Steven Tyler Talks Cocaine: "You Could Say I Snorted Half of Peru"

Aerosmith frontman, who's headed into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this year with Joe Perry, finally narrowed down the amount of money he's, er, blown over the years

By Natalie Finn Feb 23, 2013 5:01 AMTags
Steven TylerCurtis Means/ACE/INFphoto.com

Steven Tyler has finally put a more realistic dollar figure on how much money he's, er, blown in his life.

Not that he hasn't already talked and written extensively about past drug use, but the Aerosmith frontman says in a new interview airing Sunday on Australia's 60 Minutes that he has probably snorted $5 million to $6 million worth of cocaine—not the $20 million he estimated in his 2011 memoir, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?

"But it doesn't matter," he told reporter Liz Hayes. "You also could say I snorted half of  Peru, but it doesn't matter. You know, it's what we did."

Well, maybe it doesn't matter to him, but think of how his nostrils must have felt!

And yet here he is, 20 years sober when it comes to hard drugs and alcohol (trips to rehab in 2008 and 2009 were to ward off potential problems with pain medication while he was recovering from foot surgery and other chronic injuries), and about to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame along with Aerosmith guitarist and fellow "Toxic Twin" Joe Perry.

Asked by Hayes how he feels about the "Toxic Twins" moniker now, Tyler says, "We still are, we still can be toxic. We fight toxically, we play toxically."

But, happily, Tyler seems to now be living far less toxically.