Rick Campanelli reveals personal battle with past gambling addiction in ‘Tempted’ memoir
Posted September 1, 2026 9:53 am.
It’s been just over 30 years since a contest entry with MuchMusic would forever change Rick Campanelli’s life and make “Rick the Temp” a beloved household name.
The media personality’s storied career in the entertainment industry, which included co-hosting ET Canada, granted him VIP access to interview the biggest stars like Britney Spears, George Clooney and Jay-Z, to name a few.
With his autobiography, Tempted: My Story, co-authored by Canadian author John Meyer, hitting the shelves on Tuesday, the Breakfast Television reporter opened up about his own life. Described by the publisher as a “bombshell memoir” and a “cautionary tale,” the book reveals secret personal battles and hard lessons learned behind the scenes.
On Breakfast Television on Tuesday, Campanelli spoke out his personal battle with a previous gambling addiction that almost tore his life apart.
Campanelli said his addiction stemmed from the high he received from entering the winning contests as a young person.
“I loved entering contests back in the day. I would enter any contest that I came across, whether it was winning a stuffed bunny for a colouring contest, winning a contest at a grocery store that sent me away to visit an NHL hockey team. I just loved winning. And it wasn’t about the prize as much as about just winning, being that person,” he explained.
In the second half of the interview, Campanelli said “that luck turned unlucky” for him.
“It’s like a double-edged sword you’re right because I’m winning, I’m feeling good but it’s also creating this addictive personality in me towards an addiction, which I fell into and it got out of control. I liked winning and I always thought, ‘okay, well anything I approach I’m going to win,’ so that’s when the gambling started taking over my life and I became addicted to that.”
He said the obsession with winning reared its “ugly head” and “it just took over and I lost control for many, many years.”
Campanelli said his gambling addiction also led to him being arrested after landing in Las Vegas.
“I had planned a scheme to borrow some money from some Las Vegas casinos at the time …But it was a scheme that I really didn’t think too in-depth about because I failed to pay back these people when they wanted their money back. I was always going to pay them back, but it was just taking longer than I thought, so they wanted their money, these big boys wanted their money, and I didn’t get give it to them so I paid the consequences and I spent some time in jail,” he said.
“You think I would have learned my lesson at that point for you. …I continued shortly after to gamble,” he explained, adding that it was his wife, Angie, who got him through it.
“And it wasn’t until Angie, God bless her, because she’s my rock and she’s still with me. She stands by me. She supports me. She helps me each and every day. I continued to gamble and she found out and we got the help we needed, in CAMH, in Gamblers Anonymous. That would have been rock bottom, losing Angie. If I had lost Angie, I don’t know where I’d be today.”
Campanelli said one of the main reasons he penned this book now is to raise awareness of how a gambling addiction can ruin a person’s life.
“A main reason why I’m putting this book out now, many reasons, but one of the main ones is that online gambling is on the rise and it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. And listen, it’s going to be around for a very long time because these companies are making lots of money. But this young generation I fear for because I don’t want them to go down these same roads that I went down,” he said.
“I was out of control with my addiction. I was living paycheck to paycheck. Money was coming and money was going. That’s not the case anymore. …I’ve been able to manage and control my addiction over these last 17 years or so. And I’ll never go back to those dark days because I lived them, I experienced them. I don’t want anyone to live those days. So knowing that will keep me on the straight and narrow.”
Need help with a gambling problem? Click here to find a counsellor in Canada via Responsible Gambling Council.
The official launch of the book will be held at the El Mocambo in Toronto at 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
