Little Peep brother Karl Ahr spoke to People mag about Peep's death.
Karl, who goes by Oskar, explained that Peep's image as a drug-addled depressive was an act.
"It was an accident, it really was an accident,” Oskar said of his brother's overdose death. “He was super happy with where he was in life.
It makes me laugh to think about the days we watched WWE together but [Peep] mentioned how being a hip-hop artist is like being a pro-wrestling character. You have to be an actor,” Oskar continued. “He gets paid to be sad. It’s what he made his name on. It’s what his image was in a sense.”
Oskar added that his brother would never take his own life, as he took pride in helping others who were depressed.
“He was so proud when he heard that there were people in the world who wanted to kill themselves, and then they didn’t because they listened to his music. He was helping people, he was not somebody who needed help,” Oskar continues. “He was not as sad as people think he was. It’s frustrating as someone who remembers a happy brother.”
He also said that a lot of Peep's drug use was for the purpose of marketing.
My brother didn’t take five Xanax pills every day, but he would take them and then post on Instagram about it,” he says. “I wish it would have paid for him to be a little safer, but the world needed him to have superlative problems that he dealt with in superlative ways. Gus [Peep's real name] dealt with these problems much better than Lil Peep did, but people didn’t know Gus, and there’s a reason Gus doesn’t sell.”
Oskar was close to Peep, and had planned on spending Thanksgiving with him. He now plans on getting out Peep's unreleased music. This includes a collaborative project with Makonnen that Oskar describes as "a lot happier."
[Related: Lil HBK calls out drug dealer who sold laced Xans to Lil Peep.]