gospel artist Marvin SAP has an upcoming movie, Never Would Have It: The Marvin Sapp Story, premiering this weekend on TV One on August 21 at 9pm ET.
While doing press for the film, which is based on his life, he admitted to Page Six that although he grew up in the church and was involved with gospel music, he was addicted to drugs and alcohol for several years.
“After my mom and dad got divorced, I started smoking marijuana every day when I was 12,” he says.
“I started drinking and taking pills at age 16 and snorted my first line of cocaine at 18.”
Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he said he rebelled as a teenager going through “big fights.” He even commented on five friends he grew up with who also experimented with drugs and alcohol and where they are today.
“One of my friends is now an alcoholic; One of my friends is still on crack,” he said. A friend of mine has been in prison for 27 years for second degree murder and another friend of mine died about 15 years ago [ago] because he was a pound [of drugs on him when he was arrested].”
Sapp details going to church, but not necessarily belonging to the church or what it stood for.
“But I’ve always sung gospel music [that was] because my mom let us go to church,” he said.
“But just because we went to church didn’t mean the church was in us.”
The film Never would have made it: The Marvin Sapp Story debuts on TV One this weekend. He said he wanted the film to “show that just because you go to church, you’re not perfect. We are all flawed in some shape, form or fashion. People need to see this because for some weird reason, when people think of Marvin Sapp, they think I walk around with a halo, but they don’t know my story.”