The tragic death that forced Polo G to stop popping Percocet
Polo G has struggled with addiction throughout much of his still young life, but a real turning point came when he lost one of his close friends to an overdose. His fellow Chicago rapper Juice WRLD was only 21 when he died in 2019, and his loss understandably shook so many people.
Juice passed away in late 2019, after he got on a flight from LA to Chicago. The cops had come to suspect that there were weapons and drugs aboard his plane, so they launched a search of the aircraft when they could. Juice WRLD, it was later reported, then took “several unknown pills.”
It is believed that the pills Juice took had been Percocet, a combination of the opioid oxycodone and the pain-reliever acetaminophen, otherwise known by its brand name of Tylenol. The young rapper soon experienced convulsions and a seizure, and he was later pronounced dead in hospital.
About a month after he died, it was reported that his cause of death had been down to a toxic level of oxycodone and codeine in his system. Juice WRLD, then, had become yet another victim of the wider opioid epidemic in the United States.
Juice WRLD had been extensively using drugs since he was literally a child. He apparently started drinking lean while he was still in school, before moving onto Percocet and Xanax. In one respect, he is a remarkable case, given his level of fame when he died aged 21. In another respect, he represents every other young person who has succumbed to the opioid crisis.
Even the most successful of rappers are often subject to the same dynamics underlying the opioid crisis, and Juice WRLD was by no means alone in his struggles. His friend Polo G, too, had his issues, but Juice’s death really pushed him to make a change.
In his song ‘21,’ Polo raps the line, “Can’t relapse off these drugs, man, RIP to Juice /
We was tweakin’ off them Percs, I popped my last one with you.” This, he later claimed on a commentary of the track for Genius, was the truth.
“My last time I was popping a Percocet was with Juice WRLD,” Polo admitted. “That’s why I really left it alone after that. I’m like, I don’t ever want to revisit that moment knowing that that was my last time doing it was with him and what his situation was.”
The pain of what had happened to Juice was too much for Polo to bear, and he knew he needed to make a change. He couldn’t stay on the path he was on, in light of where he’d seen it lead his friend.
In December 2025, it was reported that Polo G had been sober and living a vegan lifestyle for the previous seven months. The opioid crisis remains a tragic issue today, but, at least for Polo G, positive change has proven to be obtainable.