Following the loss at the 1980 Mr. Olympia, Mentzer reportedly ran into numerous problems. In the late 1970's, he was reported to have begun using amphetamines, claiming he took them only as an ergogenic aid to help facilitate a hectic lifestyle. Mentzer left his position at Weider Publications shortly after his loss at the 1980 Mr. Olympia contest and suffered financially as a result. He did land a job in 1985 as publisher and editor-in-chief of the newly launched WorkOut magazine, a venture of Stewart Communications Inc. in Tarzana, California. However, when WorkOut failed during the same year that his father died, Mentzer reportedly suffered a mental breakdown.
According to Peter McGough, editor-in-chief of FLEX magazine, stories began to surface of Mentzer exhibiting some very erratic behavior. Stories of him running naked through the streets, directing traffic, telling prophecies about the end of the world, being arrested by the police numerous times and even waiting for aliens to land were all published in magazines at one point or another. Popular bodybuilding writer Dan Duchaine even suggested that Mentzer was drinking his own urine at the time. Mentzer denied this in a 2001 interview with Ironman magazine. Nonetheless, according to McGough, some of these stories are true.[1] Mentzer was also regularly institutionalized between 1985 up until 1990, when he finally kicked his amphetamine habit. Drug free, Mentzer returned to training bodybuilders and writing for Ironman magazine and spent much of the 1990s regaining his stature in the bodybuilding industry.
STFU YOU GOD DAMM DIRTY HOMO!
