Aaron Neville Reveals How He Became Addicted to Heroin at 16

NO MORE BLUES –

Aug. 30, 2023 – In this week’s issue of PEOPLE the 82-year-old New Orleans native shares an exclusive excerpt from his gripping book, out Sept 5, and reveals when and how his devastating heroin addiction first began.

“For my sixteenth birthday, I gave myself a present that has lasted all my life. I got the tattoo on my face,” he writes of his signature ink. “My school buddy came around, we sat down on my parents’ back steps, he tied two needles to a matchstick, and he put the tattoo on my cheek. It’s a dagger. Some people see it as a cross, and it was one thought away from being a skull and crossbones. Don’t ask me why I did it. I guess stupid was set in place at that age.”

It was the same age he chose to experiment with heroin. Writes Neville, “I’d heard people talking about it way back in the Calliope [housing projects, where he grew up]. And I knew plenty of other people who were doing it. They seemed to be having a good time with it. I wanted to do it too.”

For the the young, mischievous musician, there was nothing stopping him. “I was playing gigs and making money, so I had some cash to score,” Neville writes. “And I was an inquisitive kid, always looking for the next sensation, the next experience, the next adventure. For me, heroin was just one more thing like that.”