“I Lost Everything”: Mark Hoppus Admits He Had Suicidal Thoughts Following Blink-182’s Breakup

Created from the skate punk scene in Southern California, Blink-182 rose to the forefront of alternative rock thanks to Travis Barker, Tom DeLonge, and Mark Hoppus. Releasing their debut album Cheshire Cat in 1995, the band took over the airwaves thanks to songs like “What’s My Age Again?” and “All the Small Things.” Although climbing the ranks of the music industry, the band shocked fans when they decided to break up in 2005. Having loved what they produced on and off the stage, Hoppus recently wrote about his struggle with suicidal thoughts at the time. 

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While two decades passed since Blink-182 broke up, Hoppus never forgot how the moment made him feel. In his new memoir, Fahrenheit-182, the musician explained where it all went wrong. Apparently, DeLonge wanted to take a year off just as the band watched their fanbase explode. Not wanting to lose that momentum, Hoppus and Barker urged him to continue. But with tensions hitting a boiling point, DeLong quit the band. He even changed his phone number to keep his distance. 

Looking at his memoir, Hoppus took a trip back to that moment, writing, “When Blink fell apart, I lost everything. I lost my direction, I lost my confidence, I lost my sense of self. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or who I was supposed to be. I’d hear one of our songs playing in a store and have to walk out.”

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Mark Hoppus Sought Help With His Suicidal Thoughts

With Hoppus not knowing how to handle the moment, he quickly found himself falling into a dark place. “I sank lower and lower. I could tell I was near the bottom when I started finding comfort in the thought of suicide: If it gets bad enough, I can always just kill myself. ” He continued, “I started talking to a psychiatrist who put me on medications, which helped a lot. It let me take a breath. It allowed me the space in my own head to say, ‘You’re being a dick, Mark. Knock it off.’”

Finding the right tools to cope with the breakup, Hoppus leaned on those same techniques when he battled stage 4 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Undergoing chemotherapy treatment to fight the cancer, the musician was thrilled to announce he was cancer-free that same year. 

While Blink-182 eventually came together once again, the band released their ninth studio album in 2023 with One More Time. 

(Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s)