Cheryl stopped drink help

Michael Barrymore opened his heart last night about his battle with the booze — and told how during his marriage wife Cheryl refused to accept he was an alcoholic.

The Celebrity Big Brother runner-up also revealed he repeatedly told her he was gay but she remained in a state of denial about his sexuality.

Barrymore, 53, said: “She just wouldn’t have it. She would say, ‘No, you’re not. Don’t be stupid.

“She was the same about my alcoholism. I would wake up with the hangover from hell, or after a really drunken binge, smelling of alcohol, with the shakes, and say to her, ‘I am an alcoholic, I have a problem.’

“And again she would adamantly say, ‘No you haven’t.’ She just wouldn’t accept any of it. She just was in denial about it all.”

Barrymore and Cheryl — who died of cancer last April — were married for 22 years. She was his manager until their divorce in 1997 — and the star described her as his “rock”.

But the comic said of Cheryl’s attitude to his demons: “She was doing what she thought was best for me but in fact it was probably the worst thing she could have done.” He explained:

"She was being protective but it meant that for years I didn’t seek help for my drink problem and that I had to live a lie when it came to my sexuality. Without realising it fully, Cheryl was stopping me from becoming ‘well’ by having treatment for alcoholism and by ‘coming out’. Because if I did, then I’d be well and she feared I wouldn’t need her any more.

I was her husband but in a way I was also her child. She treated me like one in many ways.

She was my manager and she took total care of me from cooking, shopping to organising everything to do with my career. I did virtually nothing for myself.

But I didn’t know who I was any more.
I tried to tell her several times. But she wouldn’t have it."

He said: “At the time I didn’t understand it. But since receiving treatment and going to Alcoholics Anonymous I can now see that Cheryl was a classic co-dependant.

“She wanted to take complete care of me. A co-dependant has a need to be needed. They are a carer. They need to feel they are looking after someone because it makes them feel loved, wanted and needed.”

Barrymore recalled one occasion when the pair of them went to see a counsellor about his drinking. The funnyman said: “He very quickly picked up on the fact that Cheryl could be a co-dependant.

“He said to her, ‘Have you ever considered that you might have a problem?’ Cheryl was furious. She stormed out and that was that.”

He continued: “I went to AA meetings and counsellors. I was trying my hardest but Cheryl didn’t like it.

“I had gone from staying out all night drinking to staying out going to AA meetings.

“She said, ‘You’re still out all the time’. I said, ‘But at least I’m sober’. I don’t think she liked the fact that she felt she was losing control over me.

“She felt these other people — people at AA, counsellors — were gaining more control over me.”

Recalling the day the couple married in 1976, Barrymore insisted it was NOT a bid to hide his homosexuality.

He said: “I wasn’t someone who felt from the age of eight I was gay. I first thought it when I was in my teens. I had feelings for some of my friends around that time. It was all very confusing.

“I didn’t have any sexual encounters with men.

“When I met Cheryl I fell for her totally. We were a good partnership.

“But during our marriage I realised more and more I was homosexual. I started to have strong feelings for men. I was honest with Cheryl. I lived a lie for ages. But in the end I just couldn’t do it any more.”

The crunch came at the 1997 National Television Awards — where a drunken Barrymore made a rambling, incoherent speech.

At an after-show party he publicly declared he was gay and “no longer wanted to live a lie”.

A horrified Cheryl claimed afterwards that was the first time she knew he was gay, and rushed to see a divorce lawyer.

Last night Barrymore said: “It came out the way it did because I had bottled so much up for so long. It was like a pressure cooker erupting.

“It was awful, I know it devastated Cheryl. I think I would have ended up doing something silly to myself. I wanted to be me — not what Cheryl wanted so desperately me to be.”

The tearful star said Cheryl’s death at the age of 54 — just six weeks after she was diagnosed with lung cancer — left him utterly devastated. He said:

"Cheryl was everything to me and I was everything to her. She made me Michael Barrymore the TV star. If it hadn’t been for her I would never have had the success I’ve had.

I would have given anything to have seen, or at least spoken to Cheryl before she died.

There was a lot to be said. But she died very quickly and before I hardly even knew she was that ill. I just never got the chance. When I heard she had died I just broke down. I so wanted to be friends with her.

There were times over the years since we split when I heard she wanted to speak to me.

There was even mention of us working together again. I would have loved that. I felt that I couldn’t approach Cheryl. I felt it wasn’t fair. I had hurt her so much."

In an interview after the couple’s final split Cheryl seemed to accept she had been acting as Barrymore’s surrogate mother.

She said: “I nursed him from 1990 through his nervous breakdown, alcoholism and drug addiction, his depressions and nightmares. It never let up.”

At the time she denied Barrymore had had any gay encounters during their marriage.

But Cheryl went on to publish a book in which she made lurid allegations that the comic had enjoyed encounters with men during her marriage to him.

After the pool death of Stuart Lubbock at Barrymore’s home, Cheryl alleged her ex-husband lied at the inquest by claiming he could not swim.

Asked about her comments last night, Barrymore said firmly: “I CAN’T swim.

“There was a lot of bitterness from Cheryl after the divorce. I think that’s why she said a lot of what she did.” The star added sadly: “I don’t blame her.”

The Sun