“Rockstars in the seventies believed that cocaine was good for them,” begins music journalist Lesley-Ann Jones in a teaser for REELZ’s new docuseries Breaking the Band: The Eagles. “It did make them lose their inhibitions, it did give them more energy,”
“At that time in history, doctors, lawyers, Wall Street types, they were all doing it,” admits The Eagles funding member Don Henley in a throwback interview, with his mellow band going on to shocking new extremes in sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.
“Im not really ashamed of anything I mean we had an amazing journey and that was part of it,” explains The Eagles’ Joe Walsh, who joined the band in 1975 — just in time to top the charts with 1976’s “Hotel California” album.
As National Enquirer readers know, tension between the founding members of the ‘70s American rock band is ultimately what caused them to split after becoming one of the most beloved and renowned musical groups in the world.
Their “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” lifestyle, however, only worsened their issues, and created an environment of rage, envy and hostility behind closed doors.
“What cocaine will do is it will kind of amplify those parts of your personality that are the lowest, they’re the brashest — and in Glenn’s case,” says psychologist Dr. Linda Papadopoulos, “we already know that he’s very confident, that he’s very dictatorial. And you put him on amphetamines, and you just kind of pump that up even more.”
A former pal added: “Cocaine made Glenn very, very arrogant. It made him feel like the king of the world.”
“You’ve got people around him that maybe don’t trust him,” adds Papadopoulos,“and then that paranoia sets in so what you have is an amplification of every negative and difficult emotion within that band—it becomes sort of a perfect storm for the breakup that ultimately happens.”
“Breaking the Band: The Eagles” airs Sunday, July 15 at 10:00 ET / PT on REELZ.
