Robert Downey, Jr.’s hard partying got him into a whole mess of trouble long before his Iron Man days. In 1996, People reported that Downey — who once claimed his father got him into drugs — was arrested after cops pulled him over in Los Angeles and discovered he was driving naked and in possession of heroin, cocaine, and a firearm. Three weeks later, he was found passed out in a neighbor’s home (specifically, in the neighbor’s 11-year-old son’s bed). Downey ditched court-ordered rehab twice and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released less than a year later, but arrested twice more before he got clean in 2002.
Since then, Downey has been candid about his struggles, which may have been caused by a then-untreated battle with bipolar disorder. His son, Indio, has also struggled with substance abuse. “Pick a dysfunction and it’s a family problem,” Downey told Vanity Fair. “[Indio is] his mother’s son and my son, and he’s come up the chasm much quicker than we did … Can you help someone get out of those woods? Yes, you can. By not getting lost looking for them.”
At an Avengers: Endgame screening in April 2019, he hinted at his own history’s link to the Marvel movie franchise. “I want to talk about the past, present, and future,” he said “The past for me was 30 years of dependency, depravity, and despair … otherwise known as ‘An Actor Prepares!'”
