Late actor Michael K. Williams was coming down from a three-day drug bender when he met Barack Obama during a 2008 campaign stop.
“The Wire” star — who died from an accidental overdose last September at 54 — made the startling admission in a memoir written prior to his passing. The tome, “Scenes From My Life,” is set to be published later this month.
In an excerpt obtained by Daily Mail, Williams recalls being invited to attend an event in Harrisburg, Virginia, by Obama — who has famously declared that “The Wire” is his favorite show.
However, when he arrived at the event, Williams was so high on cocaine that he had lockjaw and was unable to speak properly.
“I couldn’t even put my words together,” he writes in the memoir. “I was such a mess. Obama shook my hand and I could see it in his eyes. He was like: ‘I don’t got time for this.’ He kept it moving. I was not in my right mind. I told people I was nervous but actually I had lockjaw from too much cocaine.”
Williams in 2008, the same year he met Obama. “The Wire” star was struggling with serious drug addiction, despite garnering fame on the hit HBO show. FilmMagic
Obama in 2008. During his campaign run, the then-senator —whose favorite show is “The Wire” — invited Williams to an event in Virginia. Getty ImagesAt the time, Obama was the junior senator from Illinois and was making a run for president. Williams said he was so preoccupied with drugs that he was “clueless” as to who the politician was.
“I was embarrassed [about] how checked out I was about issues affecting my country,” he candidly confesses in the memoir.
The anecdote is one of many shared by the star in the candid new book, which explores his decades-long battle with drugs.
Williams developed a drug habit after his turbulent childhood in New York, which was punctuated by fights between his philandering father and his devout Christian mother.
He claims that, in one instance, his mother pulled a pistol on his father after he spent bill money on prostitutes.
Williams shot to global fame playing gay stick-up man Omar Little in “The Wire,” which ran from 2002 until 2008. Nicole Rivellli/HBO "The Wire"Williams heartbreakingly writes that he was left scarred as a young child after his mom told him that he had a “touch of evil and had disappointed God.”
“I took that into my heart,” the actor vulnerably explains. “And the older I got, the more that feeling of being unworthy grew.”
Williams claims his mom also beat him, writing that she “became the well for her anger and the target of her violence.”
At 18, he began experimenting with crack cocaine, saying of the drug: “Once crack came into my life, it just moved the f – – k in. Everything else took a backseat … The bell had been rung.”
Williams with Dominic West on “The Wire.” The series won fans across America, including Obama, who declared it his favorite TV show. HBOIn the book, the star also writes of an attack that occurred on his 25th birthday, which left him with a scar that ran down his forehead.
On the fateful night, Williams — by then a budding model and dancer — was slashed with a knife during a bar brawl. Recalling the violent incident, the star says that there was a “gigantic cavern of blood” and that it felt as if his “skull was on fire.”
However, he claims the scar — which became his trademark facial feature — allowed him to become “noticed” in the entertainment industry as it was a “look no one else had.”
Williams’ memoir will be published later this month. Elsewhere in the memoir, the actor writes about his rise to fame and his years on “The Wire,” where he played gay stick-up man Omar Little. Despite garnering critical and popular acclaim for the role, the star was never able to beat his battle with drugs.
Williams was found dead at his home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, last September. An autopsy revealed his death was caused by acute intoxication from a mix of fentanyl,
p-fluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine.
Four people were subsequently arrested by police, charged with selling the star lethal bags of fentanyl-laced heroin. They have all pleaded not guilty.
