Luke Combs Says He Had the ‘Worst’ OCD Flare-Up Before Performing in Australia: ‘When It Hits, It Can Be All-Consuming’

• Luke Combs shared details of his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which he experiences as severely intrusive or repetitive thoughts
• The country star, 35, told 60 Minutes Australia that he had “the worst flare-up” before a recent performance, calling it “all-consuming”
• Combs says he started showing symptoms when he was around 12 years old and now wants to help other kids who struggle with the condition

Luke Combs shared that he had “the worst flare-up” of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in recent years before a March performance in Australia, describing the experience as “wicked.”

“Probably the worst flare-up of it I’ve had in, I would say three or four years, started about two days before this trip,” the “Fast Car” singer, 35, told 60 Minutes Australia while in the country for a slate of shows.

“The first two weeks for me here,” he said, were “not ideal” due to “a lot of like, rumination, OCD stuff.”

Combs has previously shared that his form of OCD doesn’t manifest as repetitive physical actions, such as flicking a light switch or washing hands. As he explained to 60 Minutes Australia, “Mine’s different …  it’s all, like, thought-based. I mean, I guess all OCD is thought-based, right? … It’s thoughts, essentially, that you don’t want to have that you’re having. And then they cause you stress and then you’re stressed out, and then the stress causes you to have more of the thoughts, and then you don’t understand why you’re having them.”

The CMA winner explained the cyclical nature of his disorder: “You’re trying to get rid of [the thoughts] but trying to get rid of them makes you have more of them. And it’s really complex and really detailed …It’s very tedious to pull yourself out of it.”

“I’m lucky to be an expert [on] how to get out of it now,” he said. “I feel for people that struggle … anyone with OCD, really, but the variant that I have is particularly wicked.”

The “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” singer says his thoughts can range in scope. “They can be intrusively violent thoughts or thoughts about religion. It focuses on things that don’t have an answer. No one worries about: ‘Is two plus two four?’ That’s not what we’re talking about here. It’s really questions about who you are as a person … there’s never a yes or no answer, and so that’s what fuels the anxiety.”

He continued: “When it hits, man, it can be all-consuming.”

The first time he experienced OCD symptoms was when he was “12 or 13,” he recalls. That’s why “I definitely want to spend some time, at some point in my life, doing some outreach to kids that deal with this, because it held me back so many times in my life.”

“You’re trying to accomplish something, you’re doing really great, and then you have a flare-up and it ruins your whole life for six months — and then you’re back to where you started,” Combs explained.

“That’s something that I hope people take away from me at the end of my career. Regardless of the musical success,” he said, “I want to be an example for those kids that don’t have any hope — that you can still go on and do great things, even though you’re dealing with something that’s is really tough.”