Billy Bob Thornton Reflects on His Mental Health Journey

Billy Bob Thornton is getting candid about his mental health. During an appearance on the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast, the Landman star opened up on living with OCD and anxiety.

Thornton recalled to Mandel and Mandel’s daughter, Jackelyn Shultz, a particularly vivid memory of how OCD first manifested for him during his childhood growing up with his late father.

He began, “It’s well known that I have all these different things. I have a severe anxiety disorder as well as OCD, and I grew up dyslexic. When I was growing up, they didn’t have programs, and it wasn’t a thing, you know. They just thought you were an idiot at school. I grew up with it… my dad was not particularly nice to me. It was kind of tough around the house when I was a kid. He was in the service in the Korean War, and I think he had some problems.”

“I had no idea what it was. I thought I invented it! I would do these things, and they say a lot of the time with OCD, it’s someone who feels like their life is out of control, and it’s a way that they can control something. I would do this thing. I knew what time he [Thornton’s late father] got home from work. I would look at the clock…and when it would get, say, three minutes to four, when I would hear the car pull in the driveway around four o’clock usually, in my head I would say if I can count to a hundred five times before I hear the car come in the driveway, everything’s gonna be okay,” added Thornton.

The Boxmasters frontman also described an incredible moment shared with legendary singer-songwriter Warren Zevon. Zevon and Thornton once lived in the same West Hollywood apartment complex during the latter’s early years as a young actor.

“This is in the late ’80s, I guess,” said Thornton. “I was standing at the mailbox to get my mail. Of course, in those days, I didn’t get any mail. It’s like a Ralph’s flyer, or s—it like that. I opened the mailbox, [and] I pull[ed] out the Ralph’s flyer. I put it back in, closed it, opened it again, [and] I pulled it out again. I did it three times. Well, Warren Zevon’s standing next to me, and he’s watching me. And he goes, ‘You have it too, huh?'”

He added, “After that, Warren and I became friends, and we started discussing our OCD and our anxiety and all these different things. We used to compete with each other to see who had it worse.”

Billy Bob Thornton has discussed his mental health diagnoses in previous interviews. In 2025, he told rock legend Ann Wilson of Heart on her After Dinner Thinks podcast about numerous conversations with one of his daughters regarding their shared mental health challenges.

“[We talk] about how these things are looked at by the public as detriments. But they’re actually strengths, especially in the arts. If you check through history, you can’t tell me Van Gogh and all those guys weren’t on the spectrum,” proclaimed the “Lost Highway” musician.