John Mayer Says the Last Time He Drank Was at Drake’s 30th Birthday Party

In Complex’s November 2018 cover story, John Mayer and Jerry Lorenzo discussed their decision to quit drinking, with both agreeing that it helped their creative side flourish.

Mayer, who recently celebrated his second year of sobriety, shared the story of the last time he drank (“I made quite a fool of myself”), which happened to take place at Drake’s 30th birthday party.

“I was doing a show with Dave Chappelle, and Drake was in the audience. Drake came up, we said hello. And I hadn’t seen him since his birthday,” he recalled. “He reminded me—well, he didn’t really remind me, he told me for the first time ’cause I was pretty far gone, it was the last night I had ever had a drink—that when I said goodbye to him, and was about to leave the club and go into the street, I put my arms out in front of him and I said, ‘Remember me, and remember this,’ and just walked out. Apparently it was like, what did he just say?”

Mayer added, “Chappelle lost it, that [I] would have said that. And I have confirmation from someone else standing next to him that ultimately, I wasn’t so bad that night. I found out it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Apparently held it mostly together.” 

Following the incident, Mayer said he had an internal chat with himself about it, and decided to make a change. “I was in my sixth day of the hangover. That’s how big the hangover was. I looked out the window and I went, ‘OK, John, what percentage of your potential would you like to have? Because if you say you’d like 60, and you’d like to spend the other 40 having fun, that’s fine. But what percentage of what is available to you would you like to make happen? There’s no wrong answer. What is it?’ I went, ‘100.’”

Check out our full cover story with John Mayer and Jerry Lorenzo here.