It's Hard for Me to Live with Me: A Memoir

Written by Rex Chapman and Seth Davis

Narrated by Rex Chapman

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A powerful memoir from the University of Kentucky basketball legend, NBA veteran, and social media influencer about his recovery from addiction.

He is considered by many the greatest basketball player ever produced by the hoops-crazy state of Kentucky. In two years at the University of Kentucky, he scored over 1,000 points, led the Wildcats to a Sweet Sixteen appearance and was nicknamed “King Rex.” The first player ever drafted by the Charlotte Hornets, he spent twelve seasons in the NBA, dazzling in dunk contests and sinking one of the most memorable buzzer-beaters in league history. But by the end of his career, Rex Chapman was harboring a destructive secret.

Years before America’s opioid crisis would become national news, Chapman developed a dependency on Vicodin and Oxycontin, ultimately ingesting fifty painkillers a day. In addition, he developed a severe gambling addiction, once nearly losing $400,000 at a Las Vegas blackjack table. All this would cost him his family as well as most of the $40 million fortune he’d made in basketball, leaving him to live in his car and shoplift to support his addictions. Only when he was arrested—and his mugshot made national news—did he finally commit to getting clean.

In It’s Hard for Me to Live With Me, Chapman—who has amassed millions of social media followers for his relatable and uplifting posts—tells the story of his addiction and recovery in unflinching detail. With equal frankness, he describes his history with depression; the racism he witnessed growing up and how that shaped his outspokenness on matters of social justice; and his complex and volatile relationship with his father, also a former professional basketball player. Cowritten with New York Times bestselling author Seth Davis, Chapman’s memoir is an equally devastating and inspiring story about the human struggle for self-acceptance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Feb 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9781797176642

Rex Chapman

Rex Chapman was a standout basketball player at the University of Kentucky, played twelve seasons in the NBA and served in the front offices of several NBA teams. He has worked as a broadcaster for both professional and college basketball and hosted the CNN+ show Rex Chapman as well as the iHeart podcast Charges with Rex Chapman. He currently hosts the Smartless podcast Owned. A native of Kentucky, he lives in New York City.

Reviews for It's Hard for Me to Live with Me

[Nate Behlen · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rex Chapman is very honest and open about his life, and that makes it pretty enjoyable. But the last part of the book he gets extremely political, and there isn't a whole lot of thinking going into his thoughts. But if you know him from Twitter you already know that. Very surface-level, emotional, high school level thinking, but he is convicted in his beliefs. He understands the media lies, he tells us, unless he wants to believe what they're saying. MILD SPOILER ALERT: He also discusses the abortion his girlfriend had. It is never mentioned again until the epilogue of the book he bemoans that he is childless.