Johnny Manziel Talks Cocaine Addiction, Apologizing to Drake, Rejecting LeBron James’ Friendship & More On ‘Club Shay Shay’
Source: Icon Sportswire / Getty
Shannon Sharpe‘s streak of entertaining interviews continues with Johnny Manziel.
Known as Johnny Football, the Heisman Trophy winner was a highly recruited dual-threat quarterback coming out of high school, and the hype only grew when he took his talents to Texas A&M. He was inducted into the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame, but upon getting picked by the Cleveland Browns in the 2014 NFL Draft, his downfall was swift thanks to his partying ways.
While he previously spoke about his short-lived NFL career in his documentary in Netflix‘s UNTOLD documentary in 2023, he got even more honest with fellow former NFL player Sharpe about some of the darker sides that came with being in the league in a conversation that lasted more than two hours.
“How do you lose 40 pounds? You’re on a strict diet of blow” -Johnny Manzielpic.twitter.com/xj6h4qEI4k
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) February 22, 2024
Manziel’s been sober since 2016, but he told Sharpe that his drastic weight loss after leaving the Browns was due to his obsessive drug use.
“I was 2010 points when I left Cleveland. I was 170 pounds sitting in Vegas,” he says before Sharpe inquires what prompted the drop in weight. “How do you lose 40 pounds? You’re on a strict diet of blow.”
“LeBron James would text me every week to come over and watch a game or play poker with the boys… I was so depressed that even the biggest role model in my life couldn’t get me out of bed to hang out with him.”
— Johnny Manziel
(via @ClubShayShay)pic.twitter.com/i7LqlFtdpg
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) February 21, 2024
Elsewhere in the interview, Manziel talks about another superstar in sports that means a lot to Cleveland: LeBron James.
The 31-year-old regrets the way he treated James, who tried to take him under his wing and build a relationship
“I was so depressed for the first time in my life that even my biggest role model and inspiration in my life couldn’t get me out of bed to come and hang out with them. When I went to the Cavs games, I was in, and I was out. I didn’t really grasp and latch on to him in a way that I should have,” Manziel said. “And he tries to take me under his wing and I’m just kind of nudging it away because of where my mental is and being just fully depressed and where I was in my life.”
Another person he feels he disappointed was Drake, who famously shouted him out on his 2014 track “Draft Day.” Manziel was frequently spotted with the 6 God and even has an OVO tattoo on his wrist, which was clearly visible when he tossed his hands up to do his signature money hand signal.
“I can even take it a step further and say in 2016; I don’t think I treated Drake the way that I should have with representing the clothes that I was wearing and his OVO brand and his label and everything. At that point in time, I was so selfish that I was dragging everybody that was tied to me through the mud,” he admitted. “I owe those people an apology and hopefully one day down the line, I’ll be able to have the opportunity as a man to be able to look him in the eye and be able to do that.”
See how social media is reacting to Manziel’s confessions about his time in the spotlight below.
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