Code blue for Red Hot Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis

According to several sources, the former cocaine and heroin addict was a frequent patient at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai hospital last summer as he battled kidney disease.

“Anthony’s health was pretty bleak,” a close friend tells us of the rocker, whose partying ways of the past contributed to his condition.

“Organ failure was a possibility. There was talk of how to get him on a transplant list, to cover all the bases, but that opened up a whole new can of worms because people with histories of drug and alcohol abuse are less likely to receive the organs they need.”

Kiedis’ Cedars visits were confirmed by another insider who says the musician is now on the mend: “The general consensus is that the treatments helped, and he’s getting better.”

Two different reps for Kiedis laughed off the reports when contacted, but denied only that he was being treated for a kidney problem.

They refused to confirm — or deny — that he had made multiple hospital visits.

The Chili Pepper’s last public appearance was in August, when he served as host of American Eagle’s NAMU music festival in Pittsburgh. During a press conference, Kiedis politely begged off questions as to why he wasn’t performing. “He hemmed and hawed without really giving an answer, other than he hadn’t been asked to,” a festival-goer reports. He then spent the weekend being carted around on the back of a golf cart.

“He seemed a little down, despite the vibrant mood of the festival,” the spy continued. “But he seemed well enough to rock out on the side of the stage while the Roots and Raconteurs jammed.”

Kiedis’ drug battles saw him in and out of rehab for years, but the seven-time Grammy winner says he’s been clean since December 2000. He most notably spoke about his drug problem in a 2004 biography, “Scar Tissue,” recounting instances from his druggie past with refreshing honesty. “If I had to, I’d use a syringe that I found in the street,” he wrote. “Instead of sterilized cotton, I’d use a section of my sock or, more commonly, the filter tip of a cigarette . . . . I’d pull the back off a toilet or look for a lawn sprinkler or even a puddle” to find water in which to dissolve drugs.

Up next for the back-on-track Kiedis: an HBO series based on his unconventional, rock ’n’ roll childhood.

(source)

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