Wrestling legend Jake “The Snake” Roberts has experienced the highest of highs and lowest of lows throughout his decades-long career.
It’s been a long and winding road, but he’s healthy and optimistic about the future. Roberts works for All Elite Wrestling and is getting ready to embark on a new role with the company: serving as an ambassador visiting hospitals and doing other community outreach initiatives.
Roberts was at rock bottom when Diamond Dallas Page took him in to his ‘Accountability Crib’ a decade ago. DDP helped Roberts get his life together in many ways.
On a special “Ask Jake Anything” edition of his Snake Pit podcast, Roberts looked back at a difficult period in his life and the importance of knowing fans appreciate him and his legacy.
Blown Away by Fan Support
A listener asked Roberts how it feels to receive so much love from his fans. He admits he didn’t feel very loved for a long time, but it was his work with DDP that opened his eyes to how much support he really had.
“Well, here’s the thing, I didn’t know it for so many years,” said Roberts. “I didn’t have a clue, didn’t know that the fans felt the way they do about me. Not until I was in the Accountability Crib and all the people raised money for me to have a surgery. I couldn’t believe it. It blew me away. I cried and cried over that, because I didn’t think anybody gave a shit about me.
Then, to hear all this love that was pouring out, man, it just it really freaked me out and that was probably part of my recovery, man. That was a big thing to happen in my life and my daughter was there when [it was] happening and she was blown away too.”
Smell The Roses
Roberts says it’s easy to lose touch with reality when you’re living a hard life of drugs and alcohol. You don’t realize there are people that love you and want you to do well. He cites his traumatic childhood as the source of this unhealthy outlook.
“Sometimes you just you’re running so hard through life,” Roberts continued. “You don’t take time to smell the roses or anything else. You’re just fighting till the next day, fighting till the next day, fighting till the next day and you don’t pay attention to what’s going on around you.”
“You don’t realize that people care and the people support you. People love you. That’s on me, because I was just, you know, I was a kid that was battered and bruised and abused and I couldn’t see how anybody would care about me. It was an enlightenment for sure. “
Thankfully, he now has a better perspective and is continuing to write the later chapters of his story on his own terms. Jake Roberts is a success story. The drive and determination that took him to the top of the wrestling world has brought him to where he is today. He’s a living testament that it’s never too late to turn yourself around.
