Lane Kiffin’s drinking led to his 2016 split with wife Layla and hampered his career, the first-year Louisiana State head football coach has revealed.
The 51-year-old made the disclosure to Vanity Fair amid a wave of negative publicity since abruptly leaving Ole Miss ahead of the school’s first College Football Playoff berth back in November.
Since signing a $91 million deal to join the Rebels’ SEC rival in Baton Rouge, Kiffin has become the posterchild for fans’ complaints about the sport and the corrupting influence of its soaring cash flow.
But while Kiffin insisted he did not care about the criticism over his controversial decision, he did hold himself accountable for his behavior as a younger coach, husband and father.
‘My whole drive when I was younger was like, “How fast can I get everything? How fast can I get the big job? The big contract?”‘ he told VF.
The son of legendary NFL defensive assistant Monte Kiffin, Lane went from playing quarterback at Fresno State to coaching at USC under Pete Carroll to getting the Oakland Raiders’ head-coaching job in a little more than a decade. And when things went wrong with Raiders owner Al Davis, who tried to force Kiffin to resign in 2008, Kiffin took head-coaching jobs at Tennessee and, later, USC.
Then-USC head football coach Lane Kiffin (L) and wife Layla Kiffin attend FOX Sports/PAC-10 Conference Hollywood premiere night at 20th Century FOX Studios on July 29, 2010
Kiffin and Layla attend awards show in Century City, California in 2011 when he was at USC
Although this photo appears to have been taken prior to 2026, Kiffin posted it in January to mark five years of sobriety. He and Layla divorced in 2016, but reunited in 2025
As he told VF, the resume building became an addiction, which he further fueled with alcohol, first drinking beer and later switching to vodka. Along the way, he and his wife split in 2016, as he was working as an Alabama assistant under Nick Saban.
He would later quit drinking in 2021 as head coach at Ole Miss, and it was around this time he discovered yoga, which helped him lose 45 pounds.
‘As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to work on that, making decisions that are more delayed gratification,’ he told VF. ‘I got tired of digging out of hangovers, tired of digging out of situations or things I said.’
Kiffin also began journaling, later sharing with ESPN an Alcoholics Anonymous quotation he’d written down: ‘Ego was being replaced with self-respect, resentment and hatred were being replaced with tolerance and understanding.’
And in January, alongside an X post that included a photo of himself with a smiling Layla, Kiffin marked five years of sobriety.
‘Welp 5 years ago today, I made a decision that would change my life and many others around me,’ he wrote on January 30.
‘I want to say to anyone that has something holding you back from being the best version of yourself you CAN do it!! It won’t be easy AT ALL, but I promise you it will be worth it.’
