Lonely existence
By RTL Boulevard 13 hours ago Modified: 13 hours ago
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Armin van Buuren (47) was voted best DJ in the world five times. Despite his success, he lived a lonely existence for a long time. In ‘Casa di Beau’ he tells how loneliness brought him to a low point and how he slowly climbed out of it.
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“After that I really found myself again”
Armin grew up in a loving family and experienced his youth as ‘very happy’, but difficult subjects were not discussed. “Still not and that has also shaped me”, he tells presenter Beau van Erven Dorens.
The DJ says that he has had a rather ‘turbulent time’ and has been working hard on himself. “What I have now discovered is that there are two types of Armin. One Armin is just an artist (…), but there is also an Armin who wanted to be seen.” There was a loneliness in his life that he wanted to solve by getting on stage.
Through dance music, Armin made friends. Music was not only an outlet for him, but also a means to connect. “I was the happiest man on earth on stage, but then you heard that hotel room door closing and you were alone again.” Because of this, he started drinking more and more and became quieter.
“You can see that very clearly in Avicii, for example,” he continues his story. He refers to a column from The Volkskrant which was published shortly after his death. “It says, ‘I’ve never seen anyone so lonely in the midst of so many people.’ That actually applied to me too.”
Eventually, just before the corona crisis broke out, Armin experienced his breaking point and wanted to take a year off. “I’m really losing myself. I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said at the time. He saw the pandemic as his salvation. Armin was a regular DJ in Las Vegas at the time and took on another job in between, but he didn’t like it so much that he became very unhappy. “But I didn’t allow myself that feeling of unhappiness. Then I actually stood on the roof and thought: who’s going to miss me then?”
With that ‘scary’ thought he went to his father and ‘turned all the emergency buttons’. “I went to therapy and really started working on myself. Then I thought: I’m just in the place where Avicii was.” Armin didn’t understand where the feeling came from. “I was in the place where I wanted to be, right?”
Armin found the process painful. “In the meantime, I just kept drinking and I started drinking more and more at home.” It was only when he stopped that, the DJ says he found himself again.
A story like Armin’s is not uncommon in the DJ world. In 2018, Avicii died from suicide. In addition, Armin knows a similar story from almost every Dutch DJ. “Which is of course bizarre, because we have the best job there is. Only the pressure we are under (…) you give up so much for that. Every time I say ‘yes’ to a show, I say a resounding ‘no’ to my family. That is a very harsh conclusion.”
Beau’s House can be seen every Wednesday at 8:30 PM on RTL 4. You can watch the episode again on Videoland.
