Over the past six months, rising star Lil Xan has kicked his Xanax addiction—a decision he says that was motivated by his desire to turn making music into an actual career—and has openly expressed an interest in officially changing his stage name to Diego (his government first name) in an effort to distance himself further from the highly-addictive controlled substance.
In a new interview with Big Boy, the 21-year-old rapper was asked about the fallout from his decision to quit Xanax, not only as it relates to his own personal health but also how it has affected his career.
“It’s a gift and a curse, just being sober. I thought the same thing: Are people still going to rock with me?” Xan admitted. “Because, like I said at the beginning [of the interview], they were embracing [my name] like, ‘Yo, pop Xans! I’m listening to Lil Xan [gone] off Xanax.’ I just never paid it no mind. I wasn’t like, ‘Do that!’ Now the message is, ‘Yo, your music has really helped me get through hard times, get through withdrawal.'”
“Are people still going to rock with me?” Let’s take a second to think about the depth of this question. Here’s a young man, with a potentially bright future in music, admitting that he openly wondered if his decision to stop popping pills and glamorizing pill popping would actually mean the end of his career. Xan actually believed, with good reason, that his entrance into the industry was also his exit.
It’s highly likely that a small percentage of Xan’s following jumped ship after learning that he was no longer practicing what he once preached, but the California native told Big Boy that since the announcement he has been inundated with messages of positive encouragement and support. “My DMs, I can’t even go into the requests,” he said, intimating that the number of messages he’s received is overwhelming.
Lil Xan isn’t exactly poster boy material for the youth, nor is he required to become a role model, but talking about his addiction and owning up to the impact that his stage name and music once had on his audience is a step in the right direction.