Corey Taylor has spoken candidly about the low point that pushed him to overhaul his life — a realization stark enough that it now takes three therapists, working in tandem, to help the Slipknot frontman rebuild.
Appearing on a recent episode of Mythical Kitchen‘s “Last Meals” podcast, Taylor described waking up to the damage he’d done to the people around him. “I woke up one day and realized that I wasn’t happy. I had hurt everyone that I loved. I’d hurt people I worked with,” he said (via Loudwire).
The 52-year-old traced the turning point to roughly three years ago, when he began taking a hard look at his relationships and his approach to his career. “I had taken so many things for granted and I stopped appreciating not just what I built, but the people who I had in my life,” Taylor said, pausing deliberately between his words. “And what I realized was that it had been coming on for years. It’d just been getting worse and worse until I realized that this person who I was, I hated.”
He now attributes much of that spiral to insecurity, and to a nagging sense that everything he’d achieved still wasn’t enough. In the years since, Taylor has leaned on professional help, coordinating treatment across three different therapists — a stretch he described as the “arduous process of building me back up.”
“It hasn’t been perfect,” he admitted. “It’s meant looking at a lot of the mistakes that I’ve made and doing my best to make amends for it.” Taylor didn’t spell out what those “mistakes” were, but he made clear his family was among those he needed to make things right with.
A big part of his progress, by his own account, comes down to his wife, Alicia Dove. “If it wasn’t for her, honestly, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. The couple married in October 2019, about six months after Taylor proposed, having gone public with their relationship the year before.
He credited her steadiness as something he’s been able to draw on in his own recovery. “She’s probably the first person in my life who’s loved me for me, didn’t ever want anything from me,” Taylor said. “She’s my inspiration in a lot of ways because she knows who she is and she knows without life, without family, what is success?”
The conversation was part of a wide-ranging, unusually reflective sit-down in which Taylor also touched on mortality, legacy and the contrast between the peace he’s found off stage and the fury he still channels during a Slipknot show. You can watch it down below.
