The 10 Most Accomplished Crackheads

When you think of writer Aaron Sorkin, what likely comes to mind are his hit TV show The West Wing (1999-2006) and his hit movies A Few Good Men (1992) and The Social Network (2010). When we think of him, we remember that he used to hit the crack pipe. In 2001, while he was working on The West Wing, his pipe set off the metal detector at Burbank Airport, leading security to arrest him for possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms, marijuana, and crack cocaine.

What's so striking about Sorkin is that after becoming a crackhead, he went on to achieve great things (clearly we refer to 2010's The Social Network and not his 2006 dumpster fire Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip). He also co-wrote the upcoming film adaptation of Michael Lewis' book Moneyball and is developing a highly-anticipated HBO show.

Today is Sorkin’s 50th birthday, so to honor his overcoming crack addiction we’re counting down The 10 Most Accomplished Crackheads. These aren’t your run of the mill druggies. These are the crackheads that experienced unparalleled success after hitting the pipe.

10. Coolio

Best known for his 1994 debut single "Fantastic Voyage" and 1995 smash Gangster’s Paradise, wildly braided Coolio always kinda looked like a crackhead who'd just gotten a major rush. In fact, before blowing up in rap, he had been blowing crack smoke and struggling with addiction.

Unfortunately, after experiencing career highs and then falling into reality TV obscurity, Coolio relapsed and was arrested for crack possession in 2009. Given that he was appearing on the UK version of Celebrity Big Brother, we kinda can’t blame him.

9. James Frey

What is the American dream? Is it lacing up your work boots every day and making an honest living all while bettering your life through freedom? Or is it sitting around, smoking crack, and then writing a best-selling book about your struggles? We’re going with the latter.

James Frey was one of the lucky authors to be whored out to Oprah’s Book Club for A Million Little Pieces, his "memoir" about crack addiction, lawlessness, and rehab. The wild story tugged at Oprah’s million-dollar heart strings, and before long, the onetime crack addict was bathing in millions.

Eventually, The Smoking Gun exposed that many parts of his memoir were exaggerated or entirely untrue and Frey drew the ire of Oprah and her millions of followers. But that didn’t stop him from selling five million copies of the book, or going on to write or co-write three more bestsellers: 2005's My Friend Leonard, 2008's Bright Shiny Morning, and 2010's I Am Number Four.

8. Flavor Flav

If you ask most people how they know Flavor Flav, a sadly large number of them will say his VH1 reality dating show Flavor Of Love (also The Surreal Life or Strange Love), not his work with the seminal political rap group Public Enemy. Sigh. Yes, Flav is more reality star than rap legend these days.

What’s remarkable about his reinvention from hypeman to television star is that, in 1993, erratic and drug-addled Flav was imprisoned for 90 days for shooting at a neighbor and then checked himself into the Betty Ford Centre for crack addiction. We kinda wish that his second life didn’t involve reality TV, but it beats sucking the glass dong and being some thick-necked dude's boyeeee toy in prison.

7. Richard Pryor

Being a successful stand-up comedian is usually a pretty easy way to punch your ticket off this Earth a little early. Drugs, booze, and unclean women are all temptations that even the most rigid comics can easily fall prey to. And no event exemplified this more than the infamous freebasing incident that nearly killed Richard Pryor in the early ’80s.

While freebasing cocaine and slugging down 151 proof rum, Pryor accidentally lit himself on fire and ran out into the streets ablaze. The best part is that while enjoying his crack habit, Pryor was still simply killing it on stage. He even incorporated the story into his act and gained even more notoriety.

6. Aaron Sorkin

As we detailed in the intro, Sorkin was definitely smoking crack while working on his hit TV show The West Wing. He was probably smoking something when he pushed that mess Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip on us too (but maybe we just didn’t enjoy the show).

These days, the writer is riding high on the success of The Social Network, for which he won an Academy Award. Unless you like anxiety and rotting teeth, it’s a far better high.

5. Samuel L. Jackson

Stardom came late to Samuel L. Jackson; the loud-ass leading man had been a struggling actor for two decades and was in his 40s before he finally made it in Hollywood. What was he doing before he broke through? Playing bit parts and falling into a drug oblivion that included smoking crack.

After his family got him clean, Jackson drew upon his experiences for his first big role, playing the wildly unpredictable crackhead Gator Purify in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991). The performance won him recognition at Cannes and soon he was on the road to stardom. He now averages over five films a year and is one of the highest grossing actors in Hollywood. This is one crack addiction that actually helped launch a career. Don't tell that to the kids, though.

4. Robert Downey Jr

In the '80s, no one had a brighter future than Robert Downey Jr. Working in films such as Weird Science and Less Than Zero, Downey represented a youth revolution in Hollywood and was touted as one of the best young actors in the biz. But the '90s weren't so kind to Downey. Various drug possession charges were levied against him and he was jailed. One of his drugs of choice? You guessed it: crack.

After dealing with his myriad addictions, Downey went on to make several quality films like A Scanner Darkly, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, and Zodiac before owning the summer of 2008 with Tropic Thunder and Iron Man. He proved that, if you're talented enough, a crack addiction in Hollywood can be a mere speed bump on an otherwise nicely paved freeway.

3. Lawrence Taylor

During the Hall of Famer’s football playing prime, we would've willingly chosen to get hit by a bus rather than be run over by the New York Giants linebacker. Arguably the most feared defensive player of the '80s, dude won two Super Bowls and made 10 Pro Bowls, and what makes his on-field accomplishments even more impressive is that he started smoking crack by his third season.

In his 2004 autobiography, he wrote: "I'd go through an ounce a day. And at times I'd be standing in the huddle. And instead of thinking what defense we were playing I'd be thinking about smoking crack after the game."

Jim Kelly and Dan Marino couldn’t win a Super Bowl clean, but Taylor did it twice while hitting the pipe off the field. That’s just big league.

2. Marion Barry

In 1990, while serving as mayor of Washington D.C., Barry was caught smoking crack in an FBI and police sting (see inset photo). He was eventually sentenced to six months in prison on drug charges.

You might think that this would have ended a politician’s career, but no. After getting out, Barry returned to politics with the slogan "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C." and was elected mayor again in 1994. That, friends, is how you rock the vote!

1. Oprah Winfrey

In 1995, Oprah, whose image is meticulously manicured, shocked the world when she admitted that, in her 20s, when she was a news anchorwoman, a boyfriend had introduced her to crack. She claimed to have stopped using after they split up.

The fact that Oprah became Oprah, mega-millionaire master of the universe, after hitting the pipe flagrantly spits in the face of everything our grammar school teachers taught us. If anything, this scandal made Oprah seem more human and relatable than ever before because everyone has made bad mistakes in their life. Come on, who hasn't smoked crack and then given cars away to complete strangers?