Gospel singer Marvin Sapp revealed in an exclusive interview with Page Six this week that he struggled with drugs and alcohol, claiming the habit developed when his parents divorced.
“I started smoking marijuana daily at the age of 12,” the gospel singer admitted. “I started drinking and popping pills at the age of sixteen, and at 18, I snorted my first line of cocaine.”
While living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Sapp hung out with people who also engaged in doing drugs and drinking, people who the singer claimed are still facing those struggles and more.
“One of my friends is an alcoholic now. One of my friends is still out on crack,” he told the outlet. “One of my friends is in prison for 27 years for second-degree murder, and another one of my friends died about 15 years (for having a kilo of drugs in his possession while arrested).”
Sapp’s mother was the reason he remained in church while engaging in illegal activities.
“I’ve always sung gospel music but [that was] because my mother made us go to church,” he declared. “But just because we went to church did not mean the church was in us.”
In 1992, Sapp married his childhood love and manager MaLinda Prince Sapp and the two had three children. Unfortunately, MaLinda died in 2010 from stage four colon cancer.
Since 1996, Sapp has been a well-known contemporary gospel singer, and now he has an upcoming movie called Never Would Have Made It: The Marvin Sapp Story, which will show his journey from a broken teen to an influential and God-loving Christian.
“Just because somebody goes to church does not make them perfect,” he expressed. “We are all flawed ins some shape, form or fashion. People need to see that because, for some strange reason, when they think of Marvin Sapp, people think I walk around with a halo, but they don’t know my story.”
Never Would Have Made It: The Marvin Sapp Story premieres on TV One on Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.
