Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong Reveals Rehab Was Discussed Prior to Las Vegas Meltdown

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong gave his first interview since finishing rehab in the new Rolling Stone magazine on stands today, and in it he reveals that his troubles preceded his blow-up in Las Vegas at the iHeartRadio festival, which proved to be the final straw.

Armstrong reveals, "There was an incident in England. We were playing some shows in Europe. I was at my pill-taking height at that time, medicating the s--- out of myself because I couldn't sleep. We went to Japan, we went to England, we were zigzagging everywhere. One night, I called a friend of mine who was in the hotel room next door. I said, 'Come over, have some coffee.' It's 7 a.m. I'm like, 'I just took all of this stuff, I can't sleep.'"

The frontman says he thought nothing of it at the time, but soon afterward he received a text from his manager stating that they needed to talk about the Reading Festival. Armstrong recalls, "I went down there, he was sitting there, and he goes, 'We're getting on a plane. We're canceling the rest of this tour, and you're going into rehab.' I was like, 'What? What the f--- are you talking about? I'm not going to do that.'"

Armstrong says eventually a plan was laid out for his admittance to rehab. "We talked about it later. We got to this theater gig we were playing in London. I said, 'I don't want to cancel these gigs. It just can't happen. Tell you what. As soon as we get home, when we're done with the press and this stuff, after iHeartRadio, the week following I'll go to rehab. But I can't cancel any of this s--- now.' It turned out I was a week ahead of schedule."

The Billie Joe Armstrong full interview can be seen in this week's Rolling Stone magazine, arriving at newsstands today.