The '9-1-1: Lone Star' actor recalls an unexpected call he received from the Aerosmith singer weeks after going sober in the '90s.
Rob Lowe has been sober for nearly three decades, but he received encouragement from an unlikely source early on in his sobriety journey.
The 55-year-old actor, who was on hand at the winter Television Critics Association press tour to present his upcoming Fox series, 9-1-1: Lone Star, shared a touching story about the impact Steven Tyler, Aerosmith frontman and Lowe's co-star Liv Tyler's father, had on him in the early 1990s -- around the time he was in the throes of getting clean.
"I have been sober 20, going on 30 years. When I first got sober, my thought was, ‘My life is over. The fun is done. And I’m not going to be cool anymore,'" Lowe told reporters on Tuesday. "I came home, I was maybe sober two or three weeks, maybe, and I got a phone call from Steven Tyler, who I did not know. He called me and he said, ‘I heard you’re in recovery and just want to say, hey, it’s going to be great.’"
"And I thought, dude, if it’s good enough for f**king Steven Tyler, it’s good enough for me," Lowe said. "So he’s a big part of who I’ve become."
The conversation turned to Steven Tyler when Liv was asked about what her father thought about her training to be a paramedic on 9-1-1: Lone Star, prompting Lowe to quip, "He’s no stranger to paramedics,"
"My dad has nine lives!" Liv exclaimed. "He’s always just kind of in awe or amazed by my job and what I do. Because he knows me as his daughter and as a person and then suddenly I’m doing an English accent in the 1700s and then suddenly like, ‘Daddy, I’m a paramedic.’ He’s always so interested. I did this show called Harlots, which is in England, and he was my biggest fan. He’s why I did the second season because it was his favorite thing."
Lowe will celebrate 30 years of being sober in May. Over the course of his career, he has been open about going to rehab and written about his drinking and partying days when he was in his 20s in his memoir.
In 2014, Lowe sat down with Oprah Winfrey to discuss why he could never have quit drinking and partying without rehab.
"I couldn't have gotten sober without rehab," he said on Oprah Prime. "Because I needed the science. I needed to go to the college of addiction, and what it does to your body, and all of the research… A lot of people can do it through 12-step programs alone, I wouldn't have been one of them. Although I believe in that too. I needed to do the work."
Watch a first look at 9-1-1: Lone Star below.
9-1-1: Lone Star premieres Sunday, Jan. 19 after the NFC Championship game on Fox.
To stay up to date on breaking TV news, sign up for ET's daily newsletter.
RELATED CONTENT:
