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Bruce Springsteen Book Bombshells: The Boss Details Divorce, Depression, And Daddy Issues

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 03:11 PST, Sep 21, 2016

Bruce Springsteen’s long-awaited memoir, Born to Run, is under strict embargo until its publication date next week, but some tidbits have managed to leak out. The 67-year-old New Jersey-born singer is doing a lot of press about the book ahead of its release. In addition to a sit-down interview with CBS This Morning, Springsteen posted a video of himself reading passages from his book on his Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/brucespringsteen/videos/10154308925425250/

According to the New York Times, in the 508-page manifesto that was seven years in the making, Springsteen reveals that he grew up in a very poor home and that his father, Doug, a blue collar worker and sometime bus driver, was frequently unemployed. The Springsteen home had no telephone and the family meals were cooked on a coal stove. No, this is not Little House on the Prairie in the 1800s, its Freehold, New Jersey, in the 1950s.

In the book, Bruce also admits he didn’t get his driver’s license until he was well into his 20s (maybe that’s why he was “born to run”), and he often hitched rides with strangers.

Of course, one of the biggest bombshells is Springsteen’s detailed description of his long battle with depression. The classic rocker, beloved by millions, has had some bad episodes, even in recent years, and has relied on drugs like Klonopin to get him through the dark spots.

Springsteen recalls that the preppie kids in his hometown didn’t like him, and at some of his early shows he was greeted with spit from the preps in the front row.

“I could still feel the shadow of that spit that hit me long ago when I moved to Rumson in 1983, 16 years later. At 33 years old, I still had to take a big gulp of air before walking through the door of my new home.”

The Times also reveals that Bruce wrote about his past girlfriends, including one who gave him a case of the crabs, which were unfortunately passed on to his strict father after he used the same toilet seat as Bruce.

While Springsteen does dish the name of the first girl he kissed, he keeps the name of the inspiration behind his song “Rosalita” a secret. Bruce writes that he “believes” this girl was his first successful sexual conquest, but adds, “due to the fog of war, I can’t be absolutely sure.”

Springsteen even had a fling with a groupie, who remains nameless, but was known to carry on with “a few grade-B-level rock stars.”

According to the Guardian, Springsteen also reflects on his failed, short-lived marriage to actress Julianne Phillips, which ended in the late-1980s when he had an affair with E Street Band singer Patti Scialfa. Bruce admits that he regrets how he handles his failing marriage.

“I dealt with it abysmally,” Springsteen writes of his split from Phillips.

Springsteen also spends a lot of time writing about daddy issues—his own and those of his father. In the book, he makes it clear that his three kids with Scialfa — Evan, Jessica, and Sam — were clueless about his high-profile career when they were little.

“My kids didn’t know ‘Badlands’ from matzo ball soup,” Springsteen writes. “When I was approached on the street for autographs, I’d explain to them that in my job I was Barney (the then-famous purple dinosaur) for adults.”

Indeed, Bruce and his kids have had many light-hearted moments, like when they taunted him about his not-so-smooth dance moves with future Friends star Courteney Cox in the 1984 “Dancing with the Dark” video.

But life with his own father was another story. According to the Washington Post, Bruce Springsteen reveals that when he was a child his father would sit in the dark and drink a “sacred six-pack” every night before calling him into the room.

“It was always the same,” Bruce writes. “A few moments of feigned parental concern for my well-being followed by the real deal: the hostility and raw anger toward his son.”

Springsteen said he finally made peace with his father in 1990, right before his son, Evan, was born. Over morning beers, Doug Springsteen admitted to his son that he hadn’t been a good father to him, saying “Bruce, you’ve been very good to us … And I wasn’t very good to you.”

“That was it,” Springsteen writes. “It was all that I needed, all that was necessary.”

As for his own battle with depression, Springsteen credits his wife for keeping it all together.

“During these periods I can be cruel: I run, I dissemble, I dodge, I weave, I disappear, I return, I rarely apologize, and all the while Patti holds down the fort as I’m trying to burn it down … Patti will observe a freight train bearing down, loaded with nitroglycerin and running quickly out of track … she gets me to the doctors and says, ‘This man needs a pill.’ “

Vanity Fair posted more excerpts from Bruce’s book in which he admits that he struggled with serious bouts with depression as recently as three years ago.

“I was crushed between sixty and sixty-two, good for a year and out again from sixty-three to sixty-four,” Bruce wrote. “Not a good record.”

In the interview with CBS News, Springsteen explained how depression has engulfed him.

“It lasted for a long time — it would last for a year and then it would slip away,” Bruce said. “Then it would come back for a year-and-a-half.”

“It sneaks up on you. It’s like this thing that engulfs you. I got to where I didn’t want to get out of bed, you know? And you’re not behaving well at home and you’re tough on everybody. Hopefully not the kids. I always try to hide it from the kids. But you know, Patti really had to work with me through it.“

Amazingly, Bruce Springsteen has managed to remain productive in his career even while going through the dark periods. And for the past seven years, he documented his tumultuous journey as well.

You can see Bruce Springsteen’s interview with CBS in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpOSRY2olDk

Bruce Springsteen’s book, Born to Run, will be available in bookstores on Sept. 27.

[Featured Image by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science]

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