Red Hot Chilli Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis has been rather reclusive for the last year or so. A TV series is being made of his biography to air on HBO, but his musical activities have been few and far between. The New York Daily News suggests this is likely due to kidney failure.

According to several sources, the former cocaine and heroin addict was a frequent patient at L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai hospital last summer as he battled kidney disease.

“Anthony’s health was pretty bleak,” a close friend tells us of the rocker, whose partying ways of the past contributed to his condition.

“Organ failure was a possibility. There was talk of how to get him on a transplant list, to cover all the bases, but that opened up a whole new can of worms because people with histories of drug and alcohol abuse are less likely to receive the organs they need.”

Kiedis’ Cedars visits were confirmed by another insider who says the musician is now on the mend: “The general consensus is that the treatments helped, and he’s getting better.”

Two different reps for Kiedis laughed off the reports when contacted, but denied only that he was being treated for a kidney problem.

They refused to confirm — or deny — that he had made multiple hospital visits.

New York Daily News

Anthony was a long term user of both heroin and cocaine. According to Wikipedia, heroin has been linked to kidney failure, but it is uncertain whether this is due to the drugs, or additives in them. Cocaine is also linked to kidney disease in long term users.

Kiedis detailed his drug use in his memoir, Scar Tissue. He began using drugs with his father (who was a dealer to artists in the 1970s) at age 12 and continued until fellow band member Hillel Slovac died in 1988. Use of a narcotic for pain relief during dental surgery in 1994 caused him to relapse, before he stopped using again on Christmas Eve 2000. The story is being developed into a series with HBO, Anthony and his father are working together on the project.

We wish Anthony well, and hope he’s recovered enough to make music and TV again soon.

Anthony Kiedis is shown at the Fallout 3 launch party on 10/16/08. Credit: PRPhotos