Decades after his infamous cocaine arrest and time served in federal prison, actor Tim Allen has recently opened up about that time in his life.

While appearing on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast, the Toy Story star revealed that he started drinking at a young age after his father died in a car crash in Colorado. “I was a f–k up,” Allen said.

“After my old man died, I really just played games with people and told adults what they wanted to hear and then stole their booze,” Allen admitted. “Really I was [Leave It To Beaver’s] Eddie Haskell: ‘Yes, Mrs. Cleaver. No, Mrs. Cleaver.’ I knew exactly what adults wanted – make your bed, be polite, use a napkin – and then I’d go steal everything in the house.”

Allen was arrested at Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport, Michigan in 1978 when it was discovered that he had over a pound of cocaine in his luggage. He served a little more than two years behind bars. The 23-year-old mugshot of Allen has followed the actor throughout his entire career. He has now been sober for 23 years.

“I just shut up and did what I was told,” he said about his time in prison. “It was the first time I did what I was told and played the game. I learned literally how to live day by day. And I learned how to shut up. You definitely want to learn how to shut up.”

The conversation with Maron then shifted to politics, as Allen was recently trending on Twitter after many fans found out that he was a conservative.

“I literally don’t preach anything. What I’ve done is just not join into, as I call it, the ‘we culture.’ I’m not telling anybody else how to live. I don’t act like that, ‘We should do this’ or ‘We should do that,'” he said. “Once I realized the last president pissed people off, I kind of liked that. So it was fun to just not say anything. Didn’t join the lynching crowd.”

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