Timbaland Says He Was Taking Up to 160 Milligrams of Oxycontin a Day at the Height of His Addiction
· Thought Catalog
Updated 4 minutes ago, September 29, 2026
Timbaland has said his OxyContin use reached as much as 160 milligrams a day at the height of his addiction. In a recent interview with B High ATL, the producer recalled that his then-wife saw him stop breathing in his sleep during that period. He said he hadn’t understood at the time how much danger he was in.
The 160-milligram figure came from a 2023 appearance on “Club Shay Shay,” where he said his use began with Vicodin before escalating to OxyContin. In a 2017 Rolling Stone interview, Timbaland, whose real name is Timothy Mosley, said he’d started taking pain medication in his 30s for nerve problems linked to a gunshot wound he suffered as a teenager. His use grew, he said, amid depression, a decline in chart success and the breakdown of his marriage.
In the B High ATL interview, he spoke about his addiction alongside his divorce and the death of his friend Chris Cornell. “I ain’t never think about suicide, but then I said, you know what? I was committing suicide every day,” he said. He credited his faith with helping him survive.
Timbaland has said Jay-Z and Drake tried to reason with him during that period. He later told “The Pivot” that he was using drugs while working on Justin Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience,” Jay-Z’s “Magna Carta Holy Grail” and Beyoncé’s “Drunk in Love,” though he believes his best work came when he was sober. He’s said his children and a desire to change his life helped push him to stop taking the pills.
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