Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Bee Gees star’s son: I ate my food from bins
Barry’s drug fight lad ended up homeless
THE son of Bee Gees legend Barry Gibb was once left homeless after spiralling into drug addiction.
Stephen Gibb, first-born son of Barry and wife Linda, said at one point he was reduced to eating out of a dumpster.
The guitarist, who was been in several rock bands and was addicted to cocaine, said: “I was living in my van or wherever I could land. If somebody let me crash on a couch I was fortunate.
“The thing that was mind-blowing for me was the old saying, from Park Avenue to park bench.
“After I lost my gig with my old band I was homeless. They throw away so much good food in studios and I remember eating out of the dumpster at the record plant praying nobody would see me. I remember thinking, ‘This sucks’.”
Stephen, 46, who has turned his life around, now tours with his dad, the last survivor of the Bee Gees. Speaking on the podcast Addiction Talks, he also described growing up in a famous family beset by “problems”.
Former Bee Gees star Maurice Gibb had alcohol issues. And younger brother Andy, a solo artist, died in 1988 aged just 30 after his heart was fatally weakened by years of cocaine abuse.
Stephen said: “The first time I drank I was probably 14 and downed a bottle of Jack Daniels [and] blacked out.” Eventually he turned to drugs, but being homeless put him on the road to recovery. He said: “It was either death, prison or a mental institution.. I was unravelling.
“I was not operating in reality for a second. It is just crazy.” Stephen’s dad Barry formed the hugely successful pop band The Bee Gees in 1958 with twin brothers Maurice and Robin.
The trio grew up in Chorlton, Manchester. Maurice died in 2003 aged 53 and Robin passed away in 2012 aged 62, after battling cancer. Barry, knighted in 2018, is now 73 and lives in Miami.