Rob Lowe says threesome sex tape leak ‘changed my life,’ led to him getting sober

Rob Lowe credits the fallout of his notorious sex tape being leaked with helping him get sober.

The “St. Elmo’s Fire” actor, 60, said in a new interview with People that the 1988 scandal, while humiliating for him at the time, was actually a major reason he beat his struggles with addiction.

“[The fallout] definitely changed my life at the time, and, in hindsight, I realized it was another step that led me to recovery and reevaluating my life,” he said.

“But the thing that really changed me was not being able to show up for my family and myself,” Lowe added.

The former Brat Pack member was just 24 years old when he was caught in a rendezvous with two women, one aged 22 and the other just 16.

Lowe shot to fame in the 1980s and began drinking as teen, entering into a life of hard-partying to cope with his success at the time that the sex tape was leaked.

During an interview on SiriusXM’s “The Jess Cagle Show” in 2019, Lowe quipped that he “invented” the sex tape, before admitting that that scandal helped him get sober.

“It’s one of the reasons why I got sober. I woke up one day and I was like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ ‘ he said. “I’m 29 years in and like people talk, but it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Honestly, I do because it got me sober, sober got me married.”

“I’ve been married 29 years and I have two great sons,” he added. “I don’t think any of that happens without going through that scandal.”

Last year, Lowe’s son, John Owen Lowe, 29, revealed he was in high school when he learned about his dad’s sex tape.

“I was in eighth grade or freshman year of high school, and some kid said, ‘You know, your dad has a sex tape online,’” John told Men’s Health. “I was like, ‘What?’”

He said the “Parks and Recreation” star and his mother, Sheryl Berkoff, never spoke to him and his older brother Matthew, 31, about the explicit recording.

“I don’t think most parents ever have that moment where they sit the kids down and go, ‘OK, we’ve got to tell you something.’ A kid just figures it out,” said John. “There weren’t milestone markers, like, ‘OK, he’s 16 now, time for them to learn about this part of our life!’”

In 1990, Lowe quit drinking and sought help from a rehab program. He’s been sober ever since.

“Getting sober was an incremental decision,” he said in his PEOPLE interview. “It’s baby steps until you’re ready. You can’t do it until you’re really ready.”

Lowe added, “I didn’t have any doubts [and] I wasn’t like, well, maybe I’ll be sober for a little bit. I always tell people: you can’t get sober… I don’t care if it’s fentanyl, booze, drugs, coke, pot, gambling, overeating, sex addiction, whatever, you cannot stop for your job, your wife, your family, your parole officer, because you screwed something up.”

The “West Wing” alum said that going to rehab was “relieving” and “scary,” but when he was there he “learned the tools to change your life if you have the self-honesty to do it,”