Oh, Amber, Amber, Amber…
I have to tell you, I’ve interviewed a few celebs before. We’re talking big names. I don’t want to brag, but well, let’s just say Barry Manilow and I have discussed this world and its travails. We have shared. We have grokked.
But as much as Barry and I were able to find common ground, Amber, you gave me something that he could not. You gave me three seasons-worth of reality television, during which you bared your hurting soul.
On three VH1 “Celebreality” shows—Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (Season Two, 2008); Sober House (Season 1, 2009); and Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew (the only season, 2009)—you really came clean—and you got clean. You shared with millions of viewers the grief of your addiction to emotion-deadening prescription pills, and the twisted codependency you shared with your mother, getting high together day after day for 16 years. You revealed that for virtually the entire length of your career as a supermodel (mock the term if you like, but Amber Smith was indeed one of those very elite, hugely in-demand models, appearing on more than 250 magazine covers), you were an international success, but not a happy camper. Your father’s absentee style of parenting and early death from alcohol really did a number on your head, and only in the last few years have you begun to allow yourself to live sober, to get your own apartment, and, with the aid of reality-TV, to face reality on your own.
Addicts of these reality shows about addiction came to appreciate a few other things about you, Amber—you worked the program, you were honest and brave, you were not a troublemaker (except for that one time on Sober House when you stayed out past curfew, got drunk, and fooled around with some random dude at a beach-house party), and you showed off a sharp intellect that just happens to reside inside a bod that’s broken a few million hearts.
But let’s hear it in your words.
You’re coming to St. Louis for the ConTamination convention, but I imagine you travel less now than you did in those hardcore, super-busy modeling days.
I used to go all over the world when I was modeling full-time. I would sometimes go to Europe twice a week! I don’t know how I did it. I guess when you’re young it doesn’t hit you as bad. I did it for years and years.
So have you run into any VH1 show co-stars lately?
I just saw Jennifer Gimenez (the actress and house mother on Sober House) and she lost a tremendous amount of weight, she looks great. We were talking about recovery and life. She used to be bad-off, people don’t really know her story. She had a bad addiction, and she was in recovery for nine months.
How is your mom doing?
That whole thing was pretty crazy. It was kind of a miracle. We got her an apartment, and we got help through the government and other groups, and now I can afford to keep her in her own apartment. She’s in a senior citizens’ place, and she can be social. We had a very enmeshed relationship. We love each other, we had a very, very close relationship, and she pretty much got her life from mine for a long time, which was bad for both of us. The last three years have been hard, and there’s been a tremendous amount of guilt. Not only was I sick, she was sick, and we were completely co-dependent. We were using buddies. We were emotionally in pain, and very dependent on substances. We lived together for financial reasons in part, too.
Now I’m on my own, and I’ve been living in this studio apartment by myself for nine months. All the furnishings are mine. It’s crazy—for the first time in my life decorating my own apartment? It’s something that should have been done 18 years ago. Part of me lately has been a little depressed about the past. I feel like my life has exploded and I’m picking up the pieces one at a time when everyone else is set, so there’s this weird starting-from-scratch feeling. There’s a negative part where you feel like a loser. There’s a great sober community in L.A., though. I have a big support system.
On Celebrity Rehab, I think you came across as one of the smarter people on the show.
Well, thanks, but intellect can’t beat addiction. I always thought I could think my way out of it, but I can’t. Addiction doesn’t discriminate.
What are you doing professionally these days?
I’m about to do Entertainment Tonight tomorrow morning because I have to comment on Representative Weiner. They want me to comment because of Sex Rehab. Truth be told, if he went into sex rehab, well, I don’t know if that’s something he needs, not everyone’s an addict. But I have a chapter in a new book about love addiction by the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” publisher. It’s called Obsessive Love. It’s an old psychological conflict. You will meet the person who symbolizes the person who molested you or whatever later in life, and if they reject you it can lead to stalking, like the astronaut who drove across the country in diapers because she was so mad, and went after her rival to commit a crime of passion. That’s pathological, that’s not love. If she looked closely at her life, she would see he’s not for her.
I was stuck on a guy for 12 years who was not into me, and I couldn’t see it. My friends saw that it was over a long time ago, but I couldn’t. Then, I saw it in Sex Rehab. It’s about breaking emotional bonding, and people who use sex instead of bonding with other people. It’s what the person represents to you.
I’m trying to get a speaking career together now. I can speak about prescription-pill addiction and love addiction. I lost the passion for acting and modeling, but when things come along, though, I take them, because I’m not a fool.
I’ll throw out the names of some of your co-stars on the Dr. Drew shows, and you tell me your thoughts about them. Actor Jeff Conaway, RIP:
Oh my god, that was horrible. [Conaway’s girlfriend] Vicki called me the other day, and I forgot to call her back, you just reminded me. He was signing at the last convention I was at, too, and he didn’t look good, he looked very pale and underweight. I asked Vicki how they were doing, and they were broken up at the time, and she said they’d broken up because of the medication, and the next thing you know he overdoses. I think it was a very strong new medication he got hooked on, and it killed his system. That’s what Dr. Drew said. He was already weakened by an infection, and it overwhelmed him. Really sad.
When we were on the show, I told Jeff, “I haven’t felt anything in 16 years.” He said, “I feel for you,” and he told me I was in for a roller coaster ride. He kept it real for me. "
Former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler:
Supposedly he’s on the show [Celebrity Rehab Season 5] again. I love him, too. I never had a problem with him.
Actor Gary Busey:
I actually liked Gary a lot. I was so into my own stuff, especially on that first show, I was sick enough that he didn’t bother me. He is such a big personality, I can understand how he can be a bit much. He had a near-death experience that gave him a spiritual awakening when he had his motorcycle accident, and he helped me when he told me about what he saw. I had something similar happen at my bottom, a spiritual experience. I felt an overwhelming presence of something...
Actress Tawny Kitaen:
I love her. You know, she lives so far away that we lost touch. She’s one of my favorite people ever. She is so funny. She has this very guttural laugh—she makes you laugh when she laughs. If she lived closer to me, we might be best friends.
Comedian Andy Dick:
Sometimes I see him, and I don’t know what kind of shape he’s in. I think he has had some problems lately. All these people—I love them all.
And then, we were done.
Amber had to leave, but I had so many more questions I wanted to ask her.
I wanted to ask her what it was like wandering around Paris for years as a teenager, desperate to break into the modeling biz.
I wanted to ask her about the watershed moment when she dyed her blonde hair red, which caused her to have a remarkable resemblance to Rita Hayworth, and soon took her career to the outer limits.
I wanted to ask about one of her darkest hours, when the money ran out, but she had to have the drugs, and she did some things of which she’s not proud.
I wanted to ask just how crazy her Sex Rehab co-star Kari Ann Peniche was. (‘Cause she appeared to be seven parts crazy, two parts psychotic, and one part off tha mutha____ chain.)
I wanted to ask about her acting work, specifically in the noir film L.A. Confidential, in which she gets murdered.
I wanted to ask, in all seriousness, if being a beauty icon means that no one takes you seriously.
But Amber did her interview with SLM over the telephone, as she was driving in L.A. She had to end the interview promptly when she arrived at her next appointment.
I could hear her turn off her ignition, step into the crowded lobby of a building, and finally, arrive at a meeting.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I think I have to go in there.”
It was easy to imagine her standing outside a set of glass doors, about to enter a powwow with an agent, a filmmaker, a flack, or any number of other L.A. “types.”
It was nice to think of her as starting over at age 40, wiser, stronger, in a better place. Her money’s gone, she says, along with the better part of her fame, but she’s finally gained an emotional footing that would seem to be priceless.
I’ve watched way more VH1 “Celebreality” than I care to admit. Some stars, like Dustin Diamond or Countess Vaughn, to name a few, never reveal their real selves for the camera. They can’t be bothered to care.
Others, however, allow themselves to dump out their tragic, ugly emotional mess on camera, and you have to respect their cojones. Can you imagine undergoing therapy on national TV?
Amber Smith may not know us, but we sure got to know her, and she’s the real deal.
Oh, Amber, Amber, Amber…
We were just getting started.
You can meet Amber Smith, get your photo taken with her, buy an autograph, and more at the ConTamination Horror, Sci Fi, and Pop Culture Convention this weekend at the Sheraton Westport Chalet in St. Louis.
