Presley’s DUI, Treatment, and Mental Health Plans
Presley’s troubles had spilled into public view years earlier. In January 2019, Presley was arrested for driving under the influence. Later that year, he received three years of probation and was ordered to complete a DUI program and two days of community service.
By March 2020, sources were publicly discussing Cindy and Rande’s concerns for their son. One source said at the time that Cindy and Rande had been trying to get Presley help since the DUI.
Cindy Crawford, Kaia, Presley, and Rande Gerber attended a book party for “Becoming” by Cindy in West Hollywood, California, on December 4, 2015. Presley, then still fresh-faced and boyish in grey jeans and a black hoodie, stood beside his family with an easy grin. | Source: Getty Images
Presley had already been in treatment, according to the source, while his parents were pushing for something more serious. But years later, Presley was no longer leaving others to speak about his experiences for him.
In a March 2023 interview, he revealed plans to use what he had learned from his own struggles to help other people dealing with their mental health.
Presley said he was working toward obtaining his real estate license while developing other projects. Among them was an idea tentatively called “Mental Health Mondays.”
He envisioned devoting each Monday to different aspects of mental health, including conversations with trainers and nutritionists and stories about treatments he had attended himself.
Presley also wanted to discuss “green flags and red flags to look for” when seeking treatment. Therapy, Western medicine, exercise, and changes to his diet were among the areas he said he had explored.
Lexi Wood, Presley Gerber, Cindy Crawford, and Rande Gerber posed together at the Haute Living Celebrates Cindy Crawford With OMEGA event in Malibu, California, on November 3, 2022. | Source: Getty Images
For Presley, however, the project appeared to mean far more than simply creating content. It had become something deeply important to his everyday life. “I think that’s really what’s getting me going. That’s what’s getting me out of bed these days,” he said.
He hoped that by speaking candidly about what he had experienced, other people might benefit from his journey — and perhaps avoid some of the difficulties he had encountered himself.
Cindy Crawford, Presley Gerber, and Adrienne Faurote attended the Haute Living Celebration in Miami Beach, Florida, on November 3, 2024. | Source: Getty Images
Kaia Recently Spoke About Her Brother’s Addiction
Just over a month before Presley’s death, Kaia spoke candidly about her older brother’s struggles in a Vogue interview published on August 11. The magazine described Presley as having endured a decade-long struggle with drug addiction.
Kaia explained that what was happening with her brother had affected the role she assumed within their family. She came to see herself as the “easy one” and avoided asking for help because, in her mind, having two children who needed it felt like too much.
In one of his few documented public appearances in the months before his passing, Presley Gerber smiles alongside sister Kaia Gerber and parents Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber at the RE/DONE x Kaia Gerber ‘Short/Cuts’ launch event in Los Angeles on May 20, 2026. | Source: Getty Images
Presley’s decision to speak publicly about his struggles also marked a major departure from how the Gerber family had traditionally handled their private lives. Her brother had chosen a different path, openly discussing parts of himself that might once have remained firmly behind closed doors.
“My parents for most of our lives were very, very private and didn’t share anything – and now we have this absolute teacher, my brother, who says, ‘I’m gonna be very human for everyone,'” Kaia said.
She added that she was “deeply proud of him.” Years before Presley began publicly talking about mental health, treatment, and his hope of helping others, the young model was already attracting attention during a turbulent period in his life.
And in February 2020, he put one particularly loaded word directly across his face.
