Singer Billy Ocean shuns the excesses of fame, but admits to ‘smoking herb’

He’s a committed Christian, doesn’t indulge in the excesses of fame and is thrifty with his money, but pop singer Billy Ocean does have one illegal habit ...

Straight-talking singer Billy Ocean has added his voice to the call for marijuana to be legalised, admitting he smokes herb “as often as I can”.

In Australia for a national tour, the 69-year-old spoke to Confidential about his Rastafari beliefs, and why he thinks he never went off the rails like so many of his contemporaries.

Billy Ocean is in Australia for national tour. Picture: Richard Dobson

“Rasta is not some sort of fashionable thing,” the Grammy Awards-winning muso said.

“I am Christian, that is what being Rasta is all about.”

Ocean is, of course, known for his string of international pop hits from the ’70s and ’80s, including When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going, Caribbean Queen, Love Really Hurts Without You, Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car and Suddenly.

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“I was fortunate in that I never went that way,” he said when asked about the excesses of fame.

“It wasn’t that I was better than anyone else, it was just something that my father instilled in me. He didn’t want me to get involved with music because of the drugs and these things, he warned me about that side of it.”
That said, Ocean admits to smoking cannabis to relax.

“I really don’t see much wrong in smoking herb,” he said.

“I never get involved in that when I am working.

“You have got a choice, you can either be in the bottle drinking as much alcohol as possible or you can relax smoking herb … marijuana … and I’d rather do that.

“I would not encourage anyone to do it, but horses for courses. They should legalise it.”

Ocean received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from the University of Westminsterin 2002.

Now five decades into his career, the singer learnt early to be careful with money: “You can be making loads of money but the tax man is going to come for half of it so I have always been sort of thrifty with money.”

With the trend of musician-inspired biopics (Bohemian Rhapsody/Rocketman), Ocean said a feature film about his life would focus on his early childhood in Trinidad, before the family moved to England when he was 10, and his life as a singer.

He plays Sydney’s Enmore Theatre next Friday and Wollongong’s WIN Entertainment Centre the following night.

Originally published as Singer Billy Ocean shuns the excesses of fame, but admits to ‘smoking herb’