Page 68 - RICHERT VS. SORKIN THEFT OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT AND THE WEST WING

TV BIG: I WAS'CRACK' SCREENWRITER ByMICHAEL STARR
August I, 2001-- Troubled "West Wing" honcho Aaron Sorkin, nabbed on drug charges in April says he was often high on crack when lre wrote the 1995 movie "The American President."
"I was smoking crack cocaine every day" while unitmg the movie, Sorkin tells TV Guide in an interview appearing in the magazine's upcoming issue.
Sorkin says that while living at the Fow Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, he would write a few pages of &e movie a &y, while he was sober - then put the Do Not Disturb sign on his door and get high on crack.
"That is why it took me three years to write the script," he says.
Sorkin atso tells TV Guide about his April 15 arrest at Burbank Airport for
SOSER:
Aarun Sorkin (left), with carrying cocaine, marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms while boarding a luwyer Steve Sithoff, tells flight for Las Vegas.
TV Guide he's been
drug-free since his April
bust
- Associued Press
says.
uWest
night before. It was a stupid way of celebrating thal the pressure was ofi" he
"I had jwt been to the wrap party [for the previous
Wing" season] the
Sorkiq who spent time at the Hazelden Institute in 1995 trying to kick his free-base habit, claims to have smoked crackcocaine "fewer than five tinres" oner the past two years.
His estranged wife, Julia, also talks of his drug use in the upcoming September issue of Talk magaz-ine, which also features an interview with Sorkin.
"I ann totally convinced that the number oftimes since Hazelden that Aaron has smoked cocaine is very few; because I know ffs corrylete$ incapacitating," she says.
But Sorkin tells TV Guide he also smoked dope.
"From time to time, I would smoke pot," he says. "Granted - it's illegal. That not\Mithstanding, I wouldn't smoke pot and sa5 'Now I need to have this other thing fcrack]"' "
Sorkiq now separated from Julia, claims he's been clean and sober since his April arrest. goloe
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08/01/2001
Page I of2
NOW Sorkin admits he lied/lies/is a criminal.
Who does he call from the airport the night of his arrest?
John Wells.