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Jim Davidson opens up about cocaine hell

The '90s icon has given a brutally honest interview about addiction

Jim Davidson has given a candid account of his past drug addictions – admitting he used to down 250 pills in just one weekend.

The 63-year-old television presenter opened up about his troubles during a recent recording of Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, sharing the shocking truth of what was really happening off-camera during the height of his success.

According to Daily Star, the former Generation Game host confessed to guzzling hundreds of pills before getting hooked on cocaine.

“It became a bit of a mess really. I had to put the brakes on…I did not know how to,” he recalled.

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“I used to go to the pub at lunchtime as I was bored. I was earning £250,000 a week and I was able to push some things aside – and that included family.

“Sometimes I took 250 pills in a weekend, amphetamines, when I was young.

“It was awful. That is why I stopped doing it. It made me feel awful and then I moved on to to all that Charlie.”

Jim reportedly told Piers and the studio audience that his cocaine habit became so bad he developed nosebleeds and began to fear for his life.

Thankfully these days Jim says that he’s clean and has cut down on his alcohol intake.

It’s not the first time he’s spoken out about his cocaine hell: two years ago he gave a brutally honest interview in which he admitted taking so much of the Class A drug he would end up “sitting dribbling in a corner, semi-comatose”.

He told The Sun: “At one showbiz party I was sat at a table with my nose bleeding, looking like I was about to keel over and die, and I remember wondering why Miss World, who was a guest at the do, didn’t want to talk to me.”

“I couldn’t take enough,” he added.

“Drugs made me feel like Superman. Life was just one long, long party. I’d end up staying up for days on end, hanging out with people I didn’t even know.”

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Jim was one of the best known TV presenters of the ’90s thanks to the likes of The Generation Game and The Big Break.

He now uses his own experience of drug addiction to help others in the same situation through his charity Care After Combat.

The organisation helps former military personnel who are struggling with alcohol or drug misuse.


Nancy Brown
Associate Editor