Luke Combs has revealed the intense nature of his struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), describing the condition as “particularly wicked” during a candid conversation on 60 Minutes Australia.
The country star shared that unlike common perceptions of OCD—such as compulsive behaviors like flicking light switches—his form, purely obsessional OCD, manifests internally with relentless anxiety and intrusive thoughts rather than outward rituals.
“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,” Combs told the program prior to his show at Sydney’s Accor Stadium last month.
“It’s something that in some way I at least think about every day. There’s some tinge of it to some extent every day … The craziness of the particular disorder that I have, it’s the way to get out of it,” Combs told interviewer Adam Hegarty.
“There’s no outward manifestation of it, right? Like you’re talking about the flicking of a light switch, but for me, it’s all going on in here,” Combs explained, adding. “When someone else flicks a light switch, you can see it happening. But for someone like myself, you wouldn’t even know what’s going on—it could be happening right now and you wouldn’t even realise it.”
“It’s thoughts, essentially, that you don’t want to have… 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, and you’re trying to get rid of them, but trying to get rid of them makes you have more of them.”
He continued, “I’m lucky to be an expert in how to get out of it now… I’m probably 90 per cent out of my flare-up now … and in the midst of doing a world tour, right?”
Combs, known for hits like “Forever After All,” described recent anxiety flare-ups as among the most severe he’s experienced in years, noting periods where obsessive thoughts consumed him for “45 seconds of every minute for weeks.” The intrusive thoughts ranged from unsettling violent images to existential concerns about his identity.
The country star admitted that his OCD significantly impacted his life, explaining, “It held me back so many times in my life where you’re trying to accomplish something, you’re doing really great, and then you have a flare-up, and it just like ruins your whole life for six months.”
Yet, Combs has gradually learned to manage the disorder more effectively by acknowledging these intrusive thoughts without fear.
“When it happens now, I’m not afraid of it because I’m not like, ‘What if I’m like this forever?’ I know I’m not going to be like this forever now.”
Previously, Combs had opened up about first experiencing OCD-related anxiety in middle school during a 2021 interview on AXS TV’s The Big Interview, likening his obsessive thoughts to “fixing the blinds or straightening the carpet,” but occurring entirely in his mind.
Luke Combs has landed four No. 1 albums on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart: This One’s For You (2017), What You See Is What You Get (2019), Growin’ Up (2022), and The Prequel (EP) (2019). His albums Gettin’ Old (2023) and Fathers & Sons (2024) both peaked at No. 2.