FINDING PURPOSE IN PAIN

In January Rickey Smiley's son Brandon died of a suspected overdose at age 32. Now the radio personality and comedian is speaking out about addiction and grief

- ERIC ANDERSSON

Rickey Smiley was home in his Dallas apartment, looking forward to watching the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Kansas City Chiefs on Jan. 29, when he received a life-changing call from his son Brandon's girlfriend. Brandon, 32, had overdosed and was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. He immediately booked a flight to Birmingham, Ala., where Brandon lived-not far from Smiley's primary home. But as the host of radio's The Rickey Smiley Morning Show was frantically throwing clothes into a bag, another call came: Brandon had died.

Determined to get home to his loved ones, the comedian and radio personality, 54, headed to the airport but found himself so emotionally overwrought that he was unable to locate his gate. "I couldn't think. I didn't know what line to get in," says Smiley, who asked a police officer for assistance. "There was a side of me that just wanted to lay in the middle of the airport floor and scream."

Several weeks after that horrifying day, Smiley is using his voice in a different way, speaking out about his grief and encouraging families to have conversations about addiction. Though a toxicology report from the Jefferson County Medical Examiner's Office is still pending, Smiley believes his son-an aspiring standup comic and father of a 3-year-old daughter, Storm-succumbed to his addiction to painkillers, which he'd battled for years.