Unveiled: Bjorn Borg’s Battle with Cocaine in New Memoir

In his memoir, titled “Heartbeats: A Memoir,” the 69-year-old former tennis superstar opens up about years of addiction and his battle against “inner demons.”

Borg recalls his first encounter with cocaine in the early 1980s at New York’s famous nightclub Studio 54, saying, “The first time I tried cocaine, I felt a rush as strong as what tennis had given me in the past.”

His darkest period came in the early 1990s while living in Milan with his then-wife, Italian singer Loredana Berte. “We had bad influences, and… drugs and pills within reach. There, I was plunged into the deepest darkness,” he recounts.

In 1996, Borg experienced a crisis, collapsing on a bridge in the Netherlands just before an exhibition tournament.

Upon awakening in the hospital, he found his father by his side. Borg describes the moment on the SVT interview show Skavlan: “He said nothing, it was so embarrassing,” expressing how ashamed he felt.

In addition to his past struggles, Borg reveals in the book that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in September 2023. “The risk of it coming back still exists, and it’s something I will have to live with for a while, with the anxiety of not knowing… if the cancer was caught in time,” he says.

Regular check-ups every six months are necessary to ensure the cancer has not returned.

During his Skavlan appearance, Borg emphasized his commitment to daily exercise but admitted, “I haven’t played tennis in six years.”

Borg dominated the tennis world by winning Wimbledon five times and the French Open six times, retiring at just 26 in 1983.

When asked about doping in tennis, he acknowledged its presence among juniors.

Borg discussed Jannik Sinner, noting the player’s resumed collaboration with former fitness trainer Umberto Ferrara after a brief suspension for testing positive for an anabolic steroid. “He fired one of his trainers, his fitness coach. And then, once everything calmed down, he rehired the same fitness coach. I find that very strange. I don’t know more,” stated Borg.

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