Joshua Bassett is pulling back the curtain on a chapter of his life that sounds less like a Disney success story and more like a Hollywood survival thriller.
The High School Musical: The Musical: The Series star is opening up about his ketamine addiction following the terrifying 2021 health crisis that nearly killed him – and his new revelations are genuinely hard to ignore.
Appearing on The Zach Sang Show podcast, the 25-year-old actor described how his life spiraled after suffering heart failure and septic shock. Doctors reportedly told him he had only a “30 percent chance of survival.”
Instead of slowing down afterward, Joshua admitted he started numbing himself with “anything” he could find, eventually falling deep into ketamine addiction.
According to excerpts from his memoir Rookie: My Public, Private, and Secret Life, the singer revealed he would go through “six baggies” of ketamine in a single night.
“Before even using the restroom some mornings, I’d inhale more. It was never enough,” he wrote.
The confession paints a brutally raw picture of addiction at its ugliest – late-night dealer runs, maxed-out ATM withdrawls and a cycle that kept getting darker.
“It’s a miracle my life hasn’t been taken quite a few times, to be honest,” Joshua admitted on the podcast. “It’s a miracle I’m here for sure.”
The actor also reflected on how fame and isolation can become a dangerous mix. Addiction, he explained, “thrives through isolation,” especially when paired with “having more money than you could know what to do with.”
Now sober and speaking openly, Joshua is not dressing up the experience or pretending recovering is neat and inspirational. If anything, his honesty is what’s hitting fans the hardest.
