Today's Evil Beet Gossip

DJ AM Gives His First Interview After the Crash

We’ve got more details on the new interview AM did with People magazine, and it looks like it’s quite the doozy.

I’ve prayed every night for the past 10 years. There’s a lot more to thank God for now. My philosophy is ‘live life to the fullest,’ [and] I was saved for a reason,” he told the magazine. “Maybe I’m going to help someone else. I don’t question it. All I know is, I’m thankful I’m still here.”

He also said that while he’s grateful to be alive, he’s wrestled with guilt, knowing that four people didn’t survive the crash.

“My emotions go back and forth,” he said. “At the first hospital, I screamed, ‘Thank you!’ Then I wondered, ‘Why did I live?’ I can’t believe I made it. Any second, it can all be gone.”

AM (born Adam Goldstein) also gave People his harrowing account of the crash itself, saying that he had just taken off his shoes and fallen asleep when he “woke up to Travis screaming and the plane engulfed in flames.”

“I remember thinking it was like ‘Miami Vice,’ where a car is on fire and you run before the gas tank explodes — ‘We gotta get out of here!’ ” he said. “Travis jerked open the door and slid on his butt down a wing that was on fire. I tried to cover my face as I jumped through a fireball. As soon as I hit the ground, I remembered ‘stop, drop and roll,’ so I started rolling.

“I saw Travis running and flailing, trying to put out fire on his body. He screamed, ‘What do I do?’ and I said, ‘Roll!’ He did, but the fire didn’t go out,” AM continued. “He tried to rip his clothes off. I finally put the flames out by smothering him with my body. Some of my burns are from that. His sock was on fire — I burned my fingers taking it off.”

Goldstein was eventually transferred to the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta, Georgia, where he was “in and out of consciousness” receiving treatment on his burns. On September 26, he took a 40-hour bus ride from Georgia to California, where he entered the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital to undergo further treatment, including receiving skin grafts on his arm and neck.

“They shaved my head and took layers of skin from my scalp. To heal the wounds, I was in a hyperbaric chamber for 90 minutes twice daily for four days. It’s claustrophobic,” he told People. “One of my first nights home, I watched ‘Iron Man’ with friends. In the scene where Robert Downey Jr. comes out of the cave with a blowtorch, my whole body cringed. That night, I had a nightmare someone spilled fuel on me and was trying to light me on fire. I woke up and thought, ‘Oh my God, this is going to happen forever.’ ”

Goldstein said he’s considering seeing a therapist to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, but he’s started to recover mentally too, thanks to events like Tuesday night’s “Welcome Home DJ AM” party at Hollywood’s Avalon club and a high-profile gig DJing for Jay-Z at the Palladium, scheduled for Wednesday night. “I realize I have 1,000 friends who’ve been there for me. I am blessed,” he said.

And though he’s on the mend both physically and spiritually, he said there’s one thing that will never be the same again: travel.

“I’m looking forward to every part but traveling. For four years, I’ve flown to Vegas almost every weekend to DJ,” he told the magazine. “I think, ‘Will I drive? Maybe.’ I think I’ll fly again commercially, but never on a small plane. It’s too scary.”

Dude, Adam, when I lived in LA, I went to Vegas all the time, and I drove every. Single. Time. Why? Because flying is scary. The drive takes like three-and-a-half hours, dude. No sweat at all.

20 CommentsLeave a comment

  • Flying commercial is safer, but you better hope the in-flight movie’s not “Man On Fire”…

    I know…I know… I’m going straight to hell.

  • I love when people say God saved them for a reason.. that maybe they’re going to help somebody else or he has special plans for them. So God didn’t feel the need to save the other people on the plane because they obviously had nothing to give to society, right? I guess God didn’t think that the guy, whose wife just had a baby, didn’t need to be around for the kid. Raising children must not be a high priority to the Lord.

  • I have to agree with you, Klipper. It bugs me when people say that too for the very same arguements.

    This one acquaintence I knew bugged the shit outta me, because she’d always get drunk and leave her purse everywhere. She would say that she wasn’t worried because she had good karma. Like, only bad things happen to bad people, and good to good people? Ack.

  • klipper, survivors guilt is a very real phenomenon and sometimes people just need to have an explanation even a supernatural one.

  • Not exactly the same thing but I also think about that in sports. Like when a team wins & during the post interview the player will say I just wanna thank God because without him none of this…….
    I always think, God likes team A & not team B?
    (Although if that is true, He definatly DOESN’T like the Chiefs this year :-) )

  • I look at it like God was there for all of them. He was there for the people who died and he was there for the two that lived. God doesn’t pick favorites.

  • He gave me chills when talking about the actual events. Like smothering the flames on Travis with his own body.

  • It’s just nice to see someone in hollywood actually helping a friend in need. Most “starts” would have ran screaming for help, but he suffered burns to help save his friend

  • entertainment tonight showed pictures from this interview, both him while in the hospital and after the hospital…it was a side shot, but his face looks good, I didnt see any scars.

  • @TSS – rolling on the floor laughing my f***ing ass off at cattle ass. No offense catlass, you gotta admit that was too funny.

  • > survivors guilt is a very real phenomenon and sometimes people just need to have an explanation even a supernatural one.

    Yes, probably twice as much guilt when the two people that survived possibly fought other people to the exit. Seems a strange coincidence that the two “VIPS” made it out but no one else did.

  • “probably fought other people to the exit”

    yes DP. I am so sure they fought some of their closest friends to an exit. People who say ridiculous shit like that just to get a reaction are disgusting.

    OHHHHHMMMMMYYYGGGOOOOODDDD DP YOU ARE SO F*CKING EDGY!!! WOWOOWOOWWWOW. jesus christ, are you 15?

    i seriously think the vegas drive takes longer than that…. but then again, I was always coming from more southern california, so when we hit LA we were always killed by traffic.

  • Just what we need to be doing these days, sending idiots like Travis Barker and DJ AM around on private jets. The world is SO MUCH BETTER because of what they do. Please.