My battle with ADHD and booze, by ‘ashamed’ Ant
But he barely mentions victims of his drink-drive ‘catastrophe’
HE returned to the public eye last week, ten months after his drink-drive arrest.
Now Ant McPartlin has given his first interview to relaunch his career – but offered few words of contrition to the family whose car he ploughed into while twice over the limit.
The victims were mentioned only briefly as he revealed the impact the incident had on him to The Sun On Sunday.
Fans may be surprised that he did not focus on the family he could have seriously injured.
Instead he spoke mainly about his recovery from alcohol dependence, his struggle with depression and ADHD diagnosis which he believes led to his arrest for drink-driving last March.
Last night he was happy to lark around with his presenting partner Declan Donnelly at the latest auditions for Britain’s Got Talent, which they host on ITV.
The duo arrived in a bicycle rickshaw with an afternoon tea set perched on their laps and waving teacups.
In his interview McPartlin, 43, described his ‘shame and remorse’ after his Mini crashed into a car carrying two adults and a four-year-old, but spoke mostly about his personal situation.
He was twice the UK legal drink-drive limit when his car careered head-on into restaurant-owner Faheem Vanoo’s green Mini in Richmond, south-west London, which was carrying his wife Shilpa and their daughter, Amaira.
In the six-page interview McPartlin only fleetingly references the ‘fellow passengers’, who were left ‘shaken’ but not seriously injured.
At the time, the couple, who run a restaurant in Fulham, described the incident as ‘terrible,’ saying that it felt like a ‘nightmare’.
McPartlin’s mother Christine was in the passenger seat of his Mini and had no idea he had been drinking that day.
The presenter said: ‘The whole world came crashing in. It was like an explosion of the worst possible moment of my life. And if you don’t listen to that, you’d be the biggest fool out there.
‘When it happened, my first thought wasn’t, “Oh my God, my career’s going down the spiral”. My first thought was, “S***, is my Mam OK? Are the dogs OK? Are the fellow passengers in the other car OK? What happened here?”
‘I thank God every night that no-one was seriously injured in that crash. Because we would be having a very different interview today if that was the case.’
Talking about how he reflected on the crash in his cell, he said: ‘I was thinking, “How is everybody? How is my Mam? How has it ended up like this? Something needs to change, my life needs to change”.’
McPartlin’s spokesman said he had said he apologised to the family and ‘talks about his concerns for them being OK’.
In the interview, the presenter says: ‘I’ll still carry guilt around. I apologised to the passengers in the other vehicles immediately after and I said it on the steps of the court because I’m genuinely sorry.’
He says the £86,000 (€97,400) fine and 20-month driving ban he received as a result ‘stung’, adding: ‘They threw the book at me. But you know it’s kind of deserved, I needed to be punished. If you look at the ratio of what you get paid, they were right to fine me that much.’
McPartlin first took time out of the public eye in 2017 with an addiction to painkillers, promoted by a painful knee injury, which resulted in his first stint in rehab. But he said that an ‘underlying unhappiness’ in his life made him turn to alcohol after kicking his painkiller addiction.
‘I was still drinking in a dependent state. Not all the time. But enough to worry about it. I hadn’t addressed it. It was building up which led to the day of the crash which was the single worst day of my life.’ The crash left him ‘traumatised’ and prompted him to
‘The whole world came crashing in’ ‘Anne-Marie has been my rock’
check back into rehab. It was then he was diagnosed with ADHD.
‘I found stuff out about me I hadn’t addressed for years,’ he said. He credits girlfriend AnneMarie Curtis with helping change his life, following his divorce battle with Lisa Armstrong, 42, his wife of 20 years. Despite Ms Curtis being the couple’s PA for years, McPartlin has insisted the pair didn’t strike up a romantic relationship until after his split.
‘Anne-Marie honestly is the fundamental reason for the great change in my life,’ he said. ‘She’s been my rock.’
McPartlin has said he no longer speaks to Ms Armstrong, with whom he is fighting a court battle over his £60million fortune and custody of their labrador, Hurley.