Jason Donovan has revealed he turned to drugs in order to ‘be cool’, but admits he wouldn’t want his kids to make the same mistakes as he did.
The Neighbours star and singer, 51, revealed that he turned to drugs in the ‘90s because he thought it would make him be cool, but is glad that he ‘got out at the right time’.
He explained: ‘No life is perfect, you know, and I’m far from it. I got very lucky very young, I got a little sidetracked by my own desire to think that by going out there and “crashing the car”, as I see it, that I was going to be cool.
‘I always thought coming out of Joseph [And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat] when I looked at myself in a loin-cloth and a pair of white fluffy socks that I was turning into something I wasn’t.’
He admitted that as he’s got older, he’s appreciated the opportunities that have come his way more, rather than worrying they may not be ‘cool’.
According to the Press Association, Jason explained: ‘The irony in life is that’s as cool as it was going to get, it just takes time to mature, and seem a little more palatable.
‘I now know what I don’t want to do in my life, I’m very honest about that period. Do I regret it? Not really.
‘It was wasted time. There were a lot of relationships that suffered. But I got out at the right time and I’ve learned from it.
‘There are a lot of life experiences that I’m aware of that maybe other people wouldn’t be, having not experienced that.’
He added: ‘Having said that, would I like my children to go down the path that I went? Absolutely not. There’s nothing cool about taking drugs, full stop.’
Jason had taken drugs to rebel against his clean-cut image, and admitted to taking around three grams of cocaine a day at the height of his addiction in 1995.
He overdosed at Kate Moss’s 21’s birthday party at the Viper Room in Los Angeles in the same year after returning to his hotel room multiple times during the party to take cocaine.
In his autobiography Between The Lines: My Story Uncut, Jason revealed the moment he passed out: ‘By midnight the party had hit the dance floor, but I knew I was about to go.
‘My heart was racing, my vision was blurring and I was becoming disorientated. I tried to steady myself but my legs buckled under me and I fell to the floor.
‘A crowd had circled round me and Michael [Hutchence] was standing over me trying to empty my trouser pockets.
‘”Have you got anything on you?” he kept asking me. I tried to speak but couldn’t. “It wouldn’t be cool if anything was found on you by the medics”, he whispered.
‘The next memory I have is of being carried out of the club by paramedics on a stretcher.’
Jason was treated in hospital but discharged himself just three hours later and returned to Kate’s after party to apologise.
He revealed that he quit drugs in 2000, the year his first child was born after his partner, Angela Malloch gave him an ultimatum when they found out they were expecting.
Jason recently announced a 52-date Even More Reasons Why tour which will begin in September 2020.
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