Jay and Silent Bob are an iconic duo of the 90s. Kevin Smith is still around testing out other kinds of movies, a reality show, a podcast, and Twitter, but Jason Mewes, who played Jay in six films, vanished for many years from the pop culture landscape. What happened to Jay?
Jason Mewes had a chaotic childhood with a heroin-addicted mother who robbed TVs from hotel rooms and stole credit cards from mailboxes in order to pay for her drugs. She also dealt drugs, and sent Jay out to deliver them on his bike when he was still a kid. His own drug addiction didn’t reach critical points until after fame. On Christmas Day, 2003, Jason woke up with his couch in flames after falling asleep during a heroin binge.
It was a wake-up call for him, but just a few years later he was back to using again, a move that cost him another opportunity to work with his life-long friend Kevin Smith, and almost cost him his wife Jordan. Kevin was considering hiring Jason as a stuntman in his 2010 movie Cop Out when Jordan informed him that Jason was using again. They staged an intervention, but Jason only lasted two days in rehab. In the years since that relapse, Jason has been working on rebuilding his life with his wife and with Kevin, who wouldn’t let him hang out with him until he was sober for good. Now he’s co-hosting a podcast with Kevin called “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old,” and debuted an animated movie last year called Jay and Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie.
“See, for years, Jason had had what seemed like an unbeatable, untreatable addiction to, alternately, heroin and oxycontin,” Kevin wrote about his friend in 2006. “It was a heartbreaking, trying and puzzling five-year stretch for me, so I can’t imagine how bad it was for him (well, that’s not entirely true. Mewes would periodically flash self-awareness with statements like ‘If I’m still like this when I turn thirty, I should probably kill myself.’)”
Kevin goes on:
Those who’ve never struggled with drug dependency themselves, or loved anybody who has, will often dismiss the props more empathetic folks extend to the ex-junkie with caustic bon mots along the lines of “So he/she quit drugs? Big deal. Why celebrate someone for finally exhibiting common sense? They didn’t have to get hooked in the first place. It’s not like someone held a gun to their head and told them to try drugs.” Oftentimes, these are the same people who think being gay is a choice, too.
But in the case of drug abusers, not every addict has the luxury of choosing a glamorous existence of despair, lies, theft and self-loathing. Some people are born genetically predisposed to chasing the dragon.
Like Mewes.
Hopefully Jason’s finally on the right track for good. There’s no word yet if there’s another live action Jay & Silent Bob movie in the works.
