Taken from JRE #1886 w/Robert Kelly:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2DQToy0eqU1FhXwC35ssPl?si=10f30a352fa94ec9

I saw the 1 with you and Louis and Joe and you were like Bobby ate himself into a shape.

Well, when I first met you, you were young and thin and good looking.

I was gorgeous, but I remember I've met you twice.

I met you at UFC 100 And you came out of the back you went you look you looked at me go.

I Was like, hey Joe No, it's been it's it's been an addiction for me Since I was a kid was my first addiction when I was a kid was food.

It was, you know, I remember when my mom, I had an abusive stepdad for a while, 5 years.

And I remember I found food, like I would wake up in the morning and say goodbye to my mom in sixth grade, go out the front door, go around the back, crawl into the basement, and in the corner of the basement I had a little pillow and a blanket and I would just sit there all day and I would eat.

So you'd pretend you were going to school?

I'd pretend I was going to school because I was just so afraid.

I had no friends, I had nobody, and I was in a major depression.

And I would sleep in the basement, and I remember I would just eat food, like, you know, Suzy Q's and Ring Dings, and it just made me feel almost like a friend, you know?

And I remember I got real big, and then my sixth grade teacher, actually, Mr.

It was like all of a sudden I he became my dad you know, he kind of took me under his wing and We were at the Olympics remember the the sixth grade Olympics and it was just horse shit thing But I remember to do the 440 all the way around the track And I maybe come up to goes Kelly you got a win.

I want you to win and I remember I was like I win now fucking I just I just wanted somebody to fucking believe in me You know what I mean?

Yeah, and I remember I was racing against this skinny black kid Fastest lightning and I remember we run in and I fucking won.

I remember I beat him everything I had and I won And I just felt fantastic started jogging.

I started doing marathons But you know, then I got into drugs after that I found drugs in Very shortly after that in seventh grade and then I of course went to you know Jail, what do you go?

I think I went to jail the first time at 13.

Unarmed robbery, assault and battery, malicious destruction, trespassing, and breaking probation.

I robbed a canteen truck of Cigarettes and fucking I think Twinkies Wow So I got on probation for that and then yeah, it was terrible the first I remember that we went my jail at 13 yeah, my my bail was I think 10 bucks and my mother didn't pay it.

Because the judge said, she said, what do I do?

And he was like, let him go through the system.

Yeah, it was bad, because I remember I was in the jail cell, Somerville Courthouse.

The regular prisoners in the juvie stay downstairs.

So I had my own jail cell and I remember I was looking at it like pay the fucking money Because all my friends moms paid.

Oh And they got out they got out and I went they take you downstairs And she came down and I just I walked up to her and I was just crying and she was like Bobby she's crying I'm so sorry.

I you know blah blah and I just turned around and started doing push-ups and Then they came and got me and they throw you in the van, the regular prisoners would be in the back of the van and the juvies are in the front, behind the drivers on a bench.

I just remember the real prisoners just, you hey, little bitch, you know, just I was shitting my pants.

And they take you up to Danvers State Hospital.

Danvers State gave, there's a, the morgue, they gave to the detention, the juvenile detention.

So you go up there, it's called intake, and you get up there and there's a bunch of other kids.

They strip search you and you gotta get naked and do jumping jacks.

I'm 13, you gotta bend over, it was embarrassing, it was terrible.

You go into this room, and there's all these other kids, of all nationalities, just in this room, watching this 1 TV.

I remember they came in with a box of deli sandwiches and chocolate milk.

You grab a sandwich and they had these purple onions on top, these wet onions, because I think they were old sandwiches that they would donate to the Juvies.

And they all took them and threw it on the ceiling.

It was just years of onions Fucking Terrifying and then the kid comes up.

He's like, hey man when you they call you out ask him where you going And if they don't tell you it's somewhere bad if they tell you it's somewhere good.

So like Kelly I went out They start shackling me and they handcuffed me and I'm like, where am I going?

And he just looked at me and he shook his head and they shackled me to 2 other 18 year olds I was 13 and they took me to the Charlestown Y.

So the Charlestown Y, the bottom floor was the Y, but the top floor was a juvenile lockup.

So you had to go through the gym, go upstairs, And they take you into this room and they again, I got strip searched.

You go and then you have to take a shower.

And I'm showering with these 18 year olds next to me.

That night, they some kid got a pencil in his eye from another kid.

And then you go into this room with just bunk beds, steel bunk beds filled in the room.

And the highway, I don't remember, the Charlestown Y, the highway with 93 was right there.

So it's just cars like as close as me and you were just whipping by on the highway all night long and Yeah, I went to jail and they from there you just go to another jail another jail I think it was till I was 15, I was going in and out of juvie jails and foster homes.

For, for, because once you're in, you're in.

So if your mom had just paid that 10 bucks, you would have never been in jail?

And you know, there's that thing where it's like, I don't know if you've heard that thing where, you know, you don't know, is it good or bad?

You don't know if something's good or bad yet.

You know, you think something's terrible, right?

It feels like shit and it felt like shit.

But if she didn't do that, I wouldn't have got sober.

They shipped me back to Boston because I was a ward of the state you're owned by, Massachusetts So they shipped me back down.

I went back to jail and then I finally realized like look Drugs and alcohol it That's what it's not people places and things.

I need to go somewhere what drugs Everything I did everything anything you put in front of me.

I wasn't doing drugs because I like drugs I was doing drugs because I didn't want to be alone anymore.

I didn't want to go back to that basement by myself.

So If I had to do drugs or had a drink I would do whatever the fuck it took to Have friends, you know to have a group of people to belong, because I didn't have anybody.

So these kids, you know, I got to the point where I, what we would move around, like I get out of the jail, I go to a foster home, and then I would go home from there.

They were in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania And I what I would do is I'd go on the first day of school and I would Get into trouble go to detention because those are my kids So I get in trouble go to detention and I'd always have weed I'd always have a couple joints And as soon as I got to detention, I'd lean over to the toughest looking kid, I'd be like, you wanna smoke some weed?

Yeah, sure, we'd smoke weed, and those are my guys.

And then I'd hang up with them for the duration until in Bent Salem I wound up running away and getting arrested again And then in what was it Spencerport, New York was the last time I got drunk We fucking stole gumball machines.

I went to jail for gumball machines, it was stupid.

It was terrible, because, you know, I mean, I drank a half a bottle of scotch, I drank a bunch of beers, and we did whippets.

And they were like, I want these gumball machines.

I remember I was running from the cops down the railroad tracks.

And as soon as I hopped the fence, it was a shotgun right in my face.

He's like freeze get down the ground and goes if he moved shoot him That was like it was gum.

Oh They took me to jail up there And it was that was the worst jail ever Rochester, New York was the worst jail I've ever been in and you know, they put me in a room and that was the first time I literally asked for help.

I was just like, help me, please just help me.

I asked the flight attendant, can you give me a light?

She just got me a light I lit up in the fucking place.

I was 15 and Right when I got off the plane, there was 2 state troopers waiting for me and they handcuffed me took me to jail and then I met I Met this guy and NFI shelter care was this yitzhak.

He developed this system for juveniles that it was called open door setting, normalization.

There was no locks on the doors at NFI there was no, you know guards really they had people there at night But you could run You could leave walk right out the fucking door But they incentivized you 30 days.

You got steak 60 days without a run lobster dinners They incentive they gave you responsibility as a kid.

And they, we all kind of formed together to kind of keep each other in check to receive these benefits.

Instead of these other places, you just went in and did your time.

We could go, we went, they took us to the beach.

They loaded us in the, I remember they took all these juvies, we'd load up in a van and go to Gloucester, or Winger Chic Beach, and we'd just sit on the beach and have fun.

They gave you these incentivized things to not leave.

And then the guy came up to me, He's like, you can go to rehab, we got you set up.

You can go to 6 months co-ed, or you can go to a year all boys.

If you go with his girls, you'll fuck up.

You'll try to bang the chicks, you'll try to have sex, and you'll fuck it up.

It was a house, again, normalization, no bars, no nothing.

I showed up And I was sitting in this room this guy Tom Tompkins used to be Had a lot of money.

He was in show business and he lost it all from alcoholism and drugs, so he started this house called the road back and I remember I was sitting there petrified and all of a sudden He comes down.

There's all the staff and there's this 1 kid fucking being fucked this place I don't want to fucking be here.

Fuck this I want to fuck out screaming and yelling and he came down the stairs old dude gray beard psoriasis, he had a misty cigarette, you know those little Slim and Sassy.

Where's this cocksucker that wants to leave?

1 of the counselors, the new counselors, was like, hey, maybe we shouldn't.

I'm trying to save your life you little fuckhead I'm trying to save your life if you want to fucking live Stay here and shut the fuck up.

But I care about you and I don't want you to fucking die.

And the kid starts crying and he's like, yeah, okay.

He goes, great, I'm glad you're staying because you're gonna you're gonna save your life now and then he goes, where's Kelly?

He was meet me upstairs And I went upstairs The sweetest human being I've ever met.

I mean he was that he just Saved my life.

This guy Was the best person I've ever met in my life.

He used to take us to his house to build entertainment systems and he would fucking give us Elio's pizzas And little cakes and shit.

I thought he was trying to fuck me Cuz every once in a while these kids would just take off in the van my god, it's like Kelly come on Let's go my guy.

I gotta fucking suck this guy's dick Fuck I'm gonna blow this old guy in his house for cakes and pizza But he didn't he was just fucking wanted us to get better you


Speaker 0: The Joe Rogan experience. Dude, I was 350 pounds. I believe you said it best. I saw the 1 with you and Louis and Joe and you were like Bobby ate himself into a shape. Well, when I first met you, you were young and thin and good looking.

I was gorgeous, but I remember I've met you twice. That was so funny too. It was such a perfect description. I met you at UFC 100 And you came out of the back you went you look you looked at me go. What happened to you?

I Was like, hey Joe No, it's been it's it's been an addiction for me Since I was a kid was my first addiction when I was a kid was food. It was, you know, I remember when my mom, I had an abusive stepdad for a while, 5 years. And I had nobody. And I remember I found food, like I would wake up in the morning and say goodbye to my mom in sixth grade, go out the front door, go around the back, crawl into the basement, and in the corner of the basement I had a little pillow and a blanket and I would just sit there all day and I would eat. So you'd pretend you were going to school?

I'd pretend I was going to school because I was just so afraid. I had no friends, I had nobody, and I was in a major depression. I didn't know it. And I would sleep in the basement, and I remember I would just eat food, like, you know, Suzy Q's and Ring Dings, and it just made me feel almost like a friend, you know? You know, I just had a problem.

And I remember I got real big, and then my sixth grade teacher, actually, Mr. DiPersio, got me into running. It was like all of a sudden I he became my dad you know, he kind of took me under his wing and We were at the Olympics remember the the sixth grade Olympics and it was just horse shit thing But I remember to do the 440 all the way around the track And I maybe come up to goes Kelly you got a win. I want you to win and I remember I was like I win now fucking I just I just wanted somebody to fucking believe in me You know what I mean? Yeah, and I remember I was racing against this skinny black kid Fastest lightning and I remember we run in and I fucking won.

I remember I beat him everything I had and I won And I just felt fantastic started jogging. I started doing marathons But you know, then I got into drugs after that I found drugs in Very shortly after that in seventh grade and then I of course went to you know Jail, what do you go? I think I went to jail the first time at 13. Jesus. Yeah, that was terrible.

What'd you go to jail for? Unarmed robbery, assault and battery, malicious destruction, trespassing, and breaking probation. Holy shit. Breaking probation at 13? You were on probation?

I was on probation at 12. Oh my God, for what? I robbed a canteen truck of Cigarettes and fucking I think Twinkies Wow So I got on probation for that and then yeah, it was terrible the first I remember that we went my jail at 13 yeah, my my bail was I think 10 bucks and my mother didn't pay it. Because the judge said, she said, what do I do? And he was like, let him go through the system.

Let him go. And my mother listened to him. Oh my God. Yeah, it was bad, because I remember I was in the jail cell, Somerville Courthouse. The jail cell's downstairs.

The regular prisoners in the juvie stay downstairs. So I had my own jail cell and I remember I was looking at it like pay the fucking money Because all my friends moms paid. Oh And they got out they got out and I went they take you downstairs And she came down and I just I walked up to her and I was just crying and she was like Bobby she's crying I'm so sorry. I you know blah blah and I just turned around and started doing push-ups and Then they came and got me and they throw you in the van, the regular prisoners would be in the back of the van and the juvies are in the front, behind the drivers on a bench. I just remember the real prisoners just, you hey, little bitch, you know, just I was shitting my pants.

And they take you up to Danvers State Hospital. Danvers State gave, there's a, the morgue, they gave to the detention, the juvenile detention. So you go up there, it's called intake, and you get up there and there's a bunch of other kids. They strip search you and you gotta get naked and do jumping jacks. I'm 13, you gotta bend over, it was embarrassing, it was terrible.

You go into this room, and there's all these other kids, of all nationalities, just in this room, watching this 1 TV. I remember they came in with a box of deli sandwiches and chocolate milk. And everybody ran over and grabbed me. You grab a sandwich and they had these purple onions on top, these wet onions, because I think they were old sandwiches that they would donate to the Juvies. And they all took them and threw it on the ceiling.

And I looked up on the ceilings. It was just years of onions Fucking Terrifying and then the kid comes up. He's like, hey man when you they call you out ask him where you going And if they don't tell you it's somewhere bad if they tell you it's somewhere good. So like Kelly I went out They start shackling me and they handcuffed me and I'm like, where am I going? And he just looked at me and he shook his head and they shackled me to 2 other 18 year olds I was 13 and they took me to the Charlestown Y.

So the Charlestown Y, the bottom floor was the Y, but the top floor was a juvenile lockup. So you had to go through the gym, go upstairs, And they take you into this room and they again, I got strip searched. I had to get naked. You go and then you have to take a shower. I was 13.

I had a little pecker. I think I had like, you know, 4 pubes. And I'm showering with these 18 year olds next to me. It was I was scared shit. That night, they some kid got a pencil in his eye from another kid.

And then you go into this room with just bunk beds, steel bunk beds filled in the room. And the highway, I don't remember, the Charlestown Y, the highway with 93 was right there. So it's just cars like as close as me and you were just whipping by on the highway all night long and Yeah, I went to jail and they from there you just go to another jail another jail I think it was till I was 15, I was going in and out of juvie jails and foster homes. Jesus Christ. For, for, because once you're in, you're in.

So if your mom had just paid that 10 bucks, you would have never been in jail? I'd probably be dead. Really? I'd probably be in jail, jail. Real jail.

That saved me. And you know, there's that thing where it's like, I don't know if you've heard that thing where, you know, you don't know, is it good or bad? I don't know yet. You don't know if something's good or bad yet. You gotta wait.

You know, you think something's terrible, right? But you don't know. It could be good. You just don't know yet. It feels like shit and it felt like shit.

But if she didn't do that, I wouldn't have got sober. I got sober at 15. I went to a place called The Road Back. I got arrested again, upstate New York. They shipped me back to Boston because I was a ward of the state you're owned by, Massachusetts So they shipped me back down.

I went back to jail and then I finally realized like look Drugs and alcohol it That's what it's not people places and things. It's my drinking. It's my drugs. I go. I need to go somewhere what drugs Everything I did everything anything you put in front of me.

I wasn't doing drugs because I like drugs I was doing drugs because I didn't want to be alone anymore. I didn't want to go back to that basement by myself. You know what I mean? Yeah I didn't want to be that anymore. That was terrifying to me.

So If I had to do drugs or had a drink I would do whatever the fuck it took to Have friends, you know to have a group of people to belong, because I didn't have anybody. So these kids, you know, I got to the point where I, what we would move around, like I get out of the jail, I go to a foster home, and then I would go home from there. And my parents were somewhere else. Like they were in Spencerport, New York. They were in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania And I what I would do is I'd go on the first day of school and I would Get into trouble go to detention because those are my kids So I get in trouble go to detention and I'd always have weed I'd always have a couple joints And as soon as I got to detention, I'd lean over to the toughest looking kid, I'd be like, you wanna smoke some weed?

Friends, immediate friends. Yeah, sure, we'd smoke weed, and those are my guys. And then I'd hang up with them for the duration until in Bent Salem I wound up running away and getting arrested again And then in what was it Spencerport, New York was the last time I got drunk We fucking stole gumball machines. I went to jail for gumball machines, it was stupid. It was terrible, because, you know, I mean, I drank a half a bottle of scotch, I drank a bunch of beers, and we did whippets.

And they were like, I want these gumball machines. So I just took them and smashed them. And the cops came. I remember I was running from the cops down the railroad tracks. I hopped the fence.

And as soon as I hopped the fence, it was a shotgun right in my face. And the guy made me get down the cop. He's like freeze get down the ground and goes if he moved shoot him That was like it was gum. Oh They took me to jail up there And it was that was the worst jail ever Rochester, New York was the worst jail I've ever been in and you know, they put me in a room and that was the first time I literally asked for help. I was just like, help me, please just help me.

I'm done. I know it's drugs. I know it's alcohol. Please Help me get help. I need it.

Whatever. I just gave up. I gave up the first time. I was like, this is it. And then I went to jail to Boston.

They flew me on a plane. Remember I was smoking on the plane. I asked the flight attendant, can you give me a light? She just got me a light I lit up in the fucking place. You could smoke on point smoke on play.

I was 15 and Right when I got off the plane, there was 2 state troopers waiting for me and they handcuffed me took me to jail and then I met I Met this guy and NFI shelter care was this yitzhak. His name is Yitzhak. He developed this system for juveniles that it was called open door setting, normalization. There was no locks on the doors at NFI there was no, you know guards really they had people there at night But you could run You could leave walk right out the fucking door But they incentivized you 30 days. You got steak 60 days without a run lobster dinners They incentive they gave you responsibility as a kid.

And they, we all kind of formed together to kind of keep each other in check to receive these benefits. And they gave you, you know, help. You know, they talked to you. Instead of these other places, you just went in and did your time. This place was all on you.

We had school. We could go, we went, they took us to the beach. They loaded us in the, I remember they took all these juvies, we'd load up in a van and go to Gloucester, or Winger Chic Beach, and we'd just sit on the beach and have fun. They gave you these incentivized things to not leave. And then the guy came up to me, He's like, you can go to rehab, we got you set up.

You can go to 6 months co-ed, or you can go to a year all boys. And I was like, what do I do? He's like, knowing you, year all boys. If you go with his girls, you'll fuck up. You'll fuck up.

You'll try to bang the chicks, you'll try to have sex, and you'll fuck it up. So I did, I listened. I was like, okay. And I went to the road back. It was a house, again, normalization, no bars, no nothing.

I showed up And I was sitting in this room this guy Tom Tompkins used to be Had a lot of money. His wife was a famous opera singer. He was in show business and he lost it all from alcoholism and drugs, so he started this house called the road back and I remember I was sitting there petrified and all of a sudden He comes down. There's all the staff and there's this 1 kid fucking being fucked this place I don't want to fucking be here. Fuck this I want to fuck out screaming and yelling and he came down the stairs old dude gray beard psoriasis, he had a misty cigarette, you know those little Slim and Sassy.

Just smoking it and he came down. He goes, where's this fucking fuck up? Where's this cocksucker that wants to leave? He's like, me. He's like, you wanna fucking leave?

You wanna get the fuck out of here? Get the fuck out. There's the door, you fucking pussy. 1 of the counselors, the new counselors, was like, hey, maybe we shouldn't. He goes, fuck you, you're fired.

Get the fuck out. He goes, you wanna go? Fucking leave. There's the fucking door, okay? I'm trying to save your life you little fuckhead I'm trying to save your life if you want to fucking live Stay here and shut the fuck up.

If you wanna leave, get the fuck out. But I care about you and I don't want you to fucking die. And the kid starts crying and he's like, yeah, okay. Are you staying or leaving? He goes, I'm gonna stay.

He goes, great, I'm glad you're staying because you're gonna you're gonna save your life now and then he goes, where's Kelly? I'm like right here. He was meet me upstairs And I went upstairs The sweetest human being I've ever met. I mean he was that he just Saved my life. This guy Was the best person I've ever met in my life.

He used to take us to his house to build entertainment systems and he would fucking give us Elio's pizzas And little cakes and shit. I thought he was trying to fuck me Cuz every once in a while these kids would just take off in the van my god, it's like Kelly come on Let's go my guy. I gotta fucking suck this guy's dick Fuck I'm gonna blow this old guy in his house for cakes and pizza But he didn't he was just fucking wanted us to get better you

See all PowerfulJRE transcripts on Youtube

Robert Kelly on Overcoming Childhood Struggles, Being a Ward of the State, Getting Sober at 15