"It's a Rough 10,000 Hours But I Have the Tools Now": Luke Combs Opens Up About Struggles with OCD with 60 Minutes Australia

"If anyone tells you [they're not dealing with something], they're lying."

In a recent interview with 60 Minutes Australia ahead of his show at Sydney's Accor Stadium, country megastar Luke Combs sat down to talk about his quick rise to fame, his take on being a father and his struggles with OCD.

Struggling with a specific type of OCD that's known as purely obsessional OCD, or Pure O, he explained that his struggle is solely thought-based as opposed to more common types of OCD which also include physical compulsions.

"It's kind of an obscure form of OCD, which is all thought-base," he shared in the candid chat. "All OCD is thought-based, but its thoughts essentially that you don't want to have that cause you stress and then the stress causes you to have more of the thoughts. 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."

Explaining that his first experiences with the disorder date back to when he was in his pre-teen years, he explained that it's been a work in progress to get a grasp on, yet his worst flare up in recent memory occurred just days before embarking on the Australian portion of his 2025 world tour.

"I do really well with it, for the most part. 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." Combs continued, "The worst flare-up of it that I've had in three or four years started about two days before this trip. The first two weeks for me here were a lot of rumination, OCD stuff and it was not ideal."

By definition, OCD is noted as "uncontrollable and recurring thoughts (obsessions), repetitive and excessive behaviors (compulsions), or both," according to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, and impacts around 2% of American adults.

"I feel for people that struggle with OCD but that variant that I have is particularly wicked. There's no outward manifestation of it." Providing an example, he noted, "If there's a bear in front of you, your fight or flight kicks on and then the bear is gone. Imagine if your brain stayed in fight or flight and every time you thought about the bear, another bear showed up in front of you. The more you think about it, the more bears there are and they keep coming.

"They're never gonna attack you but you feel like they're going to. If you stop thinking about the bears and you go, 'Oh, there's bears over there. Cool, it doesn't matter,' then eventually there's less and less until there's not any left."

Ranging from existential questions about religion and self-identity to "intrusively violent thoughts," Combs shared that the "all consuming" thoughts he usually struggles are the ones with no clear answer, but that he's found freedom in knowing that sometimes you don't need answers.

"I definitely want to spend some time at some point in my life doing some outreach to kids that deal with this because it held me back so many times in my life. Luckily, I've done my 10,000 hours many times... It's a rough 10,000 hours but I have the tools now," he shared with a smile, referencing the rule that says if you spend 10,000 hours at something, you'll become an expert at it.

"When it happens now, I'm not afraid of it... I know I'm not gonna be like this forever."

The 'Forever After All' hitmaker kicked off 2025 with a string of shows across Australia and New Zealand in Auckland, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. For the remainder of the year, he'll be exclusively sticking to festival appearances, which will see him at a handful of shows throughout the spring and summer.

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