Moby’s global success made him the "worst version" of himself.
The 52-year-old musician hit the big time with his 1999 album ‘Play’ – which sold over 10 million copies and have every track licensed to films, TV shows and adverts – and he has admitted the attention he received made him "insane" while he indulged in a lot of "depraved" behaviour.
He told Mojo magazine: "A lot of degeneracy, depravity, hedonism, sybaritic behaviour came after that…
"I had a lot of insecurity and in the course of just a few months, you had everyone in the world celebrating you like you’re some demi-god.
"Every woman you’ve ever longed for is suddenly in love with you.
"It didn’t just make me insane, it made me the worst version of myself that I could be.
"I became entitled but also anxious, my alcoholism went out of control, but so id my self-loathing. It sort of rearranges your neutral architecture – wonderful when it’s happening but when it starts to go away, that’s when you really start to lose your mind."
The ‘Porcelain’ hitmaker admitted there were a lot of "unnecessary" releases connected with the album, but he didn’t want his success to end.
He said: "We mined the album to the point where there was nothing left. The last real single was a version of ‘Honey’ with Kelis and Pharrell.
"’Play’ had been out for two years and I remember thinking, ‘This is just unnecessary’. But I wanted that success to go on forever.
"I wanted to stay drunk and promiscuous ad surrounded by sycophants."
And after reaching the peak of success, Moby admitted he then had a seven-year downward spiral behind closed doors.
He said: "The next seven years was a downward spiral of entitlement and bitterness and belligerence… it didn’t happen in public much, it happened on tour buses at four in the morning or in my apartment after 15 drinks and $300 worth of cocaine.
"For a while it did bother me, that nothing I did after that had the same level of success and to my shame there was a time in the 2000s when I desperately wanted to claw my way back to the success I’d had with ‘Play’."
Moby’s global success made him the ‘worst version’ of himself
