Ant’s anguish so hard for Lisa too
The outpouring of support for Ant McPartlin has been great to see.
Ant and Dec are this generation’s Morecambe and Wise – warm-hearted, wholesome and very funny fixtures of our national life.
And so to hear of Ant’s collapse into depression, alcohol addiction and substance abuse is terrible.
It was only a couple of weeks ago he was on the television making us all laugh our way through the finals of Britain’s Got Talent.
No one could have had any idea that he was hiding such personal sadness and anxiety.
But he follows a long line of comedians who have battled personal demons behind a veneer of laughter. People like Spike Milligan, Kenneth Williams, Stephen Fry, Robin Williams and Caroline Aherne.
For anyone to admit that they’re struggling mentally is incredibly difficult. For those in the public eye it must be even tougher.
And it’s tough too for the people around them. Which is why I feel just as much sympathy for Ant’s wife Lisa.
For while he’s off getting professional help, she is left at home to struggle on with life, to come to terms with – as Ant said – being “truly let down” and having the country pick over whether infertility problems may lay at the root of her husband’s depression.
Depression and addiction are terrible illnesses which destroy lives of sufferers and their loved ones.
So well done Ant on making the decision to fight to be well – for him and his wife.