Rock Star Billy Idol Released After ‘Possible Overdose’ Hospitalizes Him

Bad boy rocker Billy Idol was released from a hospital Saturday after treatment overnight for a possible drug overdose, his publicist said.

“I believe it was a drug overdose,” Idol’s publicist, Ellen Zoe Golden, said Saturday. “But I don’t have any specific details.”

Idol, 38, headed to an undisclosed Southern California location to rest, Golden said.

“He’s fine now. He’s with family and friends and just relaxing,” she said. “All indications for a recovery are favorable.”

Fire Department spokesmen said paramedics responded to a call reporting a “possible overdose” at Idol’s Hollywood Hills home Friday night and transported the patient to St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

Idol was also rushed to a hospital in January when he collapsed in convulsions outside the Beverly Hills club Tatou. At that time, his manager attributed the collapse to exhaustion. But other people close to Idol said it was a result of taking a once-legal steroid substitute known as GHB.

The veteran rocker with the sexy sneer and punk rebel image became one of the first MTV generation pop heroes in the 1980s. But his career had slowed somewhat recently.