Josh Brolin Reveals in New Memoir That He Tried Acid at 13 And Once Got Stabbed Before Turning His Life Around (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Josh Brolin on his motorcycle; ‘From Under the Truck’ book cover.Photo:Josh Brolin/Instagram; Joey Feldman

Josh Brolin/Instagram; Joey Feldman

Josh Brolinhas a bright future ahead after a gritty past.

The actor, 56, gets candid in upcoming memoirFrom Under the Truckabout his experience with drugs and violence and spoke with PEOPLE about his journey for a story in this week’s print issue.

Brolin wrote that he was “stabbed in the belly button,” which ultimately saved his life. “The umbilical ligament is the densest ligament in the body and it slowed the knife down enough to stop it from hitting any vitals,” he wrote.

Joey Feldman

During the harrowing experience, the actor andhis wife Kathrynwaiting outside their hotel and the for an ambulance. After she brought him his phone, he called his ex wife Alice Adair – the mother of his two eldest kids – to tell her what happened. “I know what to do, but you’ll be fine,” she told him.

“She’ll talk to the kids about what I loved most about them, about what they meant to me, and how I know they’ll grow into a future that they can feel proud of, and not spiral into shame because of,” he wrote.

Now, Brolin lives a sober life after a 2013interaction with his 99-year-old grandmother.

Doug Inglish/Trunk Archive

As for his last drunken night, he recalled, “There was a hit and run at Del Taco” where he “woke up on the sidewalk.”

“I didn’t know where my car was, and it wasn’t that rare,” Brolin said. “That was just, you know, the 400th time that it happened.”

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However, that night, the Marvel alum was supposed to pick up his brother so that they could go visit his grandmother, who “was on her deathbed.” He continued, “Anyway, I woke up on the sidewalk, went inside. My brother called me. ‘Where are you?’ Picked him up, walked into that hospital eventually.”

Upon walking into the hospital room, he said his grandmother “picked her head up and looked at me and smiled and that was it.”

Josh Brolin and his two older kids, Eden and Trevor.Josh Brolin/Instagram

Josh Brolin/Instagram

It was that interaction that inspired him to change for the better. “I was done. I said, ‘If this woman could get through 99 years on life’s terms, how dare me?’ " Brolin explained. “I was 45 years old and I’d gotten away with a lot, been in jail nine times, done a little bit of whatever. So I thought, I wonder if I could do that half of life like that and then do this half of life like this. Then I get to live two lives and not just one.”

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While speaking with PEOPLE in an exclusive interview for this week’s print edition, Brolin reflected on his current life and long marriage to Kathryn, his wife of eight years.

Kathryn Brolin and their daughters Westlyn and Chapel.Josh Brolin/Instagram

“The only thing you can change is yourself,” he says of the lessons he’s learned about love. “And drinking probably doesn’t help the relationship if you reacted to alcohol like I did.”

Brolin, who isa father of four– Trevor Mansur, 36, and Eden, 29, whom he shares with Adair and daughters Westlyn Reign, 6, and Chapel Grace, 3, with Kathryn – says his current life “is more raw. More naked.”

“The fear is still there, but I just don’t care about it as much. That’s the beauty of age, man. I would not want to be in my 20s again,” he says. “I just have no interest in going backwards. As crazy as life makes me sometimes, and as frustrated as I get at myself, I’m really like, ‘What a gift.’ "

From Under the Truckcomes out Nov. 19 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

source: people.com