It not very often that someone who is in the public eye (The Limelight) relinquishes sensitive information from their past, in hopes of helping others, especially someone as young as Daeg Faerch, AKA Great Daeg. Known for his evil, murderous child role as the young Michael Myers in Rob Zombie’s “Halloween”, and for his role in “Hancock” with Will Smith, as well as the TV series “Pushing Daisies” and many others, Daeg has grown to become a rising superstar rapper while he continues to act and model.
Daeg Faerch was born beautiful. He possessed creativity, talent, and a childhood innocence. Although the chapters of Daeg’s life are still being written, it appears that this story will have a happy ending, but as in most classic fairytales, the hero must journey through a dark passage in order to arise victoriously.
In this very emotional, sensitive and touching conversation, Daeg agreed to tell his story honestly and candidly. It contains hypersensitive content.
Growing up it was just he and his mom, and they were painfully poor. As a small child, Daeg was taunted and bullied until Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” came along and then all at once he was viewed by others as “cool.”
Daeg’s teenage years were plagued by depression and the usual teenage drugs, and rock-n-roll, until one night he suffered a near fatal brain injury. In hopes of inspiring others and making them aware of the consequences drugs and stupidity can cause, Daeg has decided to tell his own emotional catastrophe.
I completely love your new video, “VLAD”, it’s like a mini-movie.
The director, Paul, actually said it would do well in film festivals, so we’re looking into that now.
Totally! I thought it was totally creative and a little sick but fun.
That’s me!
As a child actor you were super talented and on top of the world, but then something happened that not only completely changed your life, but nearly ended it….you’ve agreed to tell your story so that others might learn and avoid a similar path….in your own words, what happened?
I had “Halloween”, “Hancock” and “Pushing Daisies”, one right after another. After I finished those three projects, I was nearly 13 and going into high school. I liken being a teenager to having a mental illness; so, I was a dumb teenager for at least three years from about 13 to 16 years old. I didn’t really give a f**k, and besides that I was living “The Life.” I was living off the stardom so I could live the life that I wanted to….
Let’s back up a minute. As a child actor your life had to be different than the usual?
I loved that. That’s not the part that I didn’t love. That isn’t the part that messed me up. I wanted to perform since I could speak. I liked to perform, I liked to work, I liked to be creative.Then all of a sudden, “Halloween” comes up. Then everybody thinks I’m cool, when before that I was the dork that got bullied. I was physically bullied, I was emotionally bullied, so that’s what kind of lead me in to some of my dumb teenage decisions.
What was weird and took some getting used to was I was born and raised with just my mom, and we were poor, we lived in the ghetto,…. matter-of-fact, she wishes I wasn’t as ghetto as I am.
I just had a couple of friends that were hoodlums, and we just did our own shit. I was trying to get away from people. About three years into being a dumb teenager and trying to get away from humanity…. I was listening to a lot of hard-core music, not because I liked it, but because I liked to mosh in the mosh pit, stuff like that.
Right.
So one day , March 3rd, 2012, I went to a concert. I got kicked in the face, and stomped on, and from what I understand, I had a seizure right then and there. They had to take me to the emergency room in the hospital where I was in a coma for three weeks. I had to have brain surgery and when I came out of it, I was bald, half of my skull was missing, and I couldn’t walk or talk or anything like that. They pushed me in a wheelchair for a while, but then I went to rehab and I relearned how to talk and walk. It took me a long time to recover.
They had removed the front top of my skull. I had to wear a helmet.
It was six months before I got the rest of my skull replaced due to the brain swelling.
Wow, are there any residual effects from the injury?
There are a couple of things that I still deal with, but only really my mom notices because she is close to me. I would say thank God I had such a high intellect before the accident because the injury affected that somewhat.
Does this emotionally or physically affect your life now?
One thing is I can’t smell because of the brain injury. I’m 24 and I’m a young man now. Not a teenager anymore. When I was a teenager, I did a good amount of drugs. So, I’m growing and putting time away from the drugs, time since the brain injury as well. It is like three areas where I mature daily. Steady Progress. Every day I’m that much more mature, because I’m that much further away from the brain injury, the drug use, and the teen years.
Do you recall the name of the band that you went to see when your injury happened?
I believe the name of the band was Colossal. I was 16 years old, just me and my friends listening to hard core.
If you could share some teenage advice to some teenagers today from your experience what would you say to them?
I was pretty strong as a teenager. I was so blessed that I was 16 and from strong Danish heritage. I’m so blessed that my body was able to take that beating, that I was able to survive. Between 16 and 18 years old is the small window of being able to recover from such tremendous trauma. If it had happened today, I don’t know if I would’ve pulled through. We are not Superheroes, we are not invincible. Safety is important; over-all safety first. That’s big. I feel like people forget about safety. Young people especially need to remember that if you f**k up other people are going to really hurt around you. It’s selfish. I lost a friend around that time and I saw the tidal wave of trauma that it created. It is nothing to joke about.
The night of your injury were you doing drugs?
Yeah I was. My brain injury was chemical and traumatic.
Obviously if you had to do it all over again you wouldn’t of been there that night, but do you think it’s helped you in anyway, either becoming stronger or giving you insight?
A 110% yes. I feel like there is a reason for me being in this world. I am not finished yet. I was depressed as a teen, I was starting to feel like everyone was fake. I kind of felt like I l didn’t matter. I don’t know if I would make the same choices given the opportunity, but it definitely made me who I am today, for sure.
In ICU for three weeks there were times where the angels were whispering to me. That’s what the doctor told my mom, that “the angels were whispering.” Now I think about things a lot more. At first that shit really f**ked me up. And it wasn’t even the end of my drug use. That thing that is developing in a young mans brain, that awareness that makes one think about consequences, it wasn’t developed in me yet. I saw what it did to my mom. So, it made me realize the magic that is life, me.
Those teenage years can be rough and cold. You are going through all these inward physical and chemical changes. Furthermore, a lot of people are fake and you just have to be intuitive enough to know who your friends are and who really loves you.
Definitely.
I think that by people reading your story you might be able to help a lot of confused kids.
It would be amazing if my past experiences and going through that hell could help other people, so they won’t put themselves in a situation like that, or if they are in a similar situation to feel more OK and work toward getting out of it.
I think you can perhaps save a life.
Yeah, too many young artists die because of drug use, depression. Some recent drug related tragedies including Juice WRLD, Mac Miller and lil peep really affected me. That’s why am so blessed that I’ve gone through my stuff and now I can go back to what I was trying to do with new eyes and not be influenced by the evils out there.
The universe is really cool, it knows what it’s doing. I think your story is not only inspiring because out of your worst tragedy you were arose victoriously and are here to help others…..
Check out the “VLAD” music video here:
Follow Great Daeg on the Web:
Face Book : Daeg Faerch
IG : @GreatDaeg
YouTube: Daeg Faerch
Eileen Shapiro is a NY Times Best-Selling Author, A-List Celebrity Interviewer, Journalist, Actress and PR Maven named Best Entertainment Publicist in the world.
