Foster's concerns were well founded. The following year was a period in which Downey continued to have problems with the law. Arrested three times in the summer of 1996, he was arrested for (among other things) possession of cocaine and heroin. The frequency of his arrests quickly eviscerated his reputation, causing former representatives to fear the worst. Loree Rodkin, his former manager, said People That summer, “Every day I look at the newspaper and I think I'm going to read Robert's obituary.”
In 1997, he was sentenced to six months in prison for violating his parole. (Meanwhile, he had made headlines a few more times, including being arrested on a narcotics charge after breaking into a neighbor's house and falling asleep in a child's room.) The judge who sentenced Downey to the six-month sentence was Mira, who, as you may recall, ruled a few years later that the actor go to prison. prison for three years. . Mira had seen Downey try and fail to change his life: back in 1997, he told downey, “I am going to imprison you, and I am going to imprison you in a way that will be very unpleasant for you. I don't care who you are. What matters to me is that there is a life to save from drugs.”
Downey also apologized then, saying, “I don't know why… the severity and the fear… of you, of death and not being able to live a drug-free life hasn't been enough to keep me from continually relapsing.” … again. “I really need to do this, even if I don’t want to, I need to.”
Getting out of prison early after the 1999 sentencing didn't help: He was arrested twice over the next year, leading to him being sent to a halfway house. (It had not been Downey's first such visit.) Around the same time, he won an Emmy after being cast in “Ally McBeal,” but said in 2003, “I'm probably not the best person to ask about that period. It was my lowest point in terms of addictions. “At that point, I didn’t give a damn if I would ever act again.” And yet, there were great performances: he's funny in “Bowfinger” and “Wonder Boys,” and there are those who think the 2003 cult classic “The Singing Detective” is the best thing he's ever done. .
But that was also the year he finally got serious about staying sober. His second wife, Susan, whom he met when she produced his film “Gothika,” gave him (in Downey's words) a “ultimatum,” which started him on the path to staying clean. In his interview with Winfrey, Downey admitted: “You think [overcoming addiction is] It's supposed to get more and more dramatic, it's not a movie. It's real life. In my case, I found myself in a situation last time and said, 'You know what? I don't think I can keep doing this.' And I asked for help and I moved on, you know? …It's really not that difficult to overcome these seemingly dire problems. …The difficult thing is to decide.”
