The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Khalil Rafati - On How He Crawled Out Of The Depths Of Addiction Hell & Came Out The Other-Side, Battling Drug Addiction, Failure, & The Will To Persevere Through The Darkest Times

Episode Date: May 7, 2019

#187: This episode may be one of the most if not the most powerful episode we have ever done! Khalil Rafati had reached the peak of suffering. He was 33 years old, weighed 109 pounds, and was living homeless on the streets of LA on Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles. He was addicted to heroin and cocaine and was quite literally on the brink of death. The craziest part of this, Khalil was very connected in LA. Prior to this he worked for the estate of Elizabeth Taylor and had connections with some of Hollywood’s most elite including Guns & Roses, and Anthony Keidis. So how did Khalil fall so far? Addiction. And this podcast goes deep into the story of addiction and the path to recovery. Fast Forward to 2019. Khalil is completely sober, looks like a completely different person and is the founder and owner of the wildly popular fresh juice, food, and clean living franchise Sun Life Organics. On this episode we discuss quite literally what it takes to claw your way out of the depths of hell. To connect with Khalil Rafati click HERE To check out Khalil's Book "I Forgot To Die" click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by THRIVE MARKET. We use Thrive for our online grocery delivery on a weekly basis and we also now get our wine at Thrive! They provide the highest quality products and ingredients delivered straight to our door with unbeatable prices.  Be sure to grab our deal by going to to https://thrivemarket.com/skinny to receive 25% off your first order (Max $20) + free shipping and a 30 day trial. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

I was a corpse. I was a walking corpse. But I had to rejoin society. I had to learn how to chop wood and carry water. And it was brutal. And that's what I'm saying. If you see anything good in me now or if you sense any type of humility whatsoever, it's not because I was a good guy. It's because I got the shit beat out of me,

you know, metaphorically and literally. I lost everything. And at eight months, clean and sober, I got a phone call from my mom and she was crying and she told me she had cancer. And there was nothing I could do. I couldn't go back and help her. I couldn't go back and visit. I couldn't do anything. What's up, everyone? Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to The Skinny Confidential, him and her show. That clip was from our guest and friend, Khalil Rafati. On this episode, we discuss the depths of addiction, the road to recovery, and what it looks like to go from rock bottom to phenomenal success. I am Lauren Everts, the creator of The Skinny Confidential, a blog, a brand, a book, and a podcast. And I have my husband with me.

And I'm Michael Bostic. I'm a serial entrepreneur and brand builder. Most recently, the CEO and co-founder of the podcast network, Dear Media, amplifying female voices. Guys, this is one of the most powerful episodes that we have done, if not the most powerful. I'll go out on a limb and say that. What do you think, Lauren? I think this episode has so much depth to it. And Khalil is so raw and real with his emotions, and he walks us through his entire addiction that I have to say out of all the podcasts we've done, this is probably the top three for me. I think this might be the most powerful one we've done. And our listeners have been listening for a long time. It's close to 200 episodes. That says something.

And I was trying to think back on which one, which episodes kind of held a candle to this one. And there's maybe a few, but I think this one outshines them. You know why I'm so excited for this episode, Michael? It's like I was on the edge of my seat listening to him. I could have interviewed him for another three hours. You've cried on this show before. I've cried three times. I don't think I have, but this one, I was teary-eyed, Lauren was teary-eyed, and so was our producer, Taylor. This story is intense. I don't know how you could listen to it and not get a little bit emotional. The only time Michael's gotten teary-eyed in the last 10 years of us dating was when he was cutting an onion and when Pixie got hurt when our little chihuahua got hurt that did bring a tear to

my eye so guys you know our goal with this podcast has always been that if there's someone out there that hears one of these conversations that it basically inspires you them whoever hears it to make a positive change in their life, whether that's launching a business, getting that extra push to make it click, or whether it's getting a better relationship or some better relationship advice and making something click, or whether it's you just want to look and feel better, whatever it is, the whole point of this podcast when Lauren and I started it was to impact positive change. And so I think that this episode, I'm hoping this episode does the same. If you struggle with something like addiction,

maybe this is the push to help you get on the road to recovery. We've talked about addiction a lot on this podcast. We had my sister Faye on with her fiance, Johnny, and they really went into detail. And then obviously Dr. Drew has been on, but this is a subject that's really important for me to continue to explore because I think a lot of people are struggling with addiction. Bob Forrest and Alexa Nyers are coming on. So that'll be a great episode. They actually both know Khalil, such a small world. So who is Khalil Rafati? In 2003, Khalil Rafati had reached the peak of suffering. He was 33 years old, weighed 109 pounds, was living homeless on the streets of LA on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

He was addicted to heroin and cocaine and was quite literally on the brink of death. The craziest part of this was Khalil was very connected in LA. He worked for the estate of Elizabeth Taylor, had connections with some of Hollywood's most elite, including Elizabeth Taylor, Guns N' Roses, and Anthony Kiedis. So how did Khalil fall so far? Addiction. And this podcast goes deep into the story of addiction and the path to recovery. Fast forward to 2019. Khalil is completely sober, looks like a completely different person, and is the founder and owner of the wildly popular fresh juice, food, and clean living franchise Sun Life Organics. Khalil is also the author of I Forgot to Die. On this episode, we discuss quite literally what it takes to claw your way out of the depths of hell.

With that, welcome to the show, Khalil. We are going to get into details with Khalil, but first I want to tell you about my favorite partner at Thrive Market. All right. So what Thrive Market is essentially selling is time. Guys, I don't have to go to the grocery store and turn all the labels over and look through them. Thrive Market does all the work for me. So I can go on their site, do a couple clicks, add it to my basket and delivers to my door. You saw this on Instagram story last week. I broke down all of my favorites and I ended up actually curating a page that's all skinny confidential favorites. They have everything from my favorite capers to apple cider vinegar to even my favorite gummies, which Michael stole all weekend. They make the best gummies, best beef jerky, best wine. It's

just basically my one-stop shop place. Now, Weston the other day came in, my business partner was asking, he's like, hey, is Thrive worth it? I said, listen, if you do one thing, go to Thrive and use my code. This I'm saying to my best friend, because this guy is wasting so much time back and forth at the grocery store. He never knows what to get. He doesn't know how to eat like many of the men in our lives. And before Thrive, I never knew what type of healthy groceries to buy. I just would walk up and down the store, no clue. They do all the middle work and they take all of that guesswork out of it. I think they're really great for snacks too. So this weekend we watched a lot of Game of

Thrones and they just have the best healthy snacks. So they have my favorite Siete avocado chips. And like I said, I'm going to go back to this because I need to shout this out. This is a very TSC product. They have smart sweets. Smart sweets are these candies guys with 30 grams of carbs in a whole bag, but then there's 28 grams of fiber. So if you do the math there, there's actually only two net carbs. This is amazing. They also have no added sugar, no sugar alcohols, and no artificial sweeteners. You have to try the sour ones. Guys, like I said, they take all the guesswork out of shopping. They break it down by diet. If you're paleo, gluten-free, vegan, whatever it is, they break it all down. They take all of the guesswork out of what the best ingredients are because they

source that themselves. And so you know whatever you get from Thrive. All of that back work has been done to figure out the best ingredients. To try Thrive Market, which I highly suggest that you do, go to thrivemarket.com slash skinny for 25% off your first order and free shipping. Again, that's thrivemarket.com slash skinny for 25% off your order and free shipping. Guys, we've been talking about this for a long time. Get on board and get some gummies. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Khalil, from what I've read about you, and I know we've had some brief interactions now, a couple of phone calls, you're a bad motherfucker, my friend. Thank you. We're excited for this interview. I've been super excited for this one. I know we had trouble scheduling, but I'm super pumped that you came in and that we got this

scheduled so thank you for coming on we had trouble scheduling it because I'm so shallow and pretentious that anytime a friend of mine is taking a private jet somewhere I call up or you know like I can't make it well listen the only thing I ask is the next time you're doing that you let us know we come with you we could have podcasted in midair

I have no problem we can podcast on the private jet there's no problem yeah I Yeah. I'll go to the, and by the way, anyone listening out there, if you have a private jet and tons of money, I'll go to the opening of a refrigerator. If, if a private jet is involved. Yes, we, we all will. Look at my douchey pictures on Instagram and you'll, you'll understand. No, you guys, he's adorable. So at this point in your life, how do you describe yourself? Like what, when you, when someone says, okay, let's get the high level introduction to introduce yourself. How do you, how do you, how would you do it? I'm like the, I'm like, uh, like the poster child for recovery. Like, you know, someone who was absolutely at the bottom, bottom, bottom, bottom, who, you know, homeless and all that stuff and

addicted to heroin and crack, who by the grace of God got clean and sober at a very, I thought it was a very late stage in life, 33 years old. To turn it all around and to be in the position that I'm in today, it's a very inspiring story. It's a Cinderella story. It's one of those stories that we all love to hear because we all want hope. And the best part about it is if an idiot like me can do it, it truly means that anybody can. And that's not feigned humility. I am a high school dropout. I'm a convicted felon. I can't spell. I can't type. I mean, let me just be completely transparent with you. I got here a half hour ago because Stephanie's smart enough to schedule me a half hour early. And I parked over by catch. And I was like, what's wrong with these people? They don't even know the color of their building because your text message says we're in the Pacific design center, red building. And I'm like,

it's clearly blue. Like what's wrong with these guys? And I had to walk into the building and I had to suffer through all of that. And like, I I'm okay with it. I'm not the brightest guy. I'm not the smartest guy. And I'm totally okay with that because being the dumbest guy in the room, most of the time gives me an incredible advantage in life because I'm constantly learning and I'm constantly being pushed outside of my comfort zone. So who am I? What am I? I'm the author of the book. I forgot to die. I am the owner of Sun Life Organics. I'm the owner of Malibu Beach Yoga. And I'm about to do a bunch of other amazing things. And now you're going to do this podcast with us.

So let's go back. Let's go way, way back. Where'd you grow up? What was your childhood like? I grew up in Toledo, Ohio, and my childhood was a wilderness of pain. Okay, elaborate. Immigrant parents from two different countries, two different religions that had both gone through two separate wars independently, did not know how to be parents. I had a half-sibling

that was incredibly abusive mentally, physically, sexually. And when that happened, that set off sort of a vicious cycle. That behavior started to repeat itself over and over again. I learned at a very young age that the way to get attention was to allow somebody to take advantage of me sexually. And that lasted from about three years old till about 11 years old when I finally just couldn't take it anymore. And the shame and the fear and the whole, you know, identity, sexual identity crisis and going through puberty, you know, I just all of a sudden started lifting weights and getting angry versus allowing some man or woman to take advantage of me sexually. So bad, bad childhood. So how did you, how did you channel that as a kid when you're, when you're that young? How do you, how do you kind of get outside of that?

With all of it? I mean, I was talking to a friend yesterday, like, it sounds really sad. You know, poor kid, little boy is getting sexually abused, and it is. It's horrible. It's tough to hear. Yeah, it's tough to hear. And it's probably tougher to go through. It was tough to go through, but believe it or not, it was one of the least worst parts about the violence that I witnessed, both from my father and from my relatives. My father comes from the middle East and a lot of his relatives had moved from the middle East to where I was living and to

watch them abusing women so violently in front of me. Now, look, I get it. It's, it's a cultural thing. It was a different time, but you never do that to a woman ever. You don't ever do that to a child ever. I mean, there's so many different gray areas. And I talk with people about this all the time. If you're a young man and you're in Europe for the summer and you're at Ibiza and women are in bikinis, you're not checking IDs. And if you're checking out some girl and she happens to be 16, 17 years old, like shame on you, but I get it. But if someone is four years old, five years old, six years old, like shame on you, but I get it. But if someone is four years old, five years old, six years old, like somebody should put a gun in your mouth and shoot you. It's just wrong.

And again, going back to the violence with the women, like I understand in the 40s, 50s, 60s, it was common if you watch those old movies where if a woman was acting, it's a very sexist term, but they would say hysterical. You never hear about a man being hysterical. It's always a woman was acting, it's a very sexist term, but they would say hysterical. You never hear about a man being hysterical. It's always a woman. But in those movies that we all love, the Humphrey Bogart movies, it was very common for a man to smack a woman across the face. Even the old James Bond movies. Exactly. Exactly. So I understand it was a different time. I'm not talking about smacking. I'm talking about beating. I witnessed beatings and I was a child and I couldn't stop it. And so

I developed really severe post-traumatic stress disorder, which eventually morphed at about 12 years old. It morphed into panic anxiety disorder and eventually agoraphobia. So how did I cope with that? I started acting out. Vandalism, shoplifting, masturbating. I lost my virginity when I was 12. So sexuality, started smoking pot. I didn't know what I was doing, but I mean, literally like 10 years old, 11 years old, smoking pot with the older kids in the neighborhood because I needed a tribe. I needed a family. I wanted to fit in somewhere. So drugs and alcohol, sexuality, violence, and I don't want to try and portray myself as a tough guy because I'm not at all. But I was arrested three times before the age of 16. And the third time I was arrested for aggravated menacing, which for those

of you that don't know what aggravated menacing is, that means, you know, pulling a gun on somebody and threatening their life. So I was a violent kid. I wasn't a tough kid. I was just a really violent kid. The person that you pulled a gun on, was there a big reason to do that? Or was it just because you were acting out? I was acting out. There's three kids on skateboards that flipped me off. And I screamed at my best friend, Teddy Papening, and I screamed at his brother, Brett. I said, pull the car over. And Brett had a shotgun in the backseat. And I grabbed the shotgun. It wasn't loaded. I don't even think the thing worked, but it didn't matter. Did enough. Yeah. I got out of the car and click, click. And you know, it's a summer afternoon and neighbors are watching this and yeah, that didn't go over to what year was this? That was, let's see, I was 15. So that was 1985. So what does your dad who's so abusive to your mom do when you get out of jail for doing something

like that? I mean, is he mad at you or was it not like that because you're a man? So my dad left when I was seven and he was gone for eight years. So the first two arrests, he wasn't around for. That particular arrest, He was not only around for it, he was involved in it. And what did he do? He, he beat me with it to within an inch of my life and, and rightfully so, you know, um, if you're a dumb kid and you're pulling a shotgun on, on innocent kids, cause they flipped you off, your dad should beat the shit out of you. In my opinion, I'm not advocating violence or anything like that, but like, look, my dad made a lot of mistakes. My mom made a lot of mistakes, but they did the best they could. And the best that they could

wasn't enough, but I love them. I love them dearly. I forgive them. I don't have a relationship with my dad because he just, he's never liked me. We've never gotten along at all. What do you think, what do you think the reason is for that? I to do with you. What do you think psychologically for him, the reason is? Have you ever thought about that? My dad had a lot of kids and he's not really close with any of them. I think he suffered so much as a child that he shut down. And I also at a funeral in Chicago when I was in my teens, 16, 17 years old, I heard a story about how he was married in Palestine to a woman. And then he left to go make money.

He was married to this woman at 16. He had three kids with her. He left and went to Germany to work, made a bunch of money, went back to like be the hero. And apparently one of his brothers had married his wife and had a kid with her. And I think, I think my dad just broke at that point emotionally. How do you, how do you cope with that? And other Middle Eastern men have said like, oh no, no, it's a tradition. Like if they think that the dad is gone, he's never coming back. It's actually like a, whatever, man,

someone marries your brother, marries your wife and has a kid with her. So I think, I don't think it has a lot to do with me. Having said that, I'm pretty unbearable. I mean, even as a child, I was so needy and so desperate and so insecure and still am in many ways. So I don't think my dad likes that. My dad's a tough guy. Man's man. He's a man's man. You don't cry. You don't, you know, but you also come off and just, just meeting you as a man's man to me. I mean, I think that's a man to be able to own that you're insecure. Like that to me, I think it's like a very different definition now.

I mean, I'm lean and I lift weights a couple of times a week and I've had some caffeine. So maybe I appear to be a man's man, but I'm, I'm, I'm just as much a woman as I am a man. I always have been. I'm always, I'm, I'm always sort of split right down the middle. I don't mean that like a weird, not, not, it would be weird, but like, I don't want to like get a surgery and like, you're just connected with your feminine side. Yeah. I'm super, I'm super feminine. I'm, I'm super feminine and I'm, I'm super feminine. And I'm also super comfortable with that. I think that,

I think that femininity and the female figure and just female energy in general. I mean, look at my brand, look at Sun Life Organics. What's the logo? It's a pink Lotus. You know, the whole company is run by women. I didn't discriminate against men in the hiring process, but what ended up happening was women just run companies better. Women just run things better. I mean, look at my brand. Why don't you say that about me? I do.

And look at this brand. Like this is, I agree. Women are taking over. I just want, I tell all the time, I just want to be on the arc when it takes off. Don't leave me behind. Exactly. So going back after you got out of jail for your third time, what ended up happening after that?

Um, more so that, thank God that was sealed. Um, that record was sealed because I got off probation and once you turn 18, then they seal it forever. Yep. Unfortunately, I started picking up more charges in my teens and my 20s and eventually became a convicted felon. When it ended up happening, out of desperation, I had to get out of Toledo, Ohio. I just had to. It was just bad, bad memories. And I was hanging out with some people that friend's backs for money that was going to put me in prison for a long time or I would end up dead. Can I, and maybe this, if you're alluding to this, maybe I'm jumping ahead. At some point, is it true you worked with Elizabeth Taylor or you worked for or for her estate? Is that true? Yeah, that was here though. That was here.

Okay. So I'm jumping ahead. Okay. So this is not what you're talking about right now. No, no, no. I was like burning down buildings and stuff for connected guys, if you know what I mean. Okay. Toledo is a very interesting town because it appears to be just like this little weird farm town in the middle of nowhere, but it's like 31 miles south of Detroit, three hours east of Chicago, an hour and a half or two from Youngstown, Cleveland. Like there's a heavy, heavy syndicate, you know. So if a building goes up in flames and it's

insured, yeah. Lots of stuff like that. Again, nothing too tough. Cause again, I wasn't like a tough guy. I was like one of those short guys that hung out with all the big tall guys that were, you know, like the, the Baczynski brothers were these two, uh, like Polish, um, just like they ended up becoming iron workers or just like thugs. And they were like the coolest guys ever. And they would like beat people up if they made fun of me and stuff. So I was able to have a really big mouth and act out a lot and, and start a hundred fights, but I'm never the guy. But be protected. Yeah. I'm never going to be the guy finishing the fight. I'm the guy standing on the bar at the long, you know, with the faux mafia, like pushback hair and the trench coat and doing my best

imitation of like De Niro in Mean Streets or whatever. It was just all like pomp and circumstance. It was all just fake. And then I came out here like every other idiot because I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be a rock star. I wanted to be a movie star. How old were you at this point? 22. Okay. So what happened when you got to LA?

Whatever good that was still left inside of me from Ohio that's mostly all gone, I just like went door to door and asked people if I could wash their cars. You actually went door to door and asked people if you could wash their cars. And you actually went door to door and asked people if you could wash their cars and what were people open to that? So like a third of the people slam the door in my face. A third of the people said, sure, how much? And about a third of the people I was living in the Santa Monica Canyon at the time, um, at two one, two Entrada. And a third of the people were like, wait, what you, you want to wash my car? Like, where are you from? And I'd be like, what do you mean? Where am I from? How do you know I'm from somewhere else? And they're like, this is not normal here in LA and the Ohio twang,

you know, all's I want to do is wash your car. You know, like I sounded like a hick and, um, uneducated hick. And, um, and they would be like, come on in. Let me make you lunch. What do you want to do with your life? So within six months, I was taking care of Axl and Slash's cars from Guns N' Roses. Is this because you accidentally rang their doorbell? No. That went out. Because hold on.

If I can go ring Slash's doorbell right now, I might go start doing that. I might go wash his car myself. Let me tell you something. Slash is the nicest, coolest guy you will ever meet. And I had to remind him like five times the first time I went there that I was like, because he's like, come on in, you know, hands me a Jack and Coke, hands me a cigarette, like come check out my steaks. And I had to remind him five times that I'm like, dude, Hey,

I'm, I'm just the guy that's here to wash your cars. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Come on in, come on in. Like, no, the guns and roses thing that came from a guy named, uh, Chris, I was selling Chris pot. And then somehow, some way, not that guns and roses would ever smoke pot, but somehow, some way I ended up somehow God forbid. Somehow, in some way, I ended up at Axel's house. And when I was up at Axel's house, his governess, Beta is her name, this amazing woman from Brazil and her little boy who's like the coolest kid ever. What's a governess? She ran stuff for Axel.

Okay. We need a governess. And she had this little boy who was like the sweetest, just the cutest, sweetest kid ever. There's an end to this story that's amazing because I'm going to jump around a little bit as well. Jump around all you want. Okay, great. I love it. So I'm in the South of France and I'm bored out of my mind because after a certain amount of selfies and posts, I was there seven weeks. How long can you go yacht to helicopter to Saint-Tropez? It got a little bit weird. It got a little stagnant. Her son and I had remained in contact

because when I first opened Sun Life, he had came in. He's like, oh, I'm so proud of you, whatever. He's just the nicest guy ever. When I was I was in San Tropez, he sent me a DM saying, you know, you should come, you should drive to Florence and come see the boys. You know, they got back together. Like, it'd be really cool. I'll, you know, I'll make sure there's tickets there for you. So I did it. I'm crazy.

I'll do anything, right? I crawled my way out of hell not to have an ordinary life. I'm going to have an amazing life. So I rented a car. I drove from Cannes or whatever it's called all the way to fuck that up too. Yeah. Can con. I, I got all the way to, um, to Florence, Italy. I parked my car and then I Uber to the concert and I get to the concert. I go to the front, there's no tickets. And I'm just like, Oh, whatever. I'll just like buy tickets or whatever. And I'm like, are you sure? Like, I actually know these guys. Like I know Axl, I know Slash.

You never heard that before. No, I know. But the guy goes, wait a second, what is your name? And I'm like, Khalil. He's like, ah, Khalil. And he grabs this thing and pulls out these laminates and these stickers and starts like suiting me up. And I'm like, I don't get tickets. He goes, you don't need tickets for this. He's like, you go to the stage, you can walk out on the stage. And I'll show you when we're done. Because I literally fought the crowd of a hundred thousand people, ran as fast as I could because the concert had just started. And I didn't know how long they were going to play for. They ended up playing for three hours, but I got to the backstage. I walked, literally walked out on stage with guns and roses playing in front of a hundred thousand

people. And like Axel bumped into me slash like gave me the nod as if he remembered me. Maybe he did. I highly doubt it. But, um, one of the, one of the greatest experiences of my life. And this is all because you washed the car. Is that how shit I forgot to tell you. So when Axel bumps into me and then here comes the young man who I knew since he was like nine and he hands me these earplugs and I put the earplugs in and it was only for the band and him. So now I'm listening to the banter between all the band members, how they make fun of one another and how if one of them has to pee, they'll say, hey, do a guitar solo or whatever. And I like take out my earpiece. I'm like, dude, how did you, how did you get these? What's going on here? And he's like, what do you mean? I'm like, how did you get me this? And he's like,

did you not know? And I'm like, no, what? And he's like, I'm Guns N' Roses manager. So the governess's son who used to like be nice to me and bring me a coca-cola when i was washing the cars 20 years ago is now we were in san diego when they did that like first revival tour yes you know because i grew up on guns and roses velvet revolver yes it's like this is never going to happen again when it happened i'm like we're going yeah we're going we didn't have quite the same experience no we didn't have quite the same experience but still it was sick to it was awesome to see them together again at one of the and he still sounds fucking great i mean they all do amazing three hour show i mean amazing but so back to all that so no that was washing cars

taking care of axel and slash's cars um taking care of elizabeth taylor's cars and a bunch of other people like that but But how did you... Elizabeth Taylor is like... I need to understand how you... I've read all the books on her. We got to talk about that. I need to understand how you get plugged in with these cars because these are not just anybody's cars now.

It sounds like recommendation for recommendation. It starts with jumping through a few different doors or knocking on doors to Elizabeth Taylor and Guns N' Roses. That's a big jump. You have a little smile on your face. Because... What are we not hearing? First of all, no one in LA wants to work, right? No one. They didn't want to work 20 years ago and they don't, and they certainly don't want to work today. They just want to take selfies and get followers and think that, you know, they're going to somehow do a blog and travel around the world. It's such an original idea.

No one wanted to work back then. I was willing to work and I developed a reputation for being trustworthy. And I'm not going to go into names or whatever, but let's just say once you start working for certain people and maybe you find a handgun under their car, hypothetically speaking, and you very discreetly put it under your shirt, walk up to their person in charge of their estate or whatever, that gets out very quickly. And whether it was Jose Ybarra or whether it was Elizabeth Taylor or whether it was a bunch of people, a bunch of like the dude that, the dude that did MASH. I mean, you guys are too young to know what MASH is, but like- But Bob Hope, did he do that?

No, it wasn't him. No, but the dude that wrote it, the dude that wrote and made MASH and Three's Company and all these shows. It's just once you start doing that stuff, then everyone... They're like, this is a guy we can trust. Because everyone's so used to everyone telling their secrets. So when you have someone that's actually discreet like you, it sounds like that you can trust. People are automatically attracted to that. Yes.

And word traveled quickly. So I got into that position, but you know, I was young and I was dumb and I always had these like crazy entrepreneurial ideas. Like I'm going to start growing weed indoors and I'm going to get an ounce of Coke and I'm going to split it up and I'm going to step on it and I'm going to sell it. And I just was one of those guys that believe that you had to look for a shortcut and that people were going to ultimately take advantage of you or cause you harm. My whole thing, like even in relationships, it was like, well, I'm going to cheat because eventually she's going to leave. What kind of logic is that? Like to think that I lived that way for 33 years until I bottomed out and actually got a little ounce of spirituality

and humility inside of me. It's sad. It's really, really sad that I live that way. So a lot of bouncing around, a lot of drug dealing. And then I had always been sort of a blackout drinker, binge drinker. But once drugs really started to get introduced into my world, I took to them like, wow. I mean, I just, I love them. And especially like MDMA and the psychedelics, like I just began to live on acid and live on MDMA. And we were hitting all of the rave circuits and we were dealing, I had guys dealing for me. So I was making a lot of money. I was dating a lot of beautiful models and women at the time. Living fast.

I was living fast. I was in a honeymoon period that seemed like it was never going to end. I was in a rock and roll band. I got my SAG card. Things really began to go really well. You know what's interesting? I don't know if it's so interesting, and I've caught in flack for this before a little bit. When I say people that are pushing drugs, it's entrepreneurship at it's like rawest form.

Like, you know, I think that's something that's just, if you're a true, a true entrepreneur, like I think that's just bred in you. And like when you decide to deal drugs like that, and that is entrepreneurship, like that is, it's tried and true. It's not only that, but, but honestly it's baptism by fire. Cause you got to remember something. I'm, I'm in the middle of a drug dealer where tens of thousands of dollars are exchanging hands and the twitch of an eye or the movement of a hand- Shit can go wrong real quick. You're dead. And if you can't read somebody and if you can't communicate to that person that

you're willing to do whatever you have to do to not get screwed over in that moment, you're in big, big trouble. But also what's interesting too, is that you were using the drugs too. So a lot of drug dealers are sober, right? Yeah, I definitely wasn't sober. And you were using the drugs. So was that even more sketchy? That's like another layer. I was such a control freak that I controlled it at first. And even when I got bad, even like when I would be in the middle of a drug deal and people would be like, dude, what's wrong with your face? Are you like picking at your face or whatever? Like I started going to tanning salons and like wearing makeup to conceal how messed up I was. And one of the last drug deals I did,

it was to this like super wealthy, successful director. I remember him looking at me and we were doing the handshake, you know, deal. And he looked at me, he's like, do you have AIDS? Cause I was so sucked up and I had just destroyed my face by picking my face and, uh, was wearing makeup and it was like bleeding through the makeup. And he's like, do you have AIDS? And I said, no, but I remember feeling so horrible, feeling so like lost and messed up. So things escalated very, very quickly and things got very dark. Were you actually Elizabeth Taylor's personal assistant? Is that true? Did we read that right? I wasn't her personal assistant. I was her house boy.

Oh my God. Before we get into that, I want to tell you guys about Noom. All right. Summer is coming and knowledge is power. I find that when I want to do something in any area of my life, it's important to become a student of whatever area I'm trying to perfect. So with what I do with the Skinny Confidential, it's also important for me to be on the pulse of what's hot and new because I feel like I always want it to be a resource for you guys. Anyway, the fact is, is that most people who lose weight gain it back. That's crazy. Most weight loss plans just tell you what to do while you're on the plan and not what to do after. With Noom, you'll become informed, aka you will become a student and learn how to live a healthier lifestyle. So it's just an extended resource.

I feel like with Noom, it's just an extended resource. I feel like with Noom, it's not about a diet. It's about building better habits for you. And you can recognize and change your habits that are blocking your success. So Noom just asks you for 10 minutes of your day. That's it. With Noom, you'll have personalized training in your own support team for less than the price of a single appointment with the nutritionist or personal trainer. So what I use it for specifically is food tracking. That's the main thing that I need. That's the missing piece to my puzzle. So when I need to tighten the F up, like for summer, I just start seriously food tracking. And for me, it's those pesky five pounds that always seem to never go away. And I just think

having a food tracker is important when it's time to go. You know what I mean? And it's not an obsession for me. It's more of having accountability with a food tracker. Anyway, there's an easy 30 second online evaluation that shows you how much weight you can lose with Noom. And with Noom, it's designed for results. So it's out with the old habits in with the new sign up for your trial today at Noom. That's N O OM dot com slash skinny. What do you have to lose? Visit Noom.com slash skinny to start your trial today. Again, that's Noom.com slash skinny. Start losing weight for good. I have to like go off on a tangent. I love Elizabeth Taylor so much. She's fabulous as she seems. Yeah, she was far more fabulous than anybody could have ever imagined. She was a little girl trapped inside of

a woman's body. She never had the opportunity to grow up, but she was so ridiculously beautiful on the inside and on the outside. And it was actually, I mean, right, if I were to crane my neck, like that's, it was at 700 Neams was where she lived. And I was washing their cars and waxing their cars and their motorcycles and whatever. And they just said, can we just hire you permanently? Can you just stay? Like, we'll just give you a salary. And it was pretty special. It was a pretty special time. Wow. Not a lot of people can say that. No. And, and I got, you know, I was very blessed and very lucky. I've always been very blessed and very lucky. And I, and I really feel like if you just make a decision to do something and you move forward boldly, you know, I, I just recently posted about this on Instagram, but like the

universe really will conspire with you. It will, it will put the right things in your path. It's not just the law of attraction. It's like, you gotta have good intentions too. And you gotta go to work. I think that's the part that everybody misses is like, they're really into the law of attraction. And like, I'm going to sit on Instagram all day and I'm going to post about it. No, do the law of attraction and then go work three jobs and save every penny. Find someone that has the strengths that you don't have that can compensate for your weaknesses and go do awesome shit. Go make something amazing. I see so many people, young girls in particular, who somehow think like if they keep posting pictures of their ass on Instagram and getting 13,000 likes, that that's going to somehow

do something good for the world. First of all, that's going to end. I always, I remember I was a bartender and I was bartending one night and I was like 21 years old and my friend was at the bar and I'm like making drinks and like, you know, flirting with the guys, whatever. And he looks at me and he goes, you have to find something more powerful than your looks. And for me, that was like, boom. It hurts.

And there's other things that led up where I like had that realization, but that just him saying that was like, you're right. The looks go away. It fades. Everything fades. It totally does. And I've just realized, you know, as I've gone on with the influencer community, you have to provide valuable takeaways or move. Yeah. You can't just be cute and show your butt. You've got to actually have a message. And I'm as guilty as anyone wanting the likes and wanting people to look at me and comment under my post or whatever. I'm as guilty as everyone. We all sort of do that thing where we derive some of our self-esteem off of social media. And I'll go off of it for months at a time, or sometimes I'll only go on once a week or whatever. But it sucks me in and I'm addicted just like everybody else. And if you can make money from it, then do it. But something

like this, what we're doing right now, this is so much more productive and it brings so much more value. And by the way, you can be super hot like you are and bring value at the same time, because what you're doing by doing this, we don't know and we may not ever find out, but I get DMs, Facebook messages, emails every single day. And I don't mean kind of, sort of. Every single day from somebody who said, oh my God, your book changed my life. Oh my God, my son read your book and he's been sober for two years. I got a super cryptic message from a guy. You could tell he

couldn't express himself very well, but I'll never forget this message. A lot of them make me cry, but this one in particular, because it was like, you could tell he was just like a dude. And he's like, yo, man, saw Slater's post about your book when he did that, got your book, went into my first AA meeting, haven't used since. For an IV drug user like me, it's a miracle. Thanks. IV meaning intravenous. And I got goosebumps and I just shuddered because I thought, here's my buddy being sweet and using his celebrity to promote my book. And that was cool and sold literally thousands of books off that post the next day. But more importantly, if I die tomorrow- You had an impact.

There's some dude out there that's clean and sober because he saw a post on Kelly Slater's Instagram and I took eight months to put pen to paper to create something of value to give to the world. That's what it's all about. So that's why we love this. That's why we love this format. Yeah. Because this format, you and I take, and you mean Lauren taking a picture together? Yeah. Okay, great. That'd be nice, but it's not going to do what this will do. Also is respecting the audience's time too, because the audience can be taking a walk right now or getting their nails done or doing their makeup. And that feels really good too. So they're able to learn or be entertained while also getting something done. Right. I want to go back to, so after you met with that director and he asked you

if you had AIDS, how bad did it get until you were living on the street? What's rock bottom looking like? Pretty, pretty, pretty quickly after that. Cause he had given me a bunch of money and a rock bottom look like me and my girlfriend at the time we lost our apartment. Then we were staying at hotels. So there's that type of homeless where like we're homeless, we're living in hotels. I actually thought it was sort of glamorous and it kind of went along with the whole like rockstar persona. Like, look, I'm a junkie. I make music. I'm living in hotels. I make music. I'm living in hotels. I'm homeless. So many addicts say that about the hotels. It's almost like that. It goes from the house and then the hotel and then the street. It seems like a very common thing.

We did hotel, car, hotels. She came into more money, got an apartment, then hotels again. But ultimately her father placed us in treatment down in Laguna Beach at Spencer Recovery Center. And they were so smart that they had like a team standing by because they knew I was going to bolt. They knew it. So they just waited. And once they stopped giving me meds, they came in, this dude, they call him the cleaner. He came in with his team and literally drugged her and then sequestered her and took her and like hid her from me. And the bank account was in her name. The car was in her name. Like I had nothing. So, um, we had pawned a bunch of stuff. So I sent, I spent the next few months, like going back to those pawn shops with my driver's license. I still had it at that time and went back and said,

well, you can just keep it. Give me the rest of the money. So I would get large sums of cash and I would try to continue dealing. But as you were talking about earlier, when you're a drug dealer and you're using, not a great combination. So my using went from going to raves and taking handfuls of ecstasy and ketamine and GHB and DMT and whatever drug, to shooting $500 a day of heroin and cocaine and having seizures and overdoses and winding up in the hospital. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Why is that always the last drug of choice? It seems like.

It seems like the heroin and the cocaine and the speed balls is the last thing for a lot of people. Because I think when you're doing the other drugs, you can do no wrong. No one's going to get mad at you for doing some molly. Even your parents. You know, like, hey, we're going to Burning Man. We're going to do shrooms. Like, you can't really do a whole lot of, I mean, you don't want to drive a car when you're doing that stuff. But, like, you know, you have these spiritual experiences, but when you have an addictive personality, like I did,

you know, I woke up, I, when Jane's addiction first got back together, I went to that show at the Olympic. It's in my book. You can read like the whole progression. I just bought your book on Kindle. Cause I did. I just got it. So the following morning when I woke up on Zuma beach with no shirt on leather pants, makeup smeared all over me, out of my mind, I literally found my phone and called the dude and was like, where can I get 100 of those? If you have an addictive personality and you're doing club drugs, party drugs, social drugs, whatever you want to call them, you're in big, big trouble. Now, if you're a vet or if you're a mother of four and you're suffering from depression or from PTSD, things

like psilocybin and MDMA and ketamine are incredibly, incredibly beneficial. They can have breakthroughs that 20 years of therapy wouldn't provide. It's been proven. They're doing a lot of really interesting stuff with vets with PTSD. And I had some of those experiences when I was taking those drugs. However, being that there's a giant empty void inside of here from all of that sadness and that unresolved pain and turmoil from my childhood, I wanted a thousand more and a thousand more and a thousand more. There was no end. Yeah. So ultimately, those drugs become passe. And once you finally get to the dark God, you know, to heroin,

and then you mix in a little crack or a little cocaine, or you do a speedball or whatever, that's the pinnacle of high. It's the pinnacle. I wasn't looking to party. I was looking for oblivion. And if you're a real drug addict, oblivion is what you're seeking. You're not seeking companionship. You're seeking oblivion. You're too scared to kill yourself and you're too scared to live. So you're just going to be blasted high all the time. I read, I was reading an article you did. I can't remember which publication, but they asked, one of the questions was like, what did heroin give you? You said it gave you your childhood. Can you elaborate on that or explain what you meant? Sure. It's such a powerful opiate that you don't experience any

sadness or pain or hunger or anything. It just completely, completely numbs you out. And when you're walking around wearing masks for everyone, full of fear with an overwhelming sense of impending doom that everything is going to come crashing down. And by the way, those were rational fears. I was dealing with gangs and drug dealers and running around with some famous people's daughters that I shouldn't have been running around with and driving high every day. I was up to no good and I was so scared. And when I was dared into doing heroin at a party for the first time, it hit my system. It hit my midbrain and such a massive amount of dopamine and serotonin exploded into my bloodstream. It's almost like a yin to the drug addict's yang.

It's like a match, it sounds like. To the drug addict, to the person that's in pain, to the person that's suffering from all kinds of disorders. Heroin was an amazing panacea for all of my ailments, all of them. All of a sudden, I was tall. I was pretty. I was cool. I could write songs and change chords better on the guitar and like all this creativity started to happen. It really seemed like a magical, powerful drug.

But it's a lie and you're messing with some forces. You're messing with some – I was messing with some forces that I was too arrogant and too naive to understand how powerful those forces were. What do you mean by forces? There is an energy connected to everything. And when you get into those types of drugs, there is an element of spiritual warfare that takes place. And I'm not talking about some weird Bible beating, like whatever. I guess that's not weird, reading the Bible and believing in it is beautiful. But I'm just saying, I'm not like some religious zealot. I'm just telling you, I've had personal experiences under the influence of those drugs that no one could describe or many

people wouldn't even believe, but there's a darkness there. Cocaine as well. Cocaine is so evil. It's so insidious. And you do it for the first time and like your teeth look really white and you look at yourself in the mirror and you look skinny and you look beautiful and your pupils get really big. And you have all this unnatural serotonin in your midbrain, in your pleasure center and coursing through your veins that you feel like you could go play for the NBA. You feel like you're a supermodel. You feel like all of those things at once. But what you don't realize is

it's also robbing you of your soul without your consent. It's dark. It's evil. It's important for people to hear because they don't think about that side. It's evil shit, man. And I hear people all the time like, I just do cocaine on the weekends or I'm only snorting cocaine. If you're doing cocaine at all,

you have a drug problem. Really? Yes. I'm not. You know why? You know, I agree with this in a sense. I never understood this. Like I can go out and have a couple of drinks and be fine. Like, okay, I hit a little buzz. I'm fine. I'm in control. But have you ever seen what people look like when they're running around doing cocaine? Every second, getting up, running to the bathroom. It's like, what are you doing all night? You're spending your whole night chasing this feeling over and over and over. Someone that's sober or drinking can immediately tell someone. I mean, I can immediately tell someone's on cocaine. And listen, I think everyone should do you whatever you want to do, but you can definitely tell it's not attractive.

Yeah. If you're younger or older and you want to go out and, you know, take some MDMA with your girlfriend or take some mushrooms or have a ketamine experience or do a ceremony, what God bless you. I have no moral issue with drugs, but if you're one of those dudes that tells me you only do cocaine on the weekends, you're lying because that means you start Wednesday night and you stop Sunday morning with a handful of Xanax. Like it's ugly and it's going to get you. It's going, there's no escaping that. So I like tequila. That's great. And you should, at what point do you end up homeless living down, living, living on Skid Row? Thirty one, thirty two, thirty three. How quickly did the first time you did heroin, what age were you just so we can get a timeline? Twenty seven. Twenty seven.

Yeah. I've always wanted to understand you're the perfect person to ask. What is it like? What is the progression to actually end up living in a situation like that? Because you see, you know, we see people on the streets like that and it's always a sad thing to witness. And there's always like very compassionate towards those people. But like, what does the transition look like to get into that position? I mean, there's all kinds of components that go into it, but it would be like if you were on a

plane and you were going to New York and five dudes stood up with machine guns and said, you're not going to New York. You're going where we say you're going to go and your life is over. That's really what it's like when you're, When you're messing around with those types of drugs, you get hijacked and there's no negotiating with the dudes with the machine guns or some people like to call it the, you know, when does the 800 pound gorilla stop fucking you? When it's done. Yeah. There's no, you know, you don't get to decide like, you know, so there's a lot of enabling that went on in terms of friends giving me money and buying drugs from me and sort of not, you know, some of the same friends that are like, Oh my God, I'm so glad you make it,

made it. And I wanted to say to a few of them, like, the fuck are you giving me all that money for? Like, why, why are you having me go score at three o'clock in the morning on the streets of downtown LA? If you cared so much about me and you're so happy, I'm sober. Like you run into those people now. Wow. Yeah. What do you do when you, how do you love them with compassion and then know that I am no better than them and probably a lot worse than them. It's an interesting place to get to. It's a hard place to get to. It's, it was not because I'm a virtuous or a good person. It was because I literally allowed my addiction to beat everything out of me and to lose everything. And when you truly lose everything, and I don't mean like hotel homeless or crashing on your girlfriend's sofa homeless, when you truly

lose everything and there's no hope whatsoever, the only thing you can really do is look in the mirror and say, wow, I made a complete mess of my life and this is all my fault. It has nothing to do with my brother or my dad or my mother or my swim coach molesting me. It has nothing to do with any of that stuff. I got high because it felt great. I got high because I'm selfish. I got high because I don't care if it inconvenienced you or inconvenienced you. Give me your debit card. Give me your PIN number. Shut the fuck up. I'll be back in an hour. And then three days later, I come back with your car and there's dents all over it and there's no drugs. And I tell you some story about how I got, you know, beat up. So when you end up on Skid Row, to you, was that a rock bottom,

or did you still not think that was a rock bottom? How long do you stay in that position? Almost two years. Almost two years. No, at first, I think part of me stayed down there out of spite for my girlfriend, who I saw as abandoning me, which she did not abandon me. She escaped, thank God. And she's alive today and she has two beautiful kids and she's super cool and I love her.

But also I was able to get food stamps. I was able to get hotel vouchers. I was able to get bus tokens in the beginning. I was able to buy in bulk and sell balloons on the street and kind of support my habit. I was really good at manipulating my mother at that time to Western Union me money. Are you actually on the street in a tent? Oh, no tent. No, just living under a bridge, sleeping on the street, constantly moving, constantly on a bus, constantly going somewhere, going to Watts, going to Englewood, going to

Century and Sepulveda, sleeping under that bridge, getting up in the morning, catching a bus to downtown. That's dangerous too. People could just, you know, you're out and you're exposed like that. People could come take advantage of you, rob you, hurt you. Oh, I had unspeakable shit happen to me. I can imagine. Yeah. I mean, maybe I can't imagine. When you read my book, you'll get a little taste of it, but the majority of what happened to me on the streets, the editor, my friend who helped me edit the book said, yeah, take this stuff out. This is too polarizing. This is too dark. It's too, it's going to make people sick. Just make a reference to it. But people, I disagree because people, I think sometimes people need to hear the polarizing stuff. I mean.

It's too far. Yeah, it's too far. There's some shit that happens to you on the streets that you don't want to. I mean, men will just rape men for fun to show dominance over them while everyone else is cracking up laughing. People will throw you out of a window if you look at them the wrong way. People will kill you over a $5 crack rock. So there's not like some kind of community down there that once you're a part of it, it's sort of like a family. It's nothing like that. No, most people down there like myself were mentally ill. They were completely out of their minds and living in a constant state of psychosis. There was some gang activity that did kind of control the area, which I unfortunately

found out the wrong way and did take a beating. But it's a very, very bad existence. And you can look at me and realize that I'm not built for the streets. I'm not a tough guy. I'm not built for the streets. I suffered a lot down there. And by the grace of God, I was shacking up with an older woman from time to time for money and for drugs. And she kept telling me about this guy named Bob Forrest and like, oh, yeah, he can help you.

He can get you into rehab for free. And I would argue with her and like nothing's for free and there are no free lunches. And I would get very philosophical in my heightened state of psychosis. And she kept saying, you just call this guy, Bob, you know, you're a musician. I think he can help you. And, um, after getting arrested for the last time, um, I did reach out, I called Bob Forrest and he had me come meet him at MAP, which was musicians, musicians assistance Program, or in my case, Failed Musicians Assistance Program. Yeah, he got me into treatment.

They paid for treatment. They paid for a halfway house for months after that. They gave me $40 a week to live on. And I had to, at 33 years old, with my teeth falling out of my head, after having shared needles with people with AIDS and hepatitis C. My body was rotting from a systemic infection because of all the abscesses and stuff inside my mouth would drip into the back of my throat when I was sleeping. I didn't know this until two years into my recovery when I finally had the extractions. I was a corpse. I was a walking corpse,

but I had to rejoin society. I had to learn how to chop wood and carry water. And it was brutal. And that's what I'm saying. Like, if you see anything good in me now, or if you sense any type of humility whatsoever, it's not because I was a good guy. It's because I got the shit beat out of me, you know, metaphorically and, and literally, um, I lost everything. And at eight months clean and sober, I got a phone call from my mom and she was crying and she told me she had cancer and, uh, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't go back and help her. I couldn't go back and visit. I couldn't do anything. And I was sitting at marmalade cafe with this rich dude that was kind

of like, let me hang out with him. And like like he would like buy me lunch and whatever i went back to his guest house where he was letting me stay temporarily and there was no electricity and the sun was going down i was just staring at the ocean and i just i sobbed and i sobbed i sobbed and i just was i kept punching myself in my thigh and just kept like, you know, you fuck, you're such a piece of shit. You're such a piece of shit. Punching myself, my thigh, like I'm a 34 year old man, 33, 34 years old. I think I was 34 at the time. I'm a 34 year old man. You fucking mom is going to die. And like, you can't do anything. And like, you're such a piece of shit. And I just kept crying and crying and crying. And it got really dark. And I kept crying,

like the serious crying, you know, where you can't control yourself. And I don't know when it was, it was sometime in the middle of the night that night where I was like, I am never, ever, ever going to fucking feel like this again. Never. I'm never going to be this piece of shit. I'm going to go do whatever I have to do to not ever be in this position again. Not just with my mom, but with anybody. If anyone ever needed my help again, I was going to be in a position to help myself and to help other people. And I made a pact with myself and I made a pact with God. And two weeks after that, I got my first AIDS test and it was clean. It was nothing. And I couldn't fucking believe it. And then I had to go back to another

place and get a hep C test and there was nothing. Is I couldn't fucking believe it. And then I had to go back to another place and get a hep C test. And there was nothing. Is that really rare after like- Super rare. Yeah. I was sharing needles constantly. I was picking up needles off the ground. So-

Wow. Whoa. Anyway, that was the beginning. And that's when I was like, you know, I would raise my hand at 12-step meetings and I'd say, I'll take any work. I'll do anything. I was cleaning apartments. I was washing cars. I was washing dogs. I was doing anything and everything I could. And again,

it's LA, you know, here we are 10 years later, nobody wants to work, but there's this weird dude that's now sober and he wants to, yeah, he wants to wash our car. He wants to walk the dog. He wants to do our grocery shop. Like I would do anything to put bread on the table. And that's where it all started. Who's the person that says everything you want is on the other side of hard work? Who says that quote? It's true, though. So true.

There's a guy. I'm going to find it. Or the harder I work, the luckier I get. Yeah. A lot of people want to say like, oh, that dude just got lucky. He knew a bunch of rich people. Well, I guess a part of that's true, but rich people are some of the most difficult people to get, to give you money, to invest in your business. They know what it took to get it. Yeah. So I had, I had to,

when people saw me washing toilets and people saw, you know, you had your story with the bartender. I was working at this rehab. I was working at two rehabs, but I was working at this one really fancy rehab that Fred Siegel owned. And there was this guy there that I helped this guy named Dale. And I was so happy. I had medical insurance for the first time ever. I was 35 years old. I had, you know, a couple thousand bucks rolled up in a rubber band, stuck underneath my, my sink in the room where this dude was letting me stay. And this like girl started liking me again. Cause like the, where I'd pulled my hair out, whatever, like it was all growing back and the splotches started to go away.

I was feeling so good. And plus it was free food there and it was organic. And, um, and this guy, Dale walks up to, he's like, Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question? I'm like, no, man, go ahead. I'll help you with whatever you need. And he goes, no, this is more about you. What, uh, what are they paying you here? And I was like, $14 an hour. And he goes, how old are you? I'm like 35. Why? He's like, I don't mean to be mean, but you might want to aim a little higher. Like, how are you going to buy a house? How are you going to get married? How are you going to have kids? Oh, it hurts so bad. Oh, that's, that's. It, it killed me. That hurts.

Like that hurts my stomach. Yeah. That gives me a pit. I was helping people. Yeah. I was working, you know, four jobs at that time. And he was just like, sorry, buddy, you gotta, you gotta aim higher. He's 12 years sober now.

We're going to go have dinner right after this. He's watched my whole journey. And it's incredible. It's incredible to have someone like that in your corner that has watched everything, all the trials and error. Because you know what people see on social media is the pics of me on a private jet, or they see a picture of me in my cool old Bronco or my old 442 or whatever, like I'm going to put the flashy shit up there because I want you to hit like, and I want you to like me because I'm insecure. Right.

But what about all those times when shit didn't work? What about all those times when I fell down flat on my face and, and business deals went bad and I lost a bunch of money? You know, I think you need to put this long form content into your captions, but we can talk about this after the podcast. Okay. I think that there's... You know what's funny?

I think after this, when you post on your Instagram, if you talk the way you're talking now and just share your thoughts, what's going through that brain of yours, the way you do, I think that you will get so much more attention and so many more... And wait, hold on. It's powerful, man. Attention's not even what... I'm not trying to like it's powerful yeah let's get you more attention i just think you'll resonate more i think that

you'd be surprised that people are things are changing in 2019 yeah they want to know yeah this is powerful shit i just had a conversation with someone um today that's super high level at dba and they were telling me that people are sick of seeing the curation all the time. Yeah. My stuff looks good, but I definitely open up and I share with people that I'm still battling a mind that tells me I'm a piece of shit every day. I'm still battling a mind that says, oh, life has passed you by. It's too late.

You're not going to make it. I mean, people look at my life and they're like, oh, you need a wheelbarrow to take all your money to the bank. I haven't taken a salary in three months because my, well, whatever, I won't get into why, but our line of credit got ran up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and our corporate expenses are so expensive. And I've got a new store in Palo Alto that's losing 10, 15, $20,000 a month. I got a new store in Palo Alto that's losing $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a month. I got a new store in the Palisades that's losing $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a month. Nobody understands that. It's the price of doing business. I'm sure you have other stores that are killing it. I have other stores that are killing it. I have some stores that are doing okay.

You're opening in West Hollywood. We're opening in West Hollywood. We're opening in Scottsdale, Arizona. We're opening in Tribeca in New York. Nice. Yeah. So there's a lot of great stuff going on. And trust me in a year, if we can do this again, I'm going to have some great stuff to report back to you guys. You can call at any time. I want to talk about your business though. Yeah. I want to get into that with you because we went through, we've gone through a lot of heavy shit, but what, so what's the transition look like when you create this mega brand that

you've created, right? You have 10 stores and all these different people working for you and you actually are a successful entrepreneur. Like, how do you, how do you get there from where you were? You start, you start. Yeah. And by the way, let me, let me clear up a little bit of that because yes, I'm not taking a salary and I can sing the blues all I want, but I own a brand that's worth tens of

millions of dollars. I've been offered, you know, I've been offered. You're okay. Yeah. It's a kick-ass brand. Yeah. I was offered so much money that I literally didn't even know, you know, they wanted to buy the whole thing. And I said, no, but I was like, what in God, what would, what would you even do with that kind of money? I had no idea. Like, I want to get up in the morning and make smoothies. That's what I do every day. I want to get up in the morning and have like my customers see me and high five me or hug me or like, I want the cool rock stars to invite me on their tours. And I want to, you know, go to the islands with, you know, the anyway. So you built the brand. It's your brand. I built a brand and I, and I own the majority of it and I control it and it's amazing and it's fun

and the intentions are good. So how do you So how do you build a brand like that? You start with intention. You have to have the right intention. I love this. I talk about this all the time. So my intention was I was driving to five different places all over LA County to find my Pure Synergy powder, to get organic yogurt, to find a smoothie that was actually organic, which you couldn't find anywhere except for this place called Real Raw Live on Franklin. Even Whole Foods,

like the juice bar at Whole Foods, it's not organic. Those smoothies aren't organic. Ask them. They'll be honest with you. They'll tell you. Michael's not as savvy as I am, so maybe you could help me out here. Yeah, but if you guys tell me, if you both educate me, then I will. Somebody just needs to be told what to do. It's not organic. And the majority of the juice bars that are out there, I'm not going to talk shit about them, but even a lot of the ones that say like, well, we're organic whenever possible. When is it not possible? I can have Heath and Lejeune deliver, you know, 50 pounds of organic produce to your

house at three o'clock this morning. I promise you. Organic is always possible. It's out there. If someone is telling you that we're organic whenever possible, what they're saying to you is, I don't care about you. We're looking to make money. We want to open up a bunch of these. We want to sell our products and whole foods, and we want to cash out for a half a billion dollars because those are our intentions and those are our goals. Sometimes that works. Sometimes that works. I see those people at

Nobu when I get invited because that's the only time I would ever go to a Nobu. I love Nobu and I love Gregorio. You haven't taken me to Nobu. We haven't been invited. Okay, so we'll go to Nobu. I would take you guys to Nobu. I can't justify on my own to spend that kind of money. It's like $1,000.

It's a lot. If I'm invited, Khalil, you can take me and we'll go. I'll take you guys. I'll take you guys to Soho House for brunch. It'll be fun. But that would be the only way I would go. I would never go on my own. But I see some of those people at Nobu and they don't look happy to me. I've seen some of these cool brands that are out there now that are just blowing up with lines out the door and they've got all the influencers going in and posting about them. And they've got the pink neon

signs and they've got the fake grass on the ground and they've got the pink neon signs and they've got the fake grass on the ground and they've got the pink. Well, I don't want to get too into the description of their brands, but I see these brands that are serving something that's not organic. It's not good for you. The intention was to open up a bunch of them and sell it for a bunch of money. And that's cool. God bless those people. I mean, I think I find that fascinating. I find that interesting. When I started Sun Life Organics, that was never, ever, ever the intention. The intention was I live in an amazing town called Malibu and I live in an even amazing, more amazing part of Malibu called Point Dune, where all these amazing, all these cool people that my crush that I would see were struggling to find stuff that was good

for them. And we, I started it on a shoestring and a prayer. And the moment we opened our doors, there was a line out the door. And I mean that literally, and you know, Brooke, Brooke is a huge fan. She talks about your stuff all the time, her and David. I know they're not together anymore, but her and David from day one were supporting me and Brooke's daughter. What is she? She's so beautiful. Brooke's daughter worked for me.

Their friend's son worked for me. Jorge Cruz came on and told us that there's a smoothie that she gets every single day from Sun Life. And I was really mad because there wasn't one in West Hollywood. Yet. Yet. But you know what? I'm so fucking excited that you're opening one next to the gym that I go to. Now I can go literally every day

and I'll be there. Go on. Hopefully there's not too long of a line. So I actually hope there is. So we started, you know, we started with the intention of a hundred percent certified organic, no matter what, if we couldn't get it, we wouldn't serve it. Right. Secondly, um, I wanted to nourish people and I wanted to see the miracles that I saw take place in myself. If we had a, uh, if we had a picture of myself, if you look at what I look like, my, are you posting this on Instagram? Yeah. So if you look at that and then you look at that, we got to link, we got a link we got a link this Mimi when you go to link this when you go to link this in the this was this was a hundred and

nine pound rotting corpse at 33 years old dying I look like a 65 year old man next when you look like a movie star and this is me thank you this is me Rick Caruso who's a friend of mine invited me to the opening of the Palisades village and yeah that's that's a 49 yearold man that looks 15 years younger than that guy. But even now in person- You're like a Benjamin Button. Yeah. What's happened? You look like- So I wanted people to experience the same transformation. And remember,

I also was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. I was on psych medication, all kinds of psych medications, Seroquil and Welbutrin and Trazodone and all that stuff. And I got off of all of that slowly and under the care of Dr. Waldman, thank God. But I got off of all of that stuff and started to feel vibrant and started to feel alive and, you know, went in and Dr. Hirsch, God bless him, took out all of those nasty rotting teeth and put in these beautiful, like your teeth look great. Well, thank you. Sometimes when guys get veneers, it looks a little Austin powers. Yours do not look Austin powers. These aren't veneers. These are real teeth mixed in with implants and crowns. And Dr.

Hirsch did that. Dr. Hirsch, you did some good work. Okay. And let me tell you something. So when I went to him and I was like, look, I don't have a lot of money. And I'm, you know, he was the one that said, you got to get your teeth done because if you don't do it now, it's over. You're going to have dentures. I was like, I can't afford it. He's like, we're going to put you on a payment plan. So he, it took a couple years and we got to the very end of the journey and him and I became so close. Um, this is a true story and I'm going to not going to cry this time when I tell it, but we got to the very, very end and we did the before and after. And he told me to smile and he told me to look in the mirror.

And I looked in the mirror and I'm smiling. And I was like, you know, okay, you know, I need to start chipping away at this. And he's like, you know what? No, you don't. Wow. He goes, you're a good guy and you've helped a lot of people. And you don't owe me anything. And when I smile now and people are like, God, your teeth are amazing. I'm like, are they?

So. Shout out to Dr. Hirsch. Yeah. I love that. What an angel. Yeah. Wow. So good people out there. There's great people out there. Pay it forward. I mean, man, he'd saw some work that I had done and he wanted to honor that work. And, um, and so I wanted people to experience the same miraculous transformation that took place with me. And look, I'm not trying to sell any of you anything out there. Like, I don't care. Go to your own juice bar, get your own juicer at home, make your smoothies at home. Like in my second book, I'm even going to give out some recipes and stuff like that. You don't have to come to Sun Life Organics. I'm good.

I sang the blues a little bit because, you know, our line of credit is a little bit heavy right now. But the truth is, with West Hollywood opening, with Scottsdale, Arizona opening, right next to Equinox and Nobu and Takaya Organica, we have an amazing spot opening up in Marin County Country Mart at Jim Rosenfeld's place. We're going to do good. And Tribeca, I think, is going to be incredible.

Crush. Yeah. So my point is this. Don't come to my place. Don't buy my stuff, but just go eat real food. Like stop eating garbage and start to put real food into your body. Okay. But here's the problem. I look at ingredients. I want to eat real food, but people lie all the time on labels. Let me give you an example. I've been buying these eggs for Michael and I, I'm not going to shout out the brand. I love when Lauren whispers and the mic picks it up. I don't want to shout out the brand and I will to the audience

is because I need to really do my research before I call them out. Um, but if you've watched my Instagram story, you know, okay, so there's this brand of eggs that I've been buying for me and my husband. I eat so many eggs. Yeah, you should. And I come to find out that they are lying about being non-GMO. Yeah. That makes me want to move to France. I've had, I've had disgruntled employees or employees that quit other places like mine,

food service places, juice bars, whatever, that have come to me and have told me horror stories. And one thing, I've got a lot of faults. I got a lot of flaws. Opening up a brand like Sunliff Organics did not come with an owner's manual. I got a big mouth. I don't know.

I say stupid shit. I'm grouchy sometimes. I don't know what i'm doing but one thing i can tell you for sure is anything and everything that we put into those drinks are 1000 organic and amazing for you i will be there every single day and if you get postmates if you get fucking chicken fingers from canter's Deli again. Don't you dare fuck around with Cantor's Deli. Taylor, you with your weird, creamy Alfredo pasta today. We gotta go to Sun Life. No, that was Alfredo's Secret.

That was Amaro's is great. Amaro's is great, but we gotta go to Sun Life. I wanted to ask you one more thing. I'm gonna, maybe two more things, but this thing, it was something you said about your approach to managing people and managing your business. And I thought it was extremely smart in a 2019 world.

You basically said you don't act like the boss and you don't act like you're in charge. Can you elaborate what you meant by that? Yeah. So I always got fired from my jobs and I always hated my bosses and they were usually pretty mean. And jobs suck, especially when you're a kid, your parents make you get a job and like there's some jerk like making you follow all the rules. I really, I loved that scene so much in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where McMurphy like took all the patients out fishing for the day and whatever. I always love stories of anarchy. I always love like – yeah, I wanted the people working there to take ownership of the brand. I wanted the – I don't care if they're 15.

I don't care if they're 50. I don't care what age they are. but people working at our store, they really feel like it's their store. And when my customers come in, they really feel like it's their store. I never wanted it. I never wanted Sun Life Organics to be my store and it's not my store. And people give me compliments all the time because those intentions that we're talking about on how you build a brand and the, and the quality of the ingredients that, that go into that stuff. I don't need to tell you, go walk into Century City. I'll give you guys a brand and the quality of the ingredients that go into that stuff, I don't need to tell you. Go walk into Century City.

I'll give you guys a gift card or I'll have them comp you whatever when you walk in there. We'll happily buy it. No, but I'm, and I thank you, but when you walk in, you'll smell it and you'll feel it. I don't mean smell it literally. You're going to feel the vibes there. It sounds like a movement. It's a revolution. It's a revolution against mediocrity. It's a revolt against the garbage that the vibes there. It sounds like a movement. It's a revolution. It's a revolution

against mediocrity. It's a revolt against the garbage that's out there. When people come to tell me that places that I went to a lot and people that used to work there are like, oh man, that ain't organic. They're lying. Why do you think you got headaches after you left? Or why do you think you got a stomachache after you left? Like, why do it? If money is so important, go sell used cars. You make a thousand bucks a day or 10 grand a day, or go be an options trader. Or like, if money is your goal, there's so many, create an app or whatever. But if you want, if you go into the food service, I'm in food service. That means my offering to society, to you, is to feed you and to feed your mom and dad and to feed your kids and to feed your neighbors. And if I'm going to feed you, I'm going to feed you the best stuff on the planet. from 12,000 feet elevation up near Lima, Peru. The raw cacao beans that are gonna be on top of the shake

that I'm gonna make you, because I wanna make you this ketogenic shake. I think it's actually called the keto shake. We're going tomorrow. But that raw cacao on top there, when you start to drink it, and we have these like sippy cups because we don't use plastic straws,

you're gonna taste that raw cacao. It's raw. There's no sugar. There's no nothing. It's literally raw cacao, which normally tastes awful. tastes so good and the reason being it's an heirloom raw cacao from ecuador from deep deep deep in the jungles when you have the ice matcha latte or the matcha goddess when you drink it you're gonna go i didn't even like matcha no one likes

matcha because it tastes like turpentine because there's so many terpenes in it. It tastes like turpentine. It's nasty. What's turpentine? It's like paint thinner, but most, most matcha, most has MSG in it. No one talks about that. Most matcha is not organic, but no one cares because if they can get the right selfie in front of the right neon sign and then all their friends are like, oh my God, I love that place. Yeah, I love that place too. We went there this weekend. We're not talking about any particular place. I'm not singling anybody out. So careful, careful. Listen, I'm not singling anybody out and I respect and I admire business people. I'm not a business person. I'm a guy that wanted to serve my community because I was taught in 12-step programs that

to serve is to rule. And when those people lined up, yeah, a lot of them were Brooke Butler or Pam Anderson or David Duchovny or whoever, a lot of those people. But it was also a lot of day laborers and housekeepers that couldn't speak English, that wanted to get healthy. Some of the most amazing experiences that I've had at Sun Life Organics that I hold near and dear to my heart was two women independently. One was a housekeeper and one was a real estate lady. Both of them separately, a couple of years apart came in because they had breast cancer and both of them were devastated. They were crying

and they came in and someone told me to come here and I'm just like, cool, come here. Like, let me, let me treat you to something. Let me, let me buy you a green juice. I want you to drink a green juice every day. If you can't afford it, I'll buy it for you. You know? And I mean that sincerely. And I built this relationship with this woman where she would come in all the time and she'd get mad because she'd want to pay. And I'd get mad because I'm like, listen, lady, I was living under a bridge. You know, this is before my book came out. Like I was living under a bridge. Like, you know, I wasn't able to help my mom when my mom had cancer. And by the way, my mom beat the cancer and I ended up buying her a house and I ended up spoiling the shit out of her. So I was going to ask you, but I didn't want to like, I wanted to ask so bad. She beat it.

My little feisty Polish mother, she beat it. And I ended up buying her a beautiful house and she's not well now, you know, She's 82, 83 years old now. She's not doing so great, but she's super happy and I'm still able to spoil the shit out of her and it's one of the greatest things ever. So this woman, Ann, and this other woman, Esmeralda, I would give them green juices all the time and they would come in every day and I would turn them on to different greens powders and told them no deodorants underneath your arms, no perfume, you know, no, no solvents, no hair gels or, or aerosol sprays because that stuff's just soaking right in. So, you know, you can't, if you're, if you're fighting cancer,

all that shit's out the window and you're going to eat either vegetables and nothing else, or you're going to eat vegetables and animals. And that's up to you. Everybody's different. Everybody's body is different, right? But I told them that. Both of them. So Anne ended up kind of disappearing and I lost track of her or whatever, but she came back one day and she was all tan and she's all happy. It was a couple years later and she's all beautiful and she's crying and she's telling me this, this amazing story. But prior to that happening, I was at little doom and I was out paddle boarding and surfers hate paddle boarders and I'm out paddle boarding and this surfers come and, you know, paddling up and I'm just like,

oh fuck, here we go. You know, this guy's going to start some shit. And he gets right up to me and he's like, you, the dude that owns that juice bar. And I'm like holding my paddle. I'm like, yeah. You know, little fucking insecure Ohio boy. Like, what am I going to do? I'm holding a plastic paddle. I'm like, yeah. He goes, you saved my mom's life, man. I'm like, what? He goes, you saved my mom's life. You got her to beat cancer. I'm like, is your mother Ann? He goes, yeah. I'm like, I didn't save your mom's life. Your mom saved her own life. He's like, no, man, you saved my mom's life. And he started crying. I started crying. He paddled back out to the, where the surf rake was. And I paddled around big doom and I'm crying. I'm tripping out. The sun's going down. And same thing with, with Esmeralda. She came in

years later and she was super healthy and super happy. But the best part about Ann was then a couple years later, she came in and she's glowing and she's crying and she's telling me how she beat the cancer. I'm like, I know, but what happened? Why would you just stop coming in? And she goes, oh, you don't know? I'm like, no, I don't know. This woman was like 62 when I met her. She, in the process of going through chemo and cancer, was on Facebook and had a lot of time on her hands.

She ended up reacquainting herself with her high school sweetheart who had gone off to Vietnam and never came back and wound up living in Kauai. She reacquainted herself with this dude. He invites her to come visit her she goes to kawaii they fucking get married it's crazy he's like a fireman that bought property a million years ago and is now just independently well i mean i'm crying she's crying she brought the dude in a couple of times i got to meet him and it's like again at the end of the day, if I die tomorrow, I got a smile. What a community you've created. Well, Khalil, it's amazing. You said you're not a businessman. You said a lot of things. But, you know, I said in the beginning of the show, and I'll say it again, you're a bad motherfucker, my friend. Thank you for doing the show. Where

can everybody find you? If you want to look at my douchey, pretentious, shallow pictures, please go to at Khalil Rafati. Luckily, there are some good. Yeah, there was. I just saw one. You read it? Yeah. No, I try to give in each post. It's it's dual.

You know, there's two purposes there. I'm like everybody else. I want to be liked. I want to be accepted. But I always try to the best of my ability to give people a little bit of truth about my journey, about what I've been through. And, and a lot of what you see will end up in the second book, which I'm about three fourths of the way done writing right now. So Instagram at Khalil Rafati, um, K H a L I L R a F A T I. And, uh, not, not a Facebook person.

I mean, me and my high school buddies are on Facebook, and we make fun of one another. We'll link the Instagram in the show notes. Yeah. And also at Sun Life Organics, right? At Sun Life Organics, yeah. Yeah, I'm definitely involved with that. I mean, my assistant, Stephanie, does an amazing job of curating our Instagram page. And my book, I Forgot forgot to die is available on Amazon. It's available on audible. It's available in Russian now and Spanish and Bulgarian. Like I keep getting these offers from different, you know, different, uh, publishing deals. Um, and, uh, so my book, my second book will be coming out soon. Probably the best way to just keep up with me is, is,

is on Instagram. But if you are in the area and if there is a Sun Life Organics near you and you see me, please say like, Hey, I listened to you on this skinny confidential podcast and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let me, let me treat you to a smoothie, please. Be careful saying that. No, you don't understand. I live for this stuff. I have to ask one more question. Yeah. What do you order at Sun Life Organics? What's your order? Your go-to every day. My go-to every day is either the Keto Power Shake or the Billion Dollar Bowl. Oh, wait.

No. Brooke likes, I think, the Billion Dollar Smoothie. No. Brooke gets the Million Dollar Smoothie. The Million Dollar Smoothie. Billion Dollar Smoothie is more for if you have an event coming up and you want to just fast and drink two of those a day. It's got all this collagen in it and silica and chlorophyll, and it's just going to make

you glow and be beautiful. I want that. That's for the red carpet. For just drinking. But it's $28. It's a little pricey. The Million Dollar Smoothie is more of an everyday go-to. That one's like $16 or something.

Keto is like $14. The Billion Dollar Bowl is if you're just whatever. If you don't care and you want everything in one bowl, it's 35 bucks. Hence the billion dollar bowl. Yeah. So $35 acai bowl. It's a little bit nuts, but, uh, listen, health isn't cheap, my friend. And it's worth every penny in my opinion. Khalil, this was one of the most powerful podcasts we've done. I mean that I really do mean that we've done 200 of these fucking things. So definitely one of my favorites. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. Anytime. Come back. I will. done 200 of these fucking things. Whoa. Definitely one of my favorites. Thanks for coming on. By far. Appreciate it, brother.

Thank you so much for coming. Anytime. Come back. I will. For those of you who want to check out Khalil's book, it's called I Forgot to Die. It's an incredible true story of pain, suffering, addiction, and redemption. Michael and I both have a copy. It is an incredible book about how he conquered his demons.

And quick little giveaway, like always. If you want a pink, spark sparkly brand new TSC pop socket, all you have to do is tell me your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram. One of the TSC team members will drop into your DM inbox and we'll send you one. They're so cute. You need one. Um, and also make sure you guys check out Tpodcast.com. It's a resource of everything we talk about on the podcast with show notes, pictures, the whole shebang. With that, we will see you next week. Thank you so much for your attention.

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