Shaun Ryder insists his late brother Paul’s two decade heroin addiction didn’t lead to his death
SHAUN Ryder insists Happy Mondays star brother Paul’s death was not linked to a past heroin addiction.
The Happy Mondays frontman, 59, revealed that the death of his brother aged 58 was not down to drugs after Paul previously opened up about his use of heroin in the band’s early days.
Frontman Shaun said: “None of us were boozers, so we’ve got our liver. I wasn’t an intravenous drug user, and neither was our kid.
“We both stopped taking heroin 20 years ago - me at 40 years old. I’m 60 this month, f*****g hell, so I won’t have touched anything for 20 years.
“Our kid didn’t do cocaine, I don’t do cocaine. We haven’t been dropping E since at least 2000, so we’ve both got our liver intact.
“Anything that’s wrong with me and our kid we’ve got it from the family.”
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Shaun continued: “Our Paul had diabetes. I’m on more pills now than I ever was when I was young.
“I’ve got an underactive thyroid and that makes you put on weight and lose your hair, but that’s all hereditary. I’m also on my high blood pressure pills, but other than that – fine.”
Bassist Paul was found dead in bed at their mum Linda’s home in Manchester on Friday July 15.
Shaun added: “I don’t think he left a will, or anything like that. He just lived – I think our kid just thought he couldn’t die, like me, so he didn’t leave a will.
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“Me mam said he wanted to be cremated.
“He’s getting half scattered in Los Angeles. Some of it is being scattered in the sea near where he was out in LA, and the other bit is here.
There will be a little headstone but what it says on it is entirely up to me mam. We’ve not even spoken about the inscription on the headstone or what’s being put on the urn.”
The funeral was held last Thursday at St Charles Church in Swinton.
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However Shaun revealed that his mum Linda has taken the passing of Paul - whose cause of death is still unknown - “hard” after his dad Derek died in 2018.
He said: “With our Paul – you’re not meant to die before your children. Your children aren’t meant to die before you, so my mam’s taken it really hard.”
