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15 Marti Pellow shot to fame in the 1980s as the lead singer of Scottish band Wet Wet Wet – but his years in the limelight were plagued by addiction.
Drink, drugs and spells in rehab punctuated his pop career, and he’s been open about his battle with his demons.
Appearing on James Martin’s Saturday Morning today (February 24), Marti is now 26 years clean and sober. But his sobriety is never something he’ll take for granted.
Speaking to The Guardian back in 2021, Marti recalled the first time he ever tasted alcohol. Aged 11, he stole a can of beer from his dad. And, from that first sip, with a “fuzzy feeling” in his stomach, Marti never looked back.
Marti Pellow on his addiction
He started going to dances aged 12 with his mates, asking adults to buy him alcohol to give him “Dutch courage” with the girls. “I’d ask an adult to buy me a couple of cans of lager. It gave me a wee bit more confidence to ask a girl to dance. It made me feel larger than life.”
After joining the band and finding fame, Marti – born Mark McLachlan – readily admits it changed him. He said that, with hits such as Wishing I Was Lucky and Sweet Little Mystery topping the charts, there wasn’t a day where he didn’t drink alcohol.
“When success happened to me, there wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t have a drink. I’d be topping up all the time. I could fall asleep on a plane before it took off and wake up to the sound of 100 miniature bottles of vodka clicking together. The only thing that would be left in my mini bar was the [bleeping] Toblerone,” he said.
Heroin – the ‘ultimate painkiller’
For years, Marti said that alcohol and cannabis were enough. He said that he’d taken heroin in his teens and “thought it was dirty”.
Quick to admit that he never injected, but instead smoked the drug, heroin came back into Marti’s life in his early thirties – in the wake of the band’s biggest hit, Love Is All Around.
Within a week it was everything to me – that’s how powerful the drug was.
The singer admits it consumed his life during 1996 and 1997, but while it never affected his singing voice, it did affect his writing ability, and his friendship with his life-long pals in the band.
Marti said that he went from “light using to it becoming all-consuming”. He added that he grabbed the drug with “both hands”. The singer called it the “ultimate painkiller”, but he still hasn’t worked out what pain he was trying to kill.
He admitted he had “the big house, the flash car and all the trappings of success” but he still felt the need to press the self-destruct button. Speaking to the Herald, he added: “About that time I started losing my sanity messing about with heroin.
“When I first started using it was, where have you been all my life? Within a week it was everything to me – that’s how powerful the drug was.”
Marti Pellow on girlfriend’s help
In March 1999 his heroin addiction was outed in the press – and it’s never been something he has denied. What he does deny, though, is that he had attempted to take his own life with an overdose after a row with girlfriend Eileen Catterson.
Marti insists it was “nothing to do with suicide”. Instead, he said that he had given up heroin by then, and collapsed after not looking after himself, having too much to drink and spending too long in the steam room.
He credits his girlfriend – who he is still with today – with helping him seek help for his addiction.
Valentine’s Day in 1998 is the last time Marti touched drink or drugs, calling himself “clean and serene” these days.
He said he still attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings and was happy to be replaced by Kevin Simm after leaving Wet Wet Wet for the final time in 2017.
Going solo
Since then, he’s forged a solo career, performed on London’s West End in numerous hit musicals, and even taken Chicago to Broadway.
Speaking about his addiction, Marti, now 58, concluded: “I get up and I punch it in the face every morning. I’m like: ‘How are you doing?’ Bang! I own it. And I’m proud of it. Never mind the music and all the good stuff that goes along with that. The thing that sits on my mantelpiece isn’t defined by a BRIT Award. The thing I’m most proud of in my life is my sobriety.”
Catch Marti on James Martin’s Saturday Morning today (February 24) at 9.30am on ITV1.
Read more: Emmerdale fans stunned as Marti Pellow makes cameo appearance
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The post Inside Marti Pellow’s fight back from addiction – from ‘losing his sanity’ on heroin to ‘punching addiction in the face’ as he celebrates being 26 years clean appeared first on Entertainment Daily.
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