Just two days after claiming he wouldn’t check into a drug rehabilitation center after suffering an apparent overdose from crack cocaine, comedian Andy Dick said he’s done just that.
The 59-year-old funnyman told TMZ by phone Friday afternoon that he was just about to enter an unspecified facility in Palm Springs, Calif.
He told the outlet that a talk with his longtime friend and former “Sober House” colleague Jennifer Gimenez convinced him to get help. He credited the actress and her husband, recovery advocate Tim Ryan, with “saving” his life.
Gimenez and Ryan were able to secure Dick a “full-ride scholarship” for addiction treatment, thanks to their connections to the center, they told TMZ.
The “NewsRadio” star swore on Wednesday that he wouldn’t go to rehab, even after photos of him slumped over on a street in Los Angeles the previous day caused concern for fans and friends. Dick, who has a long history of substance abuse, said he overdosed on crack cocaine, but was otherwise “100% fine.”
“I don’t mind doing some crack every now and then,” he told TMZ during a video interview.
Gimenez, after overcoming her own addiction issues, became a house manager for VH1’s “Sober House,” during which she befriended Dick during its first season in 2009. She later became a rehab technician at the Pasadena Recovery Center, as seen on “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.”
Ryan, an ex-con who struggled with addition for 30 years, works as an intervention specialist and speaker. He detailed his life story in the autobiography “From Dope to Hope: A Man in Recovery,” published in 2017, the same year he was the subject of A&E’s docuseries “Dope Man.”
