DMC is speaking candidly about his journey with depression and alcoholism in a new interview with Will Smith’s Class of ‘88 podcast.

Joined by his Run-DMC partner Rev Run, DMC revealed the pressure began when the Queens trio was evolving into the New Jack Swing era of the late 1980s.

“[The late Jam Master Jay] got me wearing a green, yellow, purple, and green suit doing the running man,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with Jay bringing New Jack Swing into Run-DMC. It just wasn’t for me, but I did it anyway, not realizing it was going to affect me mentally later.”

This had DMC drinking beer during the day and hard liquor at night. This then led to him having vocal spasms and, subsequently, needing surgery. When that didn’t work, it had him contemplating something unspeakable.

“After nothing worked, now I’m thinking of killing myself,” he said. “Because I’m thinking, I can’t do the thing that I was put here to do. So I don’t want to disappoint Run and Jay, I don’t want to go tell them I can’t do this no more, so let me just kill myself. My life ended, so I thought, when the Run-DMC thing quieted down and I lost myself. So now, I’m really gonna kill myself. I have to kill myself.”

Thankfully, suicide never happened, as DMC was able to get sober and perform again. Listen to the full podcast episode here.