Geeks logo

Michael K. Williams | The Man, His Life, His Addiction

understanding his addicition and overdose.

By Randell GreshamPublished 2 years ago 10 min read
Like

Michael K. Williams who was best known for his role as Omar Little on 'The Wire’ died on September 6, 2021.

The New York Post and TMZ originally reported his death as a drug overdose due to drug paraphernalia found close to where he died. This was later confirmed by the New York City Chief Medical Examiner who announced that Williams died of acute intoxication by the combined effects of fentanyl, p-floral fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine. He was laid to rest on September 14th at the age of only 54.

He is survived by an adult son named Elijah

He started his career as a dancer and worked with the likes of George Michael and Madonna. However, he credited the scar that he received on his face as the reason for his career change. He received that scar on the day before his 25th birthday when he intervened when he saw a group of people jumping on one of his friends.

He was encouraged to switch to acting by rapper Tupac who he starred in the movie 'Bullet' with. After 'Bullet,' he went on to get bit parts in tv shows such as 'The Sopranos' and in 1999's Martin Scorsese film 'Bringing Out the Dead' but it wasn't until his portrayal as Omar, a gay shotgun-toting, hood Robin Hood who stole from dealers to give to the poor in 2002’s 'The Wire' that he got his big break.

Omar was often cited as one of the most original and memorable characters of all tv history and he was even Barack Obama's favorite character on 'The Wire' and often cited him as the reason he loved the show.

While Williams was known to play tough characters his personality was the exact opposite. He initially couldn't even relate to characters such as Omar so he based the personalities of these characters off of members of his community. He even once said that he could never be Omar because he didn't have the balls that dude had. Recently, when he was talking about his most recent film 'Body Brokers,' he admitted that acting in that film made him sick to his stomach.

His own community members called him the "prophet of the projects" because he dedicated his resources and time to ensure that the youth of his community would be successful and aspire to dream big. He would also help raise money and help youth in the community get summer jobs, help people in his community register to vote, and he also helped create "We Build the Block" in 2018 which was created to change the community narrative by getting the younger generations politically engaged.

He was also recruited by the American Civil Liberties Union as an ambassador for ending mass incarceration. He was quoted as saying "My goal is to end mass incarceration and to have more dialogue about how we can stop the government filling up jails with low-level, non-violent drug offenders and people with mental illnesses or addictions. Those are health issues, not criminal ones."

His true passion was for helping others, even saying at an event for former prisoners seeking to re-enter society “This Hollywood thing that you see me in, I’m passing through. Because I believe this is where my passion, my purpose is supposed to be.”

He was always open about his addiction and he wanted to use that as a way to help others. His childhood was surrounded by drugs and violence and by the age of nineteen he had developed a substance use problem and he cycled through treatment and relapses.

When asked by Men's Health why he started using he replied with "Pain. In a word, a lot of pain. A lot of trauma early on that, I didn't have the proper tools to deal with. My mom was very strict. The beatings were very severe growing up. She was determined to not have her two sons run amok."

He went on to say "It wasn’t an easy childhood, being sensitive. I’m not alpha, in any sense the word of the title. And so I got picked on a lot. It plagued me, especially during my teenage years. It was one of the things that led me to attempt suicide. I was 17. I was lost. I was very awkward with the ladies. Drugs were there. And I was already self-medicating. And I just got lost. I just remember feeling like, 'Eh, maybe the world will be better off without me.' And I took a bottle of pills, woke up to my stomach being pumped."

There was also the fact that as a young boy he was also sexually molested.

His addiction continued even as he played Omar, he struggled to shake the grave psyche of the character and it made it worse when people on the street called him Omar. So therefore the lines between himself and his character became blurred and he ended up turning to cocaine.

His habit got so bad that he couldn't pay rent and he was kicked out of his apartment. After he got kicked out he would live out of hotels or out of a single suitcase and he often spent the night on a drug house floor. He would also show up for filming 'The Wire' while high but the show's producers didn't dare let him go as creator David Simon explained; "We were worried that if he lost the work he would become untethered."

Williams once told NJ.com that he wasted his earnings from 'The Wire' on drugs and that he was doing drugs in scary places with scary people and that he was playing with fire but he did limit himself to pot and cocaine but never anything stronger.

He got tired of his drug use and he hated lying to his family, friends, and colleagues, he even said "It was just a matter of time before I got caught and my business ended up on the cover of a tabloid or I went to jail or, worse, I ended up dead. When I look back on it now, I don't know how I didn't end up in a body bag. Eventually, I got so sick and tired of this charade. No one who was in my circle, who knew me as Mike, was allowing me to get high. I had to slip away to do drugs. I had to hide it." He was also quoted as saying “I was broke, broken and beat up. Exhausted. Empty, I finally said, ‘I can’t do this no more.’ I didn’t want to end up dead.”

He credited Reverend Ronald Christian for helping him get clean; he was able to talk to him and he was the first person he could confide in entirely even though he didn't really know him. Although he did get clean he told The Times "Addiction doesn't go away. It's an everyday struggle for me, but I'm fighting."

In February of 2021 he spoke on the WTF Podcast and said the following; "You know, relapse to me is part of my story and, you know, but I’m living good today, you know. All’s we got is today.”

He went on to say; “Being sober doesn’t take away the craziness.”

He also said, "Well I assume that sometimes people think that drugs are the problem drugs are the symptom of the problem. You know, we you know, once we put the drugs down that's when the work begins. We got to clean up this house all this garbage right and so because it manifests in other ways in our life poor decision making you know and poor characteristic traits right and yeah."

He also said "It's not all roses and once you put the drug down it's happily ever after life is going to be great no there's a lot of stinking thinking that we need to get rid of and bad bad habits and bad thought processes."

The darkness of his characters often brought back painful memories because he used those as a way to fuel his characters, this could possibly be one of the reasons he relapsed.

He did put a support team together and when Deadline asked him how he coped with the darkness of his characters he replied with "I have strategies that I go to. Number one I keep a very good solid team of people around me when I'm doing these dark roles. I call them my lasso. Tie a little lasso around my ankle and they're keeping me up. Now I practice new strategies for how to arrive at characters. I'm keeping good healthy-minded people around and just protecting myself. Being responsible.

He even went as far as seeking therapy after filming 'Lovecraft Country,' telling 'The Tamron Hall Show.' "I just started therapy, you know, and really taking that seriously and starting to unpack, like you said, the critic in my head and how that has affected my actions, my responses to certain situations, my relationships. It was a very new process for me."

On Saturday, September 4th Williams was supposed to show up at an event but he never did. Then on Monday, September 6th his nephew went to his Brooklyn apartment to check on him and found him face down and unresponsive in the dining room.

As already stated, his death was due to fentanyl, p-floral fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine in his system. It's not determined whether or not those drugs were taken together or separately or even if he used them knowingly or unknowingly.

I'm not sure if anyone knows when he relapsed or even why he relapsed but even weeks before his death he looked great and was all smiles, as seen in the following image.

To be honest when I saw the amount of news coverage his death was getting I was a bit upset. A lot of that was due to the fact that 93,331 people died from drug overdoses in 2020 and I hardly ever find coverage on that. Then I was reminded that his death is just a tragic reminder of how common and preventable overdose deaths are in the United States. Which has been worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially among black individuals.

His death was a tragic reminder of other things as well.

Firstly relapses happen and can happen to anyone at any time. We don't know what caused his or when it happened, we just know it happened and it had a tragic ending. Secondly, it's a reminder of how dangerous fentanyl is. While we don't know if he took it intentionally or not, many dealers and suppliers are now increasing their supply of heroin and other substances, including fake prescription pills, with fentanyl because it's cheaper to produce. This makes the substances extremely toxic because many have never used fentanyl before and they won't have a tolerance for it, increasing their chance of overdosing and dying.

His death is also another great reminder of how wrong the stigma surrounding substance use disorder is. He was proof that most people suffering from substance use disorder are not terrible people. He was loved by his community and he worked his butt off to help them and other communities out. It seems as though he worked very hard on staying sober too but his traumatized past made it harder for him to leave the substances that helped him forget or to help push down the pain from all this trauma he had as a kid and growing up. His death was tragic and he's going to be missed.

-

If you were a fan of Michael K. Williams and enjoyed this article, please consider hitting the heart, subscribing to read my future articles, and leaving a tip, all of which would be greatly appreciated. If you know anyone that would find the information in this article valuable, please share it with them. Thanks so much for reading.

celebrities
Like

About the Creator

Randell Gresham

I am a father and a husband that is working to better himself. I am currently working as a manager at a fast food restraunt but working towards my real estate licence to make a better life for my family and to help others.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.