The 7 Most Heartbreaking Moments From ‘As I AM: The Life and Times of DJ AM’

AM’s teen years were no walk in the park. From family turmoil, to a move to CA, and his early introduction to hard drugs, AM landed in a rehab that only made things worse. Described by his friends as more like a cult than a place to get better, it sounded like a doubly traumatic experience for him. It probably contributed to the fact that AM tried to kill himself, putting a gun in his mouth that thankfully jammed. Luckily, friends came over and rescued him in that moment. It’s abundantly clear that his love of music fueled his extra curricular activities, and soon-to-be profession. His teen years provide many clues that explain his adult life, from the drugs to the DJing, as he was clearly a troublemaker just looking to have a good time and listen to some good music.

It’s really painful to see AM at his largest. And not so much because of his body, but because you can tell it’s completely due to his unhappiness. Hearing a friend explain how he would put a layer of peanut butter in between two donuts and eat it like a sandwich…well, sounds kind of fun at first, but it’s clearly unhealthy. The documentary mentions his gastric bypass surgery but does not dwell on it much.

Fellow DJs in the doc credit AM with being one of the first in the industry to do such extensive mashups, especially when it comes to the wordplay that he builds his sets upon. As the money started coming in, AM was one of the first people to amass such a large collection of sneakers (500!), and the first DJ to collect a 1 million dollar paycheck. The moment in the film where he proudly holds up a room key for the Palms hotel in Vegas (where he had a residency) with his face on it, might moisten your eyes a bit. His pals are the first to admit he changed the pay scale for DJs and paved the way for lucrative residency gigs.

AM appeared on an E! red carpet for the Grammy awards, made cameos in Entourage and Iron Man 2, was attracting audiences ready to dance anywhere he went, and had high-profile relationships with ladies like Nicole Richie and Mandy Moore. He was hired to DJ at birthday parties for celebs like Madonna and Tom Cruise and shrugged it all off. Not that he didn’t work hard, as he absolutely did. But to watch him build up his career to unimaginable heights is really something. The talent he had on the turntables was untouchable.

The documentary opens with dash cam footage of the police arriving on the scene of his horrendous plane crash, foreshadowing what we already know. Not that it makes it any easier to digest when the footage is shown in full later in the film as the crash is chronicled. It’s terrifying, and sure to leave an uneasiness in the pit of your stomach.

And the dash cam footage is nothing compared to the graphic images of the burns AM had all over his body as a result of the crash. Bloody and scarred and charred, they are not easy to look at, but they are astonishing and make it that much more surprising that he turned out relatively ok from the whole ordeal.

AM created and starred in a show called Gone Too Far for MTV where he helped young people overcome their drug addictions. But in one episode, when he is in the same room as several hard drugs, he is visibly shaken and has to leave. The footage of him walking down the hall and physically trying to shake off what he was just in the presence of will give you goosebumps.