Rob Lowe Says Taylor Swift's Fame Is What He Went Through in the '80s 'on Gazillion Steroids' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

At his peak Hollywood It Boy fame during the ’80s,Rob Lowenavigated a superstar life and daily frenzied fandom.

While shootingSt. Elmo’s Fire, theBrat Packera’s magnum opus, he says, “I remember them having to bring me on and off the set in a police car, and that wasn’t the first or only time. People breaking into my grandparents' house in Ohio thinking I was going to be there.”

The list of “crazy stuff” goes on: a fan broke into his house and nabbed his underwear; cops called after screaming throngs of people waited in the snow all night while he was on a ski vacation; folks dressed as him for Halloween. And on and on.

Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe.Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

Columbia Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

“It’s the kind of stuff you look back on and go, did that really happen?” Lowe tells PEOPLE in this week’scover storythat celebrates transformative moments in the Hollywood icon’s life. “The stories I have are mental, they’re nuts.”

“I’m super grateful that I can say that I had that in my life, because very few people get to be that person. Every decade there’s a new crop and society demands it. It’s fun to watch that unfold having been there.”

Rob Lowe.Bob Riha, Jr./Getty

Bob Riha, Jr./Getty

He adds: “Today it would be [Justin] Bieber,Taylor Swift, I don’t know if it’sAustin Butler, whoever it is today, there’s always going to be somebody living that life.”

While he remembers the ’80s with a certain fondness, Lowe says he grappled at the time with how to make sense of the white-hot spotlight.

“The unease I felt with it I could never put my finger on until many years later and a lot of self-reflection, which came with getting into recovery,” says Lowe, who is34 years sober.

Rob Lowe.Jenny Gage + Tom Betteron

Jenny Gage + Tom Betteron

“I was intuitive enough in those days to sense the disconnect between me, who I was, the work I was doing, that was out there in the public and making this phenomenon, the hysteria, happen.”

For more of Rob Lowe’s PEOPLE interview, please pick up this week’s cover, on newsstands Friday.

source: people.com