups of coffee, yoghurt, Gatorade, downing liters of water, brushing his teeth, and a trusty bottle of Visine to hide his red tell-tale eyes.
His dogs were actually the first ones who heard Sessums admit to himself that he was a drug addict. By late 2010, he’d become a regular intravenous user and giver to the whores that supplied him, mastering the art of concealing his problem to everyone else, including his boss. He’d use a makeup stick to blot out the track mark up his arm that has since left him with a scar.
By December 2011, Sessums’ life had hit a fundamental low point, a ‘homeless, poverty-stricken, desperate meth addict.’ Friends wouldn’t even let him stay anymore. One had to throw him out of his Provincetown apartment where he’d offered Sessums a spare bed, for fear of him dying inside. Sadly Sessums saw suicide as a rational solution to his predicament. He had overdosed there after a 6-month sobriety stint, lying in bed awake for four days straight, hallucinating, his dogs’ incomprehensible cries trying to save him. Sessums described the overdose as a near-death experience, part of the book he now has a hard time reading.
“It triggers me”, he says. Ironically, seeing his dogs’ confused sad faces, barking and crying when he left them in foster care is what ultimately crushed him though. “This is killing me,” he said to a friend. And that was Sessums moment of surrender; December 22nd 2011, the day he walked into rehab at the LGBT Center in New York City.
Sessums made a promise of sobriety in his prayers at the funeral of his dear friend, author and Hollywood screenwriter Perry Moore, who sadly passed away from a drug overdose in February of 2011. They had met back in 1995 at a party in NYC. Hitting it off instantly with their familiar formative years, southern boys trying to incorporate their stiff religious upbringing into their new lives as gay New Yorkers. They had formed ‘a kind of older brother/younger brother mentorship relationship’; His memoir is dedicated to Perry.
“It triggers me”, he says. Ironically, seeing his dogs’ confused sad faces, barking and crying when he left them in foster care is what ultimately crushed him though. “This is killing me,” he said to a friend. And that was Sessums moment of surrender; December 22nd 2011, the day he walked into rehab at the LGBT Center in New York City.
Sessums made a promise of sobriety in his prayers at the funeral of his dear friend, author and Hollywood screenwriter Perry Moore, who sadly passed away from a drug overdose in February of 2011. They had met back in 1995 at a party in NYC. Hitting it off instantly with their familiar formative years, southern boys trying to incorporate their stiff religious upbringing into their new lives as gay New Yorkers. They had formed ‘a kind of older brother/younger brother mentorship relationship’; His memoir is dedicated to Perry.
“I used to be that person who’d volunteer so you would think of me as that person who volunteers." |
Sessums had also made a pledge of sobriety to Brandon, a young boy whom he’d been mentoring since 1996. He’d met Brandon at a social services volunteer organization called The Family Center. He decided one day that he would become a part of their “buddy program”, believing that the only way to heal himself was to mentor someone else. The relationship though originally a narcissistic one in the midst of Sessums drug addiction, developed into a genuine, hard-earned love for one another. They hung out doing all the things a father and son would do: going to the movies, playing basketball, riding bikes.
“It helps to have someone else to focus on”, says Sessums. “I used to be that person who’d volunteer so you would think of me as that person who volunteers. I have learned in sobriety how to be of service in a more selfless way. Service keeps me sober.”
Sessums hopes that those struggling with similar drug or sex addiction challenges or those looking for a common goal of self-acceptance in life will relate to him and realize what he has learned: “There’s hope. It’s a presence. It awaits you.” After his near-fatal drug overdose, where he describes meeting the devil, and being taken by the satanic Lucifer, Sessums now calls sobriety his empyrean, his heaven.
“It helps to have someone else to focus on”, says Sessums. “I used to be that person who’d volunteer so you would think of me as that person who volunteers. I have learned in sobriety how to be of service in a more selfless way. Service keeps me sober.”
Sessums hopes that those struggling with similar drug or sex addiction challenges or those looking for a common goal of self-acceptance in life will relate to him and realize what he has learned: “There’s hope. It’s a presence. It awaits you.” After his near-fatal drug overdose, where he describes meeting the devil, and being taken by the satanic Lucifer, Sessums now calls sobriety his empyrean, his heaven.
It was December of 2012; he had only $1.23 in his bank account, but was six months sober. He’d gotten his dogs back from foster care in Provincetown. He received a few writing offers out of the blue, one for Country Living magazine, interviewing actor Corbin Bernson, and the other a cover story on Mary J. Blige for LA Confidential magazine.
He had forgiven himself. Sessums’ took a climb up the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, he made a pilgrimage through the ancient Camino de Santiago, in Northwestern Spain to find the self-acceptance he so desired. It reminded himself he is able to be a disciplined person. “The Camino replaced HIV”, he says. “It has replaced it in some deeper stream I can’t quite name. Some might call it my soul”. The spiritual experience of the Camino had erased the diagnosis he felt had previously defined him. Looking back on his glitzy but very hedonistic lifestyle, he chooses not to repent, instead adopting a graceful, humble outlook for the future. |
“The high points of my life – funny you should use the word “high” – are about not being high."
“The high points of my life – funny you should use the word “high” – are about not being high. Simple things. A walk alone in this beautiful city and exploring its neighborhoods means a lot to me now”, Sessums says.
His life now at San Francisco’s FourTwoNine magazine gives Sessums a kind of freedom he never had at Vanity Fair. He had ended his time there due to stylistic differences when American journalist Graydon Carter took over as Editor from British journalist and author, Tina Brown. Sessums says, “I had become to them the tacky reflection of their glamorously serious selves that they hated facing”. By then he had left with 27 successful Vanity Fair cover stories to his name.
His journalistic career now may come without a fancy car and invitations to celebrity Oscar parties, but for him it’s no less rewarding. Coincidentally, Sessums feels sometimes that he’s a dinosaur in a dying business though. He also tells me, he’s just finished reading “When I Have Fears” by poet John Keats, whom he mentions multiple times throughout his memoir as a comfort to him.
It is a very personal confession of the fear of an early death, dying before having completing the writings that he is capable of.
His journalistic career now may come without a fancy car and invitations to celebrity Oscar parties, but for him it’s no less rewarding. Coincidentally, Sessums feels sometimes that he’s a dinosaur in a dying business though. He also tells me, he’s just finished reading “When I Have Fears” by poet John Keats, whom he mentions multiple times throughout his memoir as a comfort to him.
It is a very personal confession of the fear of an early death, dying before having completing the writings that he is capable of.
“When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain
… Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink”
(When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be, by John Keats)
The future of Sessums’ journalistic career, with the decline of print and increase of digital media, he thinks will make print by necessity even more expensive, it will become a self-indulgent and tactile experience where physically touching and turning those glossy-printed pages of a magazine becomes a luxury.
“I think more and more magazines might be corporately produced with just one advertiser footing the bill. Lifestyle stories and features will stand on their own and yet be subtly part of a brand as well,” Sessums predicts.
Whether this change takes place or not, he’s keeping his head above the tar pit at this point, and taking it all just like his sobriety, one day at a time. He is proud of his mentorship efforts and continues his friendship with Brandon, whom he’s seen grow from a young boy of six to aged eighteen, now attending college in Manhattan. Sessums still enjoys success as a writer (His first memoir, Mississippi Sissy was a New York Times best seller), and he has the freedom now at FourTwoNine to be candid with his celebrity profiles such as his recent cover story: ‘Straight James Franco talks to the Gay James Franco’.
Sessums is confident that every generation has a responsibility to pass on its knowledge and help others. He believes that “all mentors mentor themselves eventually”, partly to do with learning how to be honest with yourself. His journey to sobriety has resulted in a deeper appreciation and meaning for life. Sessums says, “Some days just being the man who is responsible enough to pick up his dog’s shit and care for them is highlight enough for me.”
“I think more and more magazines might be corporately produced with just one advertiser footing the bill. Lifestyle stories and features will stand on their own and yet be subtly part of a brand as well,” Sessums predicts.
Whether this change takes place or not, he’s keeping his head above the tar pit at this point, and taking it all just like his sobriety, one day at a time. He is proud of his mentorship efforts and continues his friendship with Brandon, whom he’s seen grow from a young boy of six to aged eighteen, now attending college in Manhattan. Sessums still enjoys success as a writer (His first memoir, Mississippi Sissy was a New York Times best seller), and he has the freedom now at FourTwoNine to be candid with his celebrity profiles such as his recent cover story: ‘Straight James Franco talks to the Gay James Franco’.
Sessums is confident that every generation has a responsibility to pass on its knowledge and help others. He believes that “all mentors mentor themselves eventually”, partly to do with learning how to be honest with yourself. His journey to sobriety has resulted in a deeper appreciation and meaning for life. Sessums says, “Some days just being the man who is responsible enough to pick up his dog’s shit and care for them is highlight enough for me.”