‘We want to bring hope to others’
Clare Kennedy – the wife of former Corrie star Kevin – tells how together they overcame addictions and now they’re helping others do the same
By Carole Richardson
Given his past addiction problems, actor Kevin Kennedy could be craving something far worse than a pet dog. But, as much as she loves the man we watched play Corrie’s hapless Curly Watts for 20 years, wife Clare isn’t giving in to his latest desire. “I’ve told him I’d need another day in the week if we had a dog. And I’ve warned him not to dare turn up home with one or I’ll kill him,” she laughs. After seeing her husband so addicted to drink and drugs that, at his lowest ebb, he woke up in New York not knowing how he’d got there, you might expect Clare to be a little more understanding. Especially as the “lovely, gorgeous husband and great dad” has relentlessly fought his demons to stay clean for 18 years. But after explaining how busy her own life has become after the two
‘I knew I had to do something different. I needed something bigger than me so I went to my local evangelical church for spiritual guidance’ – Clare
tackled their addiction problems and began using their experience to help others do the same, it’s evident Clare (47) is anything but heartless. While raising their two beloved daughters Katie May (12) and Grace (10) alone while Kevin is away touring on stage, she works three days a week as a corporate therapist helping companies recognise and support employees with addiction problems. The money she earns is ploughed into Kennedy Street & Co – a voluntary organisation they both set up and have just registered as a charity – to support homeless and vulnerable people in Hove and Brighton. “We’ve been doing it for 18 years as Kev and Clare. Now we want to take it further,” she adds. Like her husband, Clare had a problem with alcohol without realising it when the pair first met in a Manchester bar on April Fools’ Day around 25 years ago. A bubbly promotions girl, she was on a night out with her mum and best friend when he walked in with the late snooker player and legendary drinker, Alex Higgins. “I wasn’t a big Corrie fan and didn’t recognise him,” she admits. Her mum and friend did though and were happy to chat to the two men when they offered to buy them a drink. Although Kevin fell madly in love with her there and then, Clare didn't didn’t give him her phone number. Undeterred, he turned up at her workplace the following day. Agreeing to one date, then another, she began to fall for him. Their capacity to drink also meant a shared interest. But even before they got married in St Lucia five years later, she recognised Kevin had a secret drinking problem. After getting his car valeted as a surprise, she was stumped when the garage man handed her a plastic carrier bag full of empty vodka bottles he’d found under the seat. “I went home livid but Kev is a great actor and just barefaced denied it. I didn’t believe him but I thought marrying him would calm him down. I still had a stereotypical image of an alcoholic as someone who lived on the streets, not a soap star with an international following,” she adds. At the height of his Street career, his wedding to Raquel (actress Sarah Lancashire) attracted a whopping 22 million viewers. “I never looked at my own drinking then,” she admits. “As a teenager it had made me feel confident. I’d never felt I fitted in and had very low self-esteem. I was a size 8 but always thought I was fat and not clever or funny enough.” It was after a month-long holiday to Barbados in the mid-Nineties that their problem became public. Used to drinking rum all day and night and not eating, Kevin suffered withdrawal symptoms and collapsed on the street when they returned to Manchester. While waiting for an ambulance to take him to hospital, a tabloid photographer began snapping… “That was the very beginning of our healing process,” she says. A kind, non-judgmental male nurse educated Clare about alcoholism and she went along to a 12-step support group for family members of alcoholics. “It was the best thing I ever did,” she says. She still loved Kevin but didn’t like him as he continued drinking. “I looked at it as a moral failing, but I needed to understand he was a sick man that needed to get better, not a bad man who would not do as he was told. I didn’t realise he was so badly damaged by alcohol, it had become like oxygen to him.” For the next two years, Clare carried on drinking herself while attending the sessions. Eventually, she began recognising her own behaviour in the stories of the men who were there because their partners had drink problems. “It was an awakening,” she says. Soon she was attending a group for addicts. Returning home from one meeting, she found Kevin unconscious on the floor. She phoned her support group sponsor who advised her to leave. “At that time, we were living in a Penthouse, we had a Porsche each and I had Jimmy Choo shoes with Gucci handbags. But all that means nothing if you haven’t got your life.” Without money or clothes, she walked out and ended up ”in theory, homeless” and sleeping on a friend’s sofa for a fortnight. “At this point I knew Kevin was hurtling towards rock bottom but I’d learnt enough to know I had to leave him to it. There was nothing I could do to help him.”