Gospel star Marvin Sapp has revealed that — in spite of his life-long dedication to the church — he has a history with drugs and liquor.
“After my mother and father got divorced I started smoking marijuana daily at the age of twelve,” the preacher and singer told Page Six.
“I started drinking and popping pills at the age of sixteen and at eighteen I snorted my first line of cocaine.”
The star said that he I went through some “major struggles” growing up, and “really rebelled” as a teen in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
And he told us that the five pals he experimented with drinking and drugs with are now all either dead or have served lengthy prison terms.
“One of my friends is an alcoholic now, one of my friends is still strung out on crack,” he said. ”One of my friends is in prison for twenty-seven years for second-degree murder and another one of my friends died about fifteen years, because he had a kilo [of drugs on him when he was arrested].”
Now the singer’s life story has been made into a movie, “Never Would Have Made It: The Marvin Sapp Story.”
“I’ve always sung gospel music but [that was] because my mother made us go to church,” he told us, “But just because we went to church did not mean the church was in us.”
He said he wants the flick to “to show… that just because somebody goes to church does not make them perfect. We are all flawed in some shape, form or fashion. People need to see that because for some strange reason when they think of Marvin Sapp, people think I walk around with a halo but they don’t know my story.”
The father of three married his childhood sweetheart and manager MaLinda Prince Sapp in 1992. But in 2010 she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and passed away.
But he tells us he’s now ready to marry again.
“I got to get married again. I’m a better man married than when I was a single man,” he said. “I’ve been single for the last 12 years. Marriage is great for me.”
He adds, “My son just got engaged. My daughter has a boyfriend. My baby girl she got a dude and I’m like, ‘Shoot I do not want to be left out. I wanna find somebody too so we could all be booed up together’.”
“Never Would Have Made It: The Marvin Sapp Story” premieres Aug. 21 at 9 p.m. ET on TV One.
