Lil Nas X's dad speaks about his son's arrest

After his recent arrest, Lil Nas X's father, Robert Stafford, visited his son in jail before his release on August 26 and shared some details about his mental state that may have led to his arrest.




"I understand how the music business is..It's like a high. When you get to that level, you want that drug again, you want to hit that high again." After going viral with Old Town Road and receiving a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year with Montero and its accompanying chart success in 2021, J Christ and following singles have not met the same level of public acclaim. Lil Nas X was teasing a new album, Dreamboy, on social media in early 2025 before deleting all of his posts and changing his Instagram display name to Queen Madeline, making several new posts over the span of August 19-20 shortly before his arrest.

Stafford also mentioned ongoing difficulties with Lil Nas X's mother, who suffers from substance abuse issues and allegedly experienced homelessness in 2021. Lil Nas X previously paid for his mother to receive treatment in a rehab center, and tweeted this (now deleted) after criticism that he didn't do enough to help her:

"But y'all nggas don’t know how many nights I’ve cried myself to sleep feeling guilty because nothing I tried would help my mom. Paint me as the bad guy all you want, but at the end of the day, you don't know me outside of this internet sht."

In response to the situation, his father said, "For a 26-year-old to have to deal with what he's dealing with — to be a breadwinner for a lot of people, the inability to change his mother's situation and the pressure he puts on himself…"

Speaking about the circumstances leading up to his arrest, Lil Nas X told his father to "tell everybody I'm sorry they saw me like that." Later, in an Instagram reel, he reassured fans, "That was terrifying, that was terrifying, that was a terrifying last four days. But your girl’s gonna be all right."

Although the arraigning judge mandated Lil Nas X to attend drug treatment, his lawyer stated that toxicology reports have not yet come back (NB: as of today I couldn't find any news about drug test results, so I assume they either haven't come back yet or have not been publicly released).



source: NBC News, Hollywood Reporter, SoapCentral, Lil Nas X Instagram

This is such a heartbreaking situation; I'm very familiar with what he's been going through with his family and it's no wonder he had a breakdown. I hope he has a good support system around him right now.