Glenn Beck never thought he’d be the family man he is today, but through his faith, it happened.
In an interview with ABC News' "Nightline" this week, Beck spoke candidly about his role as a healer and his rise to fame. He credited his Mormon faith for helping him become a father and role model for his children.
ABC Breaking News | Latest News VideosBeck said he felt he didn’t know how to define himself in the past, and that he sometimes “struggles really hard a lot of the time trying to figure out how to be a more responsible person.”
He said he recognizes that he alienated parts of America with his criticisms toward liberals and President Barack Obama. Now, he said he wants to help bridge the divide.
Byron Pitts asked Beck, “So Glenn Beck, the man who has been called a clown, a bigot, a carnival barker, a smug know-it-all, now you want to be a healer?”
“No, you’re making this too grand,” Beck responded.
But indeed, that’s what Beck has looked to do. It’s certainly a change of pace for the media superstar, who struggled growing up because of a number of hardships.
Beck’s journey to where he is now has not been void of hardship. As the Deseret News wrote back in 2007, Beck’s hardships began when he was a child, as his mother committed suicide when he was 13, drowning herself near Tacoma, Washington. Not long after, one of Beck’s brothers also committed suicide, while a second brother died at a young age from a heart attack, according to the Deseret News.
Beck also suffered from attention deficit disorder and he’s had “a boiling pot of anger, fear, insecurity and ego all mixed together,” the Deseret News reported.
In response, Beck turned to alcohol and drug use to calm his nerves and ease the struggle. He would drink a gallon of Jack Daniels in a week, he said. He called himself a “monster” and “scumbag.”
"I was taking drugs every day of my life since I was 16 years old," he said, according to Deseret News. "I was a self-hating egomaniac. I thought I was not smart enough or talented enough. I thought I was destined to repeat my mother's life. I was a fraud and I was successful. I was a cut-up in class, but the teacher liked me. I was the one you didn't want to go out with your daughter, but you didn't know it."
The alcohol struggle eventually forced him to lose his family because of divorce. He sought some religious help, and that’s when he met his current wife, Tania, in 1998. He briefly succumbed to alcohol again before quitting completely.
It was after that episode that he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Beck wrote about these experiences in his audiobook, “An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck.”
He’s spoken about that conversation for years now on different radio shows, expressing how “hopeless” he was before he went under his “biggest chance” when joining the LDS Church.
And after spending so much time in the media spotlight, Beck now rests with his family. The "Nightline" video showed Beck praying with his family, having settled down away from the entertainment and media industry.
He was as surprised as anyone that he made it to this point.
“I don’t think I would have guessed 15 years ago that I would be surrounded by my family,” Beck said following an evening prayer during dinner. “That is a dream come true. We have made a point in my family in the last 15 years to break a few cycles of generational cycles and this is a dream come true.”