Tiger King’s Rick Kirkham filmed himself smoking crack, having sex, being arrested in front of his kids and threatening to kill his dad in a shocking documentary about his life.
The 62-year-old journalist, who spent a year filming Joe Exotic at his zoo in Oklahoma, spoke to The Sun about the jaw-dropping documentary which saw his infamous fall from successful TV reporter to drug addict.
Documentary-maker Rick filmed more than 5,000 hours of himself spiralling into drug addiction in the 1990s.
Rick admitted he can’t watch the documentary, called TV Junkie, due to it being “too emotional”.
The media personality, who has now been clean for 20 years, told the publication about the first time he tried crack cocaine.
The brutally honest documentary shows the journalists struggles with drug addiction (Image: Rick Kirkham/Youtube)
He explained: “North Las Vegas police had an undercover team that would go out and bust crack houses … so being a crime reporter in Vegas, I was able to go out with these guys when they made these undercover busts late at night.
“It was one of those officers one night, back at the police station who said, ‘Rick, have you ever tried this?’ and I tell him ‘No’, I mean I had tried cocaine before, but I’ve never smoked it or anything like that.
“And he said, ‘Here, try this and see what the high is like’. And then two days [later] I was out on the street buying it myself. It was pretty crazy.”
One scene in the honest documentary sees Rick smoking crack cocaine on his 37th birthday.
Rick filmed himself smoking crack in the jaw-dropping documentary (Image: Rick Kirkham/Youtube)
In the clip, he says to the camera: “And that is how horrible the addiction is. It takes over your mind. It is completely like a second life and you cannot believe it is happening and yet it is.
“It is not an easy thing to do. I only hope I will learn from it down the road. This addiction is going to kill me.
“And the terrible thing is you do not think about family, friends, career. All you think about is doing this s**t.”
The journalist then proceeds to smoke the crack on camera, before saying: “It is euphoric. Almost hard to speak because of the rush type high … in a matter of seconds for me it becomes almost very sexual in a way – not in a good way. Very raw, animalistic, very lustful. A very primeval sort of way.
(Image: Rick Kirkham/Youtube)
“My experience with this rotten drug is, ‘How can something be so euphoric and good and be so terrible?’ You do it and know it can kill you.”
Another clip shows him traveling around Europe, where he films himself having sex with women in Belgium, Germany, Spain and France.
In another scary piece to camera, he talks about wanting to kill his father with a gun, saying: “I drove 500 miles, I got there but I sat there with a 22 rifle and two gallon gas can trying to figure out should I burn him down or just go and kill him and get it over with… When I sat there with the rifle loaded ready to kill a human I hate, a man that has destroyed my family I just couldn’t do it. But I may have to.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
