News

Boyband star tells Loose Women about the day he almost ended it all

The brave ex pop star opens up about dark times after split of 911

| Updated:

Who wouldn’t want to be a pop superstar?

You’d make a mint from singing and dancing, get treated like kings or queens, be inundated with freebies, have fans declaring their undying love to you and have other celebs wanting to hang with you because you have fame in common with them.

Sounds lush, right?

READ MORE: Andrea McLean reveals partner was shocked by her surgery scars

But as we all tend to discover from those who have made it, life at the top is never as exciting or fulfilling behind the scenes as we think it is.

Take Jimmy Constable, for example.

Who?

Jimmy from boyband 911, who had a string of hits with Lee Brennan and Spike Dawbarn back in the noughties with hits like Love Sensation, Bodyshakin and Don’t Make Me Wait.

He revealed on Monday’s Loose Women that when the band came to an end and the fame started to dwindle he hit rock bottom and even contemplated suicide.

“I couldn’t handle it waking up without a schedule sheet under my door,” he told the girls on the panel.

“I started drinking heavily and I got to the point where I didn’t feel drunk anymore so I was looking for that next buzz, which for me was cocaine. And then depression set in.”

His tough times got so dark that one day he thought he couldn’t go on – however he knew he had a family who loved him and needed him so he managed to pull himself back from the brink.

“The biggest thing for me was knowing what you’d leave behind with your family,” he said.

‘But when you’re sitting there at the end of bed with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a load of tablets not knowing what I’m going to do there… the only thing that kept me there was my mum and dad and everyone who knew me. Knowing what it would do to them.”

Jimmy said that life after the band was tough for him and he didn’t speak to his ex bandmates for years before patching things up for reunion tours and ITv2’s Big Reunion a few years back.

For the subsequent years, Jimmy endured some dark times but pays tribute to his wife who stood by him all the while.

“What got me through [the bad times] was song writing, and slowly letting people into my life,” he explained.

READ MORE: Babs Windsor makes cheeky cameo in BBC biopic about colourful life

“It wasn’t deep therapy, but talking to people.

“Obviously my wife, bless her, put up with me. She’s the rock, I guess it’s like all women, you’re all multi-talented whilst men do things and think “I’ll look at the consequences later.”‘

Jimmy is now hoping to release solo album and is currently writing for other artists.


Christian Guiltenane
Freelance Writer