The forever young Rob Lowe, 50, appeared on Oprah Prime April 6 and shared his thoughts on his time in rehab, Justin Bieber and what it’s really like to be ridiculously good-looking.

Like many young celebrities, the Brat Pack actor came to a crossroads with addiction and chose to fight against it rather than succumb. Thankfully, Lowe has been sober for nearly 24 years and he credits his stint in rehab for the long-term success in his battle with addiction.

“I loved it,” said Lowe. “I don’t know what that says about me. I didn’t love the fact that I had to go and it was absolutely painful, but I liked the science. I couldn’t have gotten sober without rehab because I needed the science. I needed to [learn about] addiction and what it does to your body and all of the research and the things like that.”

Lowe says he is a firm believer in 12-step programs, but says he needed that time in rehab to solidify his sobriety.

“A lot of people can do it through 12-step programs alone—I wouldn’t have been one of them, although I believe in them. I needed to do the work,” he said.

Lowe also shared his thoughts on Justin Bieber‘s recent escapades. No stranger to the pressures and temptations of being young, rich and famous, Lowe says he can empathize with Bieber’s troubles.

“I have tremendous empathy [for Bieber]. He makes really good music, he does, but I think he knows the dark secret, and the dark secret is 80 percent of his audience doesn’t give a s–t about the music. And he knows it. It bums him out,” said the Parks and Recreation actor.

“They care about lemming-think, and their girlfriends and who’s oohing and aahing and screaming. It has nothing to do with what he’s doing as an artist. He is the guy who is standing in front at a moment that they’re going through a developmental thing. It’s natural, it’s all great, but if it wasn’t him, it would be somebody else, like it was me.”

And like Bieber, Rowe has had to deal with being super hot. Everyone would love to have Lowe’s looks problems, but he says it’s not always easy to be so good-looking.

“There’s this unbelievable bias and prejudice against quote-unquote good-looking people, that they can’t be in pain or they can’t have rough lives or be deep or interesting,” Lowe said in a New York Times interview. “They can’t be any of the things that you long to play as an actor. I’m getting to play those parts now and loving it. When I was a teen idol, I was so goddamn pretty I wouldn’t have taken myself seriously.”

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