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When Diff'rent Strokes went off the air in 1986, Todd was a star. Two years later, he says he was living in South Central Los Angeles, the neighborhood where his downward spiral began.

"I had no shoes on, no shirt on, no money in my pocket, and I felt horrible about myself," he says. "I felt that my life was over."

To support his voracious drug habit, Todd began dealing marijuana, speed, crack and cocaine. "I wasn't Willis when I was over here. I was Todd Bridges, the drug dealer," he says. "I was considered a pretty notorious character."

Todd says people used to recognize him on the street and in crack houses, but he would tell them to shut up and stay away. To make people listen, Todd took extreme measures.

"I had a .45-caliber MAC-10 I used to carry on me. I had a 9 mm, and if I showed you it and it came out of my waistband, you were shot," he says. "It was a matter of survival of the fittest."

During this time, Todd says he also employed girls as drug dealers so he could have sex with them. "I was a pimp in a lot of ways. I'm not happy saying that I was, but I was. That's the reality of it," he says. "I can't hide behind what I've done wrong, but I can say that everything I did was in the depth of me being loaded."

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