Tennis ace Andre Agassi reveals in his explosive new autobiography that he got high on crystal meth while playing the circuit in 1997 — and then lied about it to officials after testing positive for drugs.
Agassi, 39, says he hit rock-bottom in his once-meteoric career with a wrist injury that year — and was battling serious doubts about his upcoming marriage to actress Brooke Shields — when his assistant, “Slim,” offered him the drug, according to a bombshell excerpt in The Times of London.
“Slim is stressed, too . . . He says, You want to get high with me? On what? Gack. What the hell’s gack? Crystal meth,” Agassi writes in “Open: An Autobiography.” “Why do they call it gack? Because that’s the sound you make when you’re high . . . Make you feel like Superman, dude.
“As if they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth, I hear these words: You know what? F- – – it. Yeah. Let’s get high.
“Slim dumps a small pile of powder on the coffee table. He cuts it, snorts it. He cuts it again. I snort some. I ease back on the couch and consider the Rubicon I’ve just crossed.
“There is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness. Then comes a tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I’ve never felt so alive, so hopeful — and I’ve never felt such energy.
“I’m seized by a desperate desire to clean. I go tearing around my house, cleaning it from top to bottom. I dust the furniture. I scour the tub. I make the beds.”
Later, Agassi is told by the Association of Tennis Professionals that he failed a drug exam.
“My name, my career, everything is now on the line,” Agassi writes.
“Days later I sit in a hard-backed chair, a legal pad in my lap, and write a letter to the ATP. It’s filled with lies interwoven with bits of truth.
“I say Slim, whom I’ve since fired, is a known drug user, and that he often spikes his sodas with meth — which is true. Then I come to the central lie of the letter. I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs. I ask for understanding and leniency and hastily sign it: Sincerely,” he says.
“I feel ashamed, of course. I promise myself that this lie is the end of it.”
The ATP never pursued the matter further.
In a story on People magazine’s Web site yesterday, Agassi says, “I can’t speak to addiction, but a lot of people would say that if you’re using anything as an escape, you have a problem.”
Agassi wound up divorcing Shields and marrying fellow tennis star Steffi Graf.