The Tragedy Of Steven Tyler Explained

Few bands rocked harder and more successfully than legendary Boston rock group Aerosmith, the fivesome featuring Brad Whitford (guitar), Tom Hamilton (bass), Joey Kramer (drums) and lead guitarist extraordinaire Joe Perry. Leading the way, of course, was scarf-loving singer Steven Tyler, one of the most charismatic frontmen to ever grasp a microphone.

The band had a string of iconic hits in the 1970s, including the likes of "Dream On," "Sweet Emotion," "Walk This Way," and others. By the end of the decade, however, Aerosmith was considered washed-up has-beens, their best years in the rearview mirror thanks to rampant drug use and intra-band squabbling. In the latter part of the 1980s, though, the band rediscovered their mojo, opening the door to decades of even greater success, thanks to tracks like "Janie's Got a Gun," "Love in an Elevator," "Dude Looks Like a Lady," and partnering with Run DMC for a rap-and-rock remake of "Walk This Way" that was an even bigger hit than the original.

Success, of course, is just one side of the coin. As true fans know, there's also Aerosmith's tragic real-life story, a history replete with serious health woes, sad moments, and more wretched excess than perhaps any other band in rock history. To find out how that's affected the group's frontman, read on to have the tragedy of Steven Tyler explained.

Of the many facts about Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, one that is little known is his teenage brush with the law. In 1967, he and a pal had discovered marijuana — and loved it. They hatched a clever plan to fund their weed-smoking endeavors by purchasing an ounce of pot for $20, dividing it into six "nickel bags," and selling four while keeping two to smoke. 

The scheme worked perfectly — until Tyler received a phone call from his mother informing him that police were in their home in search of his marijuana, and had discovered it. "Uh-oh, they found my stash so cunningly concealed in a copy of 'The Hardy Boys and the Disappearing Floor,'" he wrote in his autobiography, "Steven Tyler: Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?" His mother ordered him to get home immediately, so he hopped in his car and drove. "I pulled into the driveway and saw a black unmarked car approaching from around the corner," he wrote. "My heart fell out of my ass. The cops handcuffed me and walked me to the car ..."

Ultimately, he dodged jail time by receiving a probationary sentence. There was, he added, a silver lining to his youthful criminal record. The four misdemeanors he'd pleaded guilty to placed a Youthful Offender designation on his draft card. "So no f***ing Vietnam for me," he wrote.

It's fair to say that not all of Steven Tyler's memories of Philadelphia are fond ones. One of his least-cherished has to be a 1977 Aerosmith show, when a member of the audience threw an M-80 on the stage just as the band were returning for their encore. "I was going up the stairs right behind Steven and [guitarist] Joe [Perry], and I felt the concussion of the cherry bomb going off," guitarist Brad Whitford told Goldmine (via Ultimate Classic Rock). "Steven immediately covered his face and there was blood shooting up out of Joe's arm, literally. So pretty quickly we got ourselves to the emergency room." The cornea in Tyler's eye was reportedly burned but thankfully healed.

Aerosmith returned to Philly the following year. Tyler quickly came to regret it about 20 minutes into the show, when a concertgoer hurled a bottle at the band. "It hit the stage dead center, right in front of the monitor, and exploded, sending shards of glass into Steven's face," Whitford recalled in the band's autobiography, "Walk This Way." "I think some glass went right through his mouth." Tyler, ever the trouper, wanted to finish the show, despite his still-bleeding face — which his bandmates vehemently resisted. "The vote was four-to-one against, and we were in the limos two minutes later," Whitford added. 

As Aerosmith's popularity escalated during the 1970s, so too did the band's drug use; frontman Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry, in fact, earned the nickname the Toxic Twins. Did it affect Tyler's performances? "Well I remember one show where we got three songs in and Steven lost consciousness for one reason or another," bass player Tom Hamilton told NME. "We just got high back then," added Tyler. "It was a way of life."

Interviewed by Classic Rock, Tyler offered a visual example to illustrate how much cocaine he'd ingested. "A swimming pool filled to the top with blow would be about right," he said, having once estimated he'd spent more than $5 million on cocaine. Not only had drugs depleted his fortune, but he also confirmed that they'd nearly cost him his life on several occasions. 

Since getting sober, Tyler told GQ in 2019 he'd come to realize the substances he had once relied upon to foster creativity and open up his mind ultimately took more than they gave. "What happens with using is: It works in the beginning, but it doesn't work in the end," he mused. "It takes you down. There's nothing but jail, insanity, or death."

A 2009 Aerosmith concert in Sturgis, South Dakota, proved to be disastrous for Steven Tyler when he accidentally slipped and fell off the stage. Some in the audience didn't realize it was an accident, assuming it was part of the band's act. The extent of his injuries was unclear at the time, but they were apparently serious enough that he was airlifted to a nearby hospital.

As it turned out, Tyler's body took such a beating that the band was forced to cancel its summer tour. It was later revealed that he'd broken his left shoulder and required 20 stitches to close up a laceration on his head. Tyler's doctors ordered him off the road, insisting he needed to recover before returning to the stage. "Words can't express the sadness I feel for having to cancel this tour," guitarist Joe Perry said in a statement, as reported by The Washington Post. "I would like to thank our loyal fans for sticking by us through thick and thin and all the good energy they are sending our way." As the Post pointed out, Tyler's previous medical issues prior to his fall included a bout of pneumonia and muscle pain in his leg.

In 2006, Steven Tyler went public about some health woes that he'd been experiencing. During an interview with "Access Hollywood," he revealed that he had hepatitis C, a viral infection that can cause longterm liver damage. Tyler said he'd been diagnosed about three years earlier but had kept his condition under wraps. "I've been pretty quiet about this," he said, as reported by Today.com, divulging that he had been treated with chemotherapy. 

"I've had hepatitis C for a long time, asymptomatic. And I talked to my doctor ... and he said now is the time and it's 11 months of chemotherapy," Tyler added. "So I went on that and it about killed me."

However, the good news was that the chemo had done the trick, with Tyler believing that he'd beaten the disease. "It is nonexistent in my bloodstream as we speak, so it's one of those few miracles in doctoring where it's like a complete cure," he said. "It's gone."

Steven Tyler has had numerous romantic partners over the years but has only been married twice — with both unions ending in divorce court. He first tied the knot with Cyrinda Foxe in 1979, with the couple divorcing in 1987. "Sometimes I break down and cry my eyes out over him," Foxe wrote in her 1997 tell-all, "Dream On: Livin' on the Edge with Steven Tyler and Aerosmith," recalling being married to Tyler during his peak drug-use years. "And sometimes I'm so consumed with loathing that I think I'm going to burst ... I mean, he's said publicly that when he was on drugs, he would f*** a crack in the sidewalk. For nine years of my life, that was my husband." Foxe remarried in 2002, while she was in the final stages of terminal cancer; Tyler reportedly paid her medical bills during her last year.

In 2005, Tyler and his second wife, Teresa Barrick, announced they were splitting up. The exes share two children, Taj and Chelsea. Reports claimed it was Barrick, and not her rock star husband, who wound up ending the marriage, reportedly spending time with a contractor who'd been doing renovations on their Boston home. 

Tyler must have figured the third time would be the charm when he got engaged in 2011 to then-girlfriend Erin Brady (whom he'd been dating since 2006). They called it off two years later. 

After 20-plus years of being drug-free, Steven Tyler relapsed in 2008. He responded by checking himself into a California rehab facility — at the age of 60. This time, the issue was the painkillers he'd been prescribed after undergoing foot surgery.

He returned to rehab again in 2009. By all accounts, that stint in the Betty Ford Center ended better than his previous attempt, and Tyler reportedly remained sober for more than a decade. Sadly, that wouldn't be the last time he'd be seeking treatment for addiction.  

All of the work he'd done to become sober had given Tyler a circumspect view on the disease he'd been living with for so long. "What makes me an alcoholic is not how much I drank or how often I used, or who I did any of that with," the rocker told Haute Living. "It's what happens to me and who I become when I do, and I don't like that guy." 

The Aerosmith track "Livin' on the Edge" aptly described Steven Tyler's lifestyle until he began trying to get sober in the mid-1980s, with his first (but not last) trip to rehab. In 2011 — just a couple of years after his 2009 rehab stint — concerns mounted that he'd had another relapse after news emerged that he'd fallen in a hotel bathroom while touring in Paraguay. He reportedly landed right on his face, knocking out a few teeth. 

Interviewed for NBC's "Today," Tyler insisted that drugs had nothing to do with his fall. He attributed his accident to the effects of food poisoning, saying he had passed out in the shower due to "Montezuma's revenge." He quipped, "I took a walk with the Incas for 48 hours. I walked in looking like Baryshnikov, I walked out looking like Leon Spinks." Luckily, he was able to find a medical facility where he received stitches, underwent a little reparative plastic surgery, and got his teeth fixed, all in one fell swoop. "It was like one-stop shopping," he joked.

Tyler addressed fears that he'd relapsed, admitting he understood that it simply came with the territory given his history. "I get that people think that," he said. "It still bothers me a little, but it's something that I have to deal with for the rest of my life."

Among Steven Tyler's various medical issues is a painful condition called Morton's neuroma, with those afflicted describing a sharp pain in the ball of the foot, like stepping on a pebble. While the precise cause of the disorder isn't known, it's likely that ill-fitting shoes and decades of onstage dancing contributed, leaving Tyler's toes gnarled and twisted.

"My feet have been my best friend for the last 40 years. I've just been a dancing fool onstage, and after awhile you just kind of wear them out," he explained in an interview with Billboard. In fact, he revealed that it was his foot condition that was top of mind when he decided to join the judging panel on "American Idol," which has consistently weathered accusations of being fake.  "I took 'Idol' and I don't have to walk around on my poor, sore feet," he said, noting that he also relished the opportunity to share his opinions on the talent of aspiring singers.

He spent two seasons on the show before making an exit in 2012, and when it was all over he conceded that his experience on the show wasn't as great as he'd hoped — although the paycheck sure was. "It's not my cup of tea," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I loved it and hated it. It was a great job. I sat next to JLo and I made a ton of money." He also revealed another motivation to take the gig, beyond resting his feet: to escape the escalating intra-band animosity within Aerosmith. "It was something to do while the storm blew by, to be honest," Tyler added.

More than a decade after undergoing surgery on his feet, Steven Tyler required further surgery. This led to another relapse, this time in 2022. Then 74 years old, Tyler once again checked into rehab after becoming dependent on the medications prescribed to mitigate the post-surgery pain. 

The timing was highly inconvenient, given that Aerosmith — one of the many musical acts to understand what it's really like to have a Las Vegas residency — was set to return to Vegas for the band's ongoing "Deuces Are Wild" residency. Aerosmith issued a since-deleted statement via social media (as reported by CNN) announcing the June and July residency dates had been cancelled. "After foot surgery to prepare for the stage and the necessity of pain management during the process, he has recently relapsed and voluntarily entered a treatment program to concentrate on his health and recovery," the statement read.

Appearing on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, Tyler explained that he'd learned to recognize signs he was slipping into a relapse and knew it was best to act quickly. "And I don't want to push it again," he said. "Because when I get that way, my kids don't talk to me, I get a divorce, I'm thrown out of my own band ... I lose everything. I mean, it's happened enough times for me to finally realize, you know, it's not worth it."

With its members now septuagenarians, Aerosmith embarked on one final concert tour in September 2023, which was dubbed Peace Out: The Farewell Tour. Just three shows in, Steven Tyler suffered a rare and serious injury to his vocal cords. Upon medical examination, the damage proved to be far more serious than anticipated. "His doctor has confirmed that in addition to the damage to his vocal cords, he fractured his larynx which requires ongoing care," read a statement from the band posted on Facebook, revealing that the rest of the tour dates were being postponed until some undetermined date in 2024. 

A few months later, Tyler shared a health update while hosting a Grammys viewing party in February 2024. "My throat's been better, but it is on the mend," he told those attending, reported People. 

Tyler's daughter, Mia Tyler, told People that he was on the road to recovery, although he wasn't exactly the best patient. "He's not supposed to be talking sometimes, so I have to literally yell at him and be like, 'You can't be on the phone with me right now, let's just text,'" she said. That, however, simply leads him to dictate texts to his phone, defying the purpose of keeping silent and resting his voice. "You can't shut him up — he can't close that mouth," she joked.

By August of 2024, Steven Tyler had not bounced back from his throat injury to the extent that had been hoped. The news was not good when the band issued a statement via Instagram. Tyler's voice, the statement revealed, had not returned to full form. "He has spent months tirelessly working on getting his voice to where it was before his injury," the statement read. "We've seen him struggling despite having the best medical team by his side. Sadly, it is clear, that a full recovery from his vocal injury is not possible."

Not only was the postponed tour now cancelled entirely, but the band also dropped a bombshell. "We have made a heartbreaking and difficult, but necessary, decision — as a band of brothers — to retire from the touring stage," the statement continued.

The band's longtime producer, Jack Douglas, told the New York Post he anticipated the other members of Aerosmith continuing on in some fashion — but without Tyler and his distinctive voice, the band was essentially done. "There is no Aerosmith without Steven," said Douglas, who was hopeful that Tyler might one day recover. "So if Steven can sing," he added, "believe me, he'll want to be out there."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).