In an HBO episode of "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" that airs Tuesday night, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay says he once went code blue after trying a homemade detox concoction of drugs and talks about the girlfriend who overdosed and died in a house he owned.
He also says that the Carmel police officers who arrested him in 2014 were prejudiced against him because he is "a rich, white billionaire."
Irsay's revelations came in a wide-ranging, sit-down interview with sports journalist Andrea Kremer. According to HBO, it is Irsay's first in-depth television interview about his lifetime of struggles.
IndyStar received a screening of the episode — which airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and can be streamed on HBO Max — and also spoke with Kremer, who said she was surprised at the access Irsay gave her team. Kremer spent nearly six days with Irsay.
She said she had been asking the Colts for a sit-down interview with Irsay for 12 years. The team never said no, according to Kremer but rather told her "now is not the time."
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"So, I've contemplated why. Why now?" Kremer told IndyStar. "For whatever reason, where he is in his life, he does not have anything to hide. He's very candid. He's very honest. I give him a lot of credit for being as forthright and cooperative as he was."
The 64-year-old Irsay's interview spans an array of topics, including lighthearted ones such as his love for music, penchant for collecting and the full-size hockey rink he had built on his property for his grandson.
But much of the interview is deeper, focusing on Irsay's complicated childhood and his life of addictions. Irsay talks about controversial parts of his life he's rarely talked about before.
Among the most eye-opening moments is when Irsay discusses the night when he was arrested in Carmel for driving under the influence.
Irsay was 55 when he was stopped March 16, 2014, after an officer said he saw Irsay driving erratically.
According to case documents obtained by IndyStar at the time, Irsay was unsteady during the arrest and had trouble standing. Two officers "continuously had to support Irsay in order to prevent him from falling over," the report said.
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Carmel officers who searched Irsay's vehicle said they "recovered numerous prescription medication bottles containing pills," along with $29,029 in cash.
Irsay pleaded guilty to one count of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a Class C misdemeanor. He also admitted to having hydrocodone, oxycodone and alprazolam (Xanax) in his system.
"Was that the low point for you?" Kremer asks Irsay of his arrest.
"No, not really, because the arrest was wrong," Irsay says. "I had just had hip surgery and had been in a car for 45 minutes and what? They ask me to walk the line. Are you kidding me? I can barely walk at all."
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Kremer responds, "Are you saying you couldn't walk because you had hip surgery and not because you were on painkillers?" To which Irsay raises his voice and says emphatically, "I'm not saying that. It's a fact."
When Kremer asks him why he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, Irsay says he just wanted to get it over with.
"I am prejudiced against because I'm a rich, white billionaire," Irsay tells Kremer. "If I'm just the average guy down the block, they're not pulling me in, of course not."
Kremer asks Irsay, "Do you know what it's going to sound like if people hear you say they're prejudiced against a rich, white guy?"
"I don't care what it sounds like. It's the truth," he says. "You know, Andrea, I could give a damn what people think how anything sounds or sounds like. The truth is the truth and I know the truth."
The Carmel police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from IndyStar.
Irsay's arrest came two weeks after the death of Kimberly Wundrum, 42, whose body was found in a townhome given to her by Irsay in August 2013. Wundrum died of an accidental drug overdose, according to the coroner's report.
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Wundrum "was a girlfriend and we spent some time together," Irsay tells Kremer. He says he was sober at the time but she was not.
"I took her to Betty Ford (rehab) and, God bless her, she tried and she tried," Irsay says. "You know, she would say, 'I just can't wrap my arms around what it takes to be in recovery,' and it was just so (expletive) sad."
Irsay and Wundrum parted ways, he says. He gave her some money and said, "Good luck with life, hon. I hope it goes well."
When he found out Wundrum had died, "I was saddened by it but, you know, addiction, alcoholism, is a fatal disease," Irsay says, "and it kills."
He knows that firsthand. Irsay says after battling alcoholism, he became addicted to pain pills following more than 23 surgeries for the toll his powerlifting career took on his body. He has been in rehab at least 15 times, he tells Kremer, and overdosed once.
"I was trying to detox myself and I mixed multiple drugs that I didn't know anything about and so all of a sudden I started slurring my words and then code blue, I stopped breathing," he says. "And they revived me, and the doctor goes, 'Jim, you're one lucky man because I had signed, virtually, the death certificate.'"
There was a savior, of sorts, for Irsay. His name was Peyton Manning. As the Colts became a winning team, Irsay says, he was able to overcome his alcohol addiction. He says he has not had a drink since 2002.
Manning sat down with Kremer to talk about Irsay for the HBO episode. She asks if he knew his team owner was in the throes of alcoholism when Manning was drafted in 1998, or if he ever saw any signs.
"No. I never saw it," Manning tells her. "But he would have these gaps where he wasn't necessarily around and you'd kind of get wind that maybe that's what was going on."
In 2014, long after Manning had left the team, he learned of Irsay's arrest in Carmel.
"I just reached out and said, 'Jim, I'm thinking about you,'" Manning tells Kremer. "And I hated that. I hated to see that happen."
When asked about how Irsay has aged over the years, at times barely able to stand up straight, Manning says, "Yeah, that's tough because I want Jim to be around for a long time, and I think he's taken steps to try to make sure that he is."
Near the end of Kremer's interview with Irsay, they stand in his home in a room where he keeps the Big Book, a tract that contains the doctrine for Alcoholics Anonymous, a treatment plan first published in 1939 that sparked a recovery religion with its 12-step program.
"Andrea, I am dead in the ground," Irsay says, "if not for this book."
The interview ends with Irsay telling Kremer, "You know like Elton John, I'm still standing. This train keeps rolling man."