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Last November, French Montana was rushed to the ICU of a San Fernando Valley hospital with signs of dehydration and severe exhaustion. Prior to that, he had been traveling a lot, visiting as many as four countries in six days at one point. But now, one year later, French is in a much better place, and he broke down the whole affair in a recent interview with XXL Magazine.
“[I] Just collapsed, too much drinking, too many pills,” is how he explained it. “Percocet starts off as pain relief, and then it ends up being a hobby, and then it ends up being an addiction.”
According to reports, on the night of November 19, French’s neighbors thought his home was being burglarized and called the police. However, when the police arrived, they found the rapper disoriented, suffering from stomach pains, and an elevated heart rate. “When I went to the hospital, they were like, ‘If you drink, you’ll die,’” he shared. Due to his condition, French couldn’t tour to promote his third album, Montana, and he had to cancel his scheduled performance at iHeartRadio’s Jingle Ball in December.
After spending more than a week in the hospital, French returned home and did a hard reset with the booze. But he also cut back on some of the other things he felt weren’t healthy for him. “That’s why I took a break,” he elaborated. “I just, you know, I just did French 2.0. And this is how I changed it. Stepped back, took two steps back, didn’t drop no music, detox from social media… And I think that was like the hardest thing I ever did in my life, to snatch myself back… So that was the day, it was Nov. 21, [2019] last year. And since that day, I never had a drink. I just made a year.”
The whole experience has seemingly given French some clarity and brought him into a more productive space. Last month, he and Swae Lee performed their hit “Unforgettable” at the PPV boxing exhibition between Mike Tyson and Roy Jones, Jr. He is currently hard at work on completing his fourth studio album, set to be released sometime in 2021.
French also patched up a 15-year beef with Dipset’s Jim Jones, and they worked together on several songs, including the single “Too Late.” He was reflective of the moment and said, “…[I]t was a moment where there was 100 gangstas… and everybody like standing, like, you know, one side stand on one side, and just like, the love was so immaculate, and there was just a moment for hip-hop that was just like, damn, I wish I woulda did this before.”
