Wendy Kaufman credits her job at Snapple with helping her get sober after a decade of cocaine use beginning in the 1980s.
The former beverage spokeswoman, who famously became known as “Wendy, the Snapple Lady,” opened up about her wild drug addiction during an interview with People published Wednesday.
Kaufman, 67, told the outlet that she first “tried cocaine” the night she graduated from Syracuse University “with a couple of different degrees” in 1980.
“I knew I was an addict, knew I was going to love it,” she shared. “And that started a 10-year run with cocaine, where I got myself in a lot of trouble with it.”
Her cocaine addiction became so serious that Kaufman’s family organized an intervention for her in 1990, which “ended up saving [her] life” and gave her the strength to enter rehab.
“I needed it,” Kaufman said. “I was so grateful to have it. I ended up going to a hospital, and when I was done with my 28 days, which became 45 days, which became 10 months, I spent that time getting myself together.”
She added, “They told me that if I didn’t get the help, I was going to die. There really was no choice for me.”
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However, getting sober also meant that Kaufman had to “learn how to live life on life’s terms” and “not be spoiled” by relying on her family’s business in the steel industry.
Kaufman, through a friend of her father’s, joined Snapple in April 1991.
Although she began in the audit department, Kaufman quickly climbed her way up to become the head of PR after deciding to start “doing nice things” for all the Snapple fans and customers reaching out to the company.
“A huge part of my sobriety was getting out of my brain and doing nice things for other people because I wasn’t so nice and I wasn’t so nice to me,” she explained.
“I started handling the letters and realized, ‘Oh my God, not only is this a gift to sobriety to do great things for people, but it’s making me feel so much better about myself. This is God’s work. This is unbelievable, that this just showed itself to me, and I went from there,” Kaufman added.
The Quaker Oats Company ultimately bought Snapple in 1994 and decommissioned its beloved Snapple Lady spokesperson in 2008.
Before that, Kaufman had appeared in dozens of commercials and made countless public appearances across the US.
But 18 years after leaving the company, Kaufman still credits Snapple with helping her to stay sober and allowing her to do “so much more” than she would have if she had never become the Snapple Lady.
“I couldn’t have done it without Snapple because they saw something in me and they cheered me on,” she gushed.
“I got to go to Oprah. I did Joan Rivers and David Letterman, his top 10 list. I did all the things that you could only dream about as just a regular person,” Kaufman concluded. “I got to do so much more.”
If you or someone you care about is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
