I had been acquainted with her since the late eighties. She ran with the same crowd and had the same bad habits as I did back in those days. I had always admired her. No matter what she did to herself, no matter what kind of trauma or abuse she heaped upon her head, she managed to hold it together. She always had a decent place to live and did okay as a hairdresser. She was also a hard-ass, and that kind of no-nonsense attitude would be crucial for this gig. I spent a lot of years as an entertainer, so I knew instinctively what would work on a show like this. When I walk onstage, I know what to do. I don’t get flustered. I sensed Shelly was right for this gig. And I knew she was in the market for a job. I approached her.
“Hey, Shelly. How do you feel about reality TV?”
“I hate it, Bob.”
“What would you say if I offered you a job, but you’d also have to be on this show?”
“Is this one of those ‘either-or’ things?”
“Pretty much.”
“So what does that even mean, Bob? If I don’t do the show, I don’t get the job?”
“Well … yes.”
Fortunately, she came on board. For the celebrity patients, we looked to people we knew and had treated before. This is Los Angeles, and, as the tabloid media had already shown, there was no shortage of entertainers with dependency problems. However, the network had its own ideas about who was suitable. That first season, Steven Adler, the former drummer from Guns N’ Roses, was ready to go.
“Steven Adler would be great on this show!” I said. I pushed for him, but the network absolutely didn’t want him. No reason given, although I suspected it may have been an image problem. Steven suffered from a nasty drug dependency that he had battled since his days with Guns N’ Roses. He had suffered a stroke that was likely a result of all the abuse he had given his body during the height of his rock star fame. As a result he was left with an unsteady gait and a noticeable speech impediment. He could be difficult to understand because of it. Perhaps that was why the network was so dead set against having him on the show. When the second season came around, Steven still had problems with substance abuse and I brought him up again. This time the network was happy to have him aboard. It was crazy how it all worked. Unpredictable.
Through the grapevine, I heard that Valkyrie-like actress Brigitte Nielsen was at Cri-Help in North Hollywood. “Has anybody called her?” I asked. “I think she’d be a good candidate.” A producer from the show reached her at the center and told her about what we planned to do. She agreed right away. It’s pretty much how we found everybody for the show. We asked and they came … with network approval, of course. After that first season, after we had a hit, it became easier to find patients, but before the show made its debut, I started to get a little nervous that VH1 might not have the same goals as the rest of us. I worried that we would all look unprofessional, but I was also sure that wouldn’t be in the channel’s best interest. This show had the potential to do well for them, although in the back of my mind, I knew that something new like this would have no middle ground. Viewers would either love it or hate it.
Now, all this may seem a bit disingenuous coming from a guy who is best known these days as “that guy with the hat” on a reality TV series. I have had some real issues with some of the show’s direction. The producers shot an entire documentary about Jackass star Steve-O’s recovery with Dr. Drew. Steve-O, a limber, jocular guy who’d made an implausibly successful career out of performing ridiculous and dangerous stunts that generally involved his scrotum and a staple gun, had been a lifelong stoner and was engaged in a serious downhill run when he came to us. Drugs were only a part of his problem. He was also addicted to the camera. While he was supposed to be going through the program and the sober house follow-up, he was shooting segments in his room with his Jackass costars and his producer Jeff Tremaine. It was unbelievable. He’s managed to maintain his sobriety, but it couldn’t have been easy with all that entertainment nonsense going on around him. I have difficulty with that Hollywood, glitzy, exploitative aspect of the show. One thing I learned fast: Television is a ruthless, heartless business. It’s one with no friendships and few alliances, and it feeds and fuels itself on two items: money and bullshit. Take it too seriously and get too deeply enmeshed in the day-to-day, and it will make you crazy. Drug dealers have more ethics than television network executives, but I figured out a way to make the intrinsic greed work for me: I cut a deal. No agents, no lawyers. Just me.
I spoke with the executive producer of the show, John Irwin.
“Look, I think this show will do well and we’ll do a number of seasons with
