Dustin Poirier reveals Bud Light 'terminated my contract immediately' after drunken arrest: 'I don't need that f***ing poison in my life'

UFC legend Dustin Poirier continues to feel the ripple effects of his highly publicized arrest last month.

The one-time interim lightweight champion was arrested for public intoxication at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Father's Day, June 21. Poirier, 37, was seen on police bodycam footage getting into verbal altercations with airport workers and threatening the police officer who recorded the incident in response to calls.

Speaking on Tuesday's edition of "The Ariel Helwani Show," Poirier revealed that his Bud Light sponsorship was instantly dropped as a result of the incident.

"They terminated my contract immediately. It's all good, man. I don't need that f***ing poison in my life," Poirier told Uncrowned.

"It sucks that my family loses out on the money I had left on the deal with them, which is a few hundred thousand dollars. But also, if I'm representing something, advertising something I'm not going to be taking part in, and promoting stuff that — it is what it is.

"I don't have a problem with people who [drink]. There's plenty of people out there who do drink responsibly. I'm not one. So if you can drink responsibly, have fun. Drink a Bud Light. Drink whatever the hell you want. Be responsible. Have a good time. I'm not that person."

Outside of Bud Light, Poirier says the rest of his sponsors have been supportive and taken no action against him, though he noted most of those partnerships have been in place for extended periods, rather than something newer like with Bud Light.

The UFC also hasn't taken any action against Poirier, as he continues to work in an analyst role for select event broadcasts. According to Poirier, UFC CBO Hunter Campbell called him the day after the arrest to check in and make sure everything was OK.

Ultimately, the incident has forced Poirier to make a change. He hasn't drunk alcohol since his arrest and he intends to remain sober for the rest of his days.

"Bad decision-making on my part," Poirier reflected. "I don't want to place the blame on anything or on my family or what I have going on in my personal life. At the end of the day, it's up to me, and I made bad decisions. So what happened that day, I just wasn't in a good mental space, and I chose to do things during that mental space that I was in that I shouldn't have, and I knew I shouldn't have. I didn't care in the moment. It was just a really bad day for me. But we live and learn, dude.

"It'll never happen again. I'm a month sober from alcohol, and I'm never going to pick up alcohol again. This has changed my the trajectory of my life. I'm never going to drink again in my life. I made a vow. When I make promises to myself like that, to my family like that, I don't break them. So maybe it was something that needed to happen. It just sucks the whole world gets to point the finger. But like I said about turning it into a positive, maybe I do and maybe I help somebody. Maybe somebody hears me speak that is going through something and it's OK."

"My immediate thought after the whole incident was I just ruined everything I've been working on post-fighting,” Poirier added. “I wanted to be [working] on TV, I wanted to be on the desk, I wanted to be connected to the sport that's given me everything I have, and I just threw it all away because of emotion, because of my mind frame that day. It's scary, man. You can work your whole life and then one bad day can ruin everything. Thankfully for me, it hasn't yet. I've lost a decent amount of money with Bud Light sponsor falling off, and I had to get off the [UFC broadcast] desk and get off the show for a while, and CBS was figuring things out. But I hope I'm back. We'll see, man. Time will tell.

“But whatever happens, I brought it onto myself. I can face the consequences, the good and the bad, for things that I do. I've always been accountable and I'm sorry, man, to the people who had to see that, to the people who I let down. That's not who I am. Anybody who really knows me, knows who I am. And it was just a really bad time in my life."

Poirier's alcohol use wasn't a daily issue, he said. The problem was that when he did drink, he overdid it. Whether it was weekly or bi-weekly, Poirier didn't know when to stop. He noted that it's been a problem throughout his life, but it grew worse in retirement. Poirier hasn’t not fought since his swan song loss to Max Holloway at UFC 318 in July 2025.

Chris Unger via Getty Images

"When I laid the gloves down, I realized I was drinking to process emotion," Poirier said. "I wasn't drinking to socialize. I wasn't drinking to celebrate. I was drinking to fight the feelings in my head. I was trying to process emotion with drinking. To get away. To run away from it, which is a coward's move."

To help get through his ongoing battles outside the cage, Poirier has taken up therapy. He began working on his mental health three years ago, but he admits it wasn't enough.

Fighting is something that will always be in Poirier's blood. He knew the difficulties he was up against. Still, he has no intention of returning for another fight, and will continue to combat his mental health first and foremost.

"I was going [to therapy] pretty regularly, and then once I started to feel better, I stopped going, but that's not how this works," Poirier said. "You know it's going to resurface years down the line, or things will pop up and make me feel a certain way and pull me back to that darkness. So, I don't believe it's something that's ever fixed. There's no eureka moment. There's no magic pill. There's no one day you wake up, and the mental hurdles are gone. It's just something you have to live with and work on every day. I have to read and write and do the things that I learned through therapy that made me feel better, that helped me control my thoughts, just to get away from it.

"Once I started feeling well mentally, I thought I was good, and I just continued living life. But after going through the ups and downs, it's something I realized that is gonna be a lifelong battle."