Rob Lowe has some perspective on what Taylor Swift is going through right now.
In the 1980s, he was so famous – and had so many fans trying to reach him by any means necessary – that he had to be driven to the set of St. Elmo’s Fire and back in a police car.
“It’s the kind of thing you look back on and think, ‘Did this really happen?’” Lowe, 60, said People for this week’s cover story. ‘The stories I have are crazy, they’re crazy.’
He said that Justin Bieber, Swift and Austin Butler are experiencing the same fame today, although it’s more intense for them.
Reflecting on Taylor’s current fame, the St. Elmo’s Fire star – who found it a “nightmare” acting with his son John Owen – said: “I look at that and it’s what I went through on a trillion steroids.”
Rob Lowe has some perspective on what Taylor Swift is going through right now
Lowe made his feature film debut at age 19 in 1983’s The Outsiders, followed by St. Elmo’s Fire.
Ultimately, the attention led the Parks And Recreation actor to check into rehab, and he’s now 34 years sober.
‘I felt intuitively enough at that time the gap between me, who I was, the work I was doing, that was revealing itself and that was causing this phenomenon, the hysteria.’
The turning point in the Youngblood star’s drinking history came in 1990, when he ignored his mother’s pleas after his grandfather suffered a heart attack.
‘I can still remember it like it was yesterday: my mother told me [on the answering machine] ‘pick up, pick up’ because my grandfather had a heart attack.
“I couldn’t deal with it in the state I was in. I had to go to sleep to wake up so I could deal with it,” he told People , immediately turning to tequila.
Who doesn’t keep a bottle? [Jose] Cuervo Gold next to their bedside table? That was the final wake-up call. I’ve been sober ever since.’
By that time, Lowe’s sex tape of a 16-year-old girl in Atlanta during the 1988 Democratic Party Convention had already been leaked, damaging his image and forcing him to perform 20 hours of community service.
In the ’80s, he was so famous — and had so many fans trying to reach him by any means necessary — that he had to be driven to the set of St. Elmo’s Fire and back in a police car, Swift pictured in Lisbon in 2024
“It’s the kind of stuff you look back on and think, ‘Did that really happen?’” Lowe, 60, told People for this week’s cover story. “The stories I have are crazy, they’re crazy”; seen here in 1985
He said the fame he experiences today is lived by Justin Bieber, Swift and Austin Butler, although it’s even more intense for them; photo from 1985
When reflecting on Taylor’s current fame, the St. Elmo’s Fire star said, “I look at it, and it’s what I went through on a gazillion steroids”; pictured at Spago in West Hollywood in 1985
Lowe made his feature film debut at age 19 in 1983’s The Outsiders and followed that up with St. Elmo’s Fire; pictured in May 2024
‘[The fallout] absolutely changed my life at the time and in retrospect I realized it was another step that led me to recovery and re-evaluated my life,’ he said People.
“But what really changed me was that I could no longer be there for my family and myself.”
And he realized that he couldn’t get sober because he had made a mistake. He had to do it because he was ready. And he was.
It was a relief, and it was scary, [but] “I learned the tools to change your life if you have the self-honesty to do it,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh, okay, I’m not alone. I’m not crazy.’”
