Simon Pegg: ‘Alcoholism owned me, but rehab saved my life’

SIMON Pegg has candidly detailed his battle with alcoholism, revealing to the The Guardian, that he was ‘owned by his addiction’. Pegg revealed that he took to the bottle because of depression and that he had to resort to rehab in a bid to get better.

‘It was awful, terrible. It owned me,’ the Mission: Impossible – Fallout star noted before confessing to the severity of the situation in 2010: ‘I don’t think I would be here now if I hadn’t had help.’

Pegg, who has battled depression since the age of 18, revealed that entering rehab saved his life and it was there he ‘got into all the reasons he was feeling that way’.

Essentially, it was the birth of his daughter Matilda, now 9, that made him realise he needed help as he thought the addition to his family would help the situation.

‘I thought it would fix things and it just didn’t. Because it can’t. Nothing can, other than a dedicated approach, whether that’s therapy or medication, or whatever.’

Before entering rehab, the Hot Fuzz star confessed to successfully being able to hide the problem for a long time before the signs became ‘too obvious’ to ignore.

Despite his difficult journey, Pegg has admitted that he is ‘not ashamed of what happened’.

Meanwhile, the Englishman has managed to carve out a successful career in the acting business.

He will next be seen in Mission: Impossible – Fallout alongside Hollywood heavyweight Tom Cruise.

Pegg, who has been married to Maureen McCann since 2005, has appeared in the famous franchise since 2006.

Pegg and Cruise have formed a close friendship from the franchise, and the comic actor previously gushed over how surprisingly normal the Hollywood A-Lister is.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph in 2015, he said: ‘It makes me laugh sometimes just how much of a bloke he is .

‘I think he does get an unfair rap for a lot of things. People just don’t know everything about him, but they think they do.’

When asked if they ever talk on a personal level, he added: ‘Sometimes, we’ll have heart-to-hearts at the end of the day.’

The plot for Mission: Impossible – Fallout sees Ethan (Cruise) once again facing off against the Syndicate’s Solomon Lane, played by Sean Harris, and is set for release on July 27.