British actor Anthony Hopkins drove all night from Arizona to Beverly Hills in 1975 while blackout drunk. In his memoir, We Did Ok, Kid, which came out Tuesday, he writes, “I could have killed someone. I could have taken out a whole family,” he wrote.
He has no memory of the trip. Anthony’s agent filled in the blanks, as he was found on the side of the road.
Anthony Hopkins remembers driving blackout drunk
The Oscar-winning actor began drinking at 19, liked to drink alone and says whiskey was his “favorite meal.”
Anthony quit drinking on and off over the years but couldn’t stay sober for longer than three weeks. He writes, “Any longer, I felt I was going mad.”
Anthony’s excessive drinking impacted his personal life. In 1967, he married Petronella Barker. The actor describes this period as “the worst two years of my life.” His drinking and their opposing personalities “doomed the relationship from the start … my depression was boundless; the booze was my pacifier.” It was then that Petronella became pregnant with their daughter, Abigail.
After a contentious argument, Anthony quickly concluded he needed to leave immediately. “I had never been physically violent but in that moment I was filled with such a revulsion that I became afraid for both myself and her,” he writes.
Unfortunately, even sober, Anthony couldn’t repair his relationship with Petronella and Abigail. His daughter couldn’t forgive him for leaving when she was a baby. “She had her reasons. I can’t blame her for that. That’s life. But it was and is a tremendous source of pain.”
Anthony’s “craving to drink” was gone not long after the drunk driving incident on December 29, 1975.
In 2003, he married his third wife, gallery owner Stella Arroyave. He wrote, “She helped me overcome the old feelings of regret and anxiety in a way that’s set me free. ‘No matter what the past holds,’ she says, ‘you can recognize it and move on.’”
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