Matt Willis admits taking six grams of coke a day at height of addiction – and it almost lost him his wife Emma
WHEN recovering addict Matt Willis last relapsed, he was leaving the family home each day to snort six grams of cocaine.
And his wife, TV presenter Emma Willis, did not notice a thing.
After years of booze and drug abuse, the Busted bass player was so skilled at masking his habit he managed to fool the woman who knew him best and loved him the most.
Matt, who turned 40 yesterday, and Emma, 47, discuss his battle in a new BBC One documentary, and reveal how friends advised the host of The Voice to get out while she still could.
He says: “I thought she would leave me many, many times, and I was involved in some of those times when people were saying that.
“I’m so grateful she didn’t and that she could see something in our relationship that was worth holding on to. And it was — we have three kids and we’re very happy.
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“It’s always hard to hear other people telling your wife to get out, but understandably at the time.
"I dread to imagine where I’d be without her. I’m thankful for her in so many ways.
“I’m really lucky to have her because a lot of people don’t have someone like her. She’s someone that’s going to stick around.”
Documentary Matt Willis: Fighting Addiction airs next week. In it, he takes a painful look at how his addictions have affected Emma.
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Matt started abusing substances at an early age but had cleaned up his act before they got married.
Despite what he calls “a few wobbles”, he managed to stay drug-free until 2016, when Busted announced their Pigs Can Fly reunion tour.
‘I’d go in all the pubs trying to find him’
Backstage, someone casually offered Matt a line of cocaine and he gave in to temptation, which then spiralled.
He says: “Within a month I was doing six grams, bang, bang, bang, on my own every f***ing day and not coming home until three in the morning, pretending I was working on an album, which I wasn’t really writing. I was making s**t music in a studio doing coke.”
Matt had to ask for help again, leaving Emma devastated once more. She says: “You kind of kick yourself on reflection, thinking, ‘How the f didn’t I see that?’.
“All those key signs I hadn’t seen for so many years. I was absolutely flabbergasted, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t expect it.
“Because he’d done so well for such a long time, that was the last thing I thought. I didn’t think it would get him again.”
But there was still no way she was throwing in the towel.
Emma says: “It’s very easy to look in on a situation you’re not directly involved in and go, ‘F*** that, get out now’.
“But when you’re in it and you have that history together and you love someone so dearly, you’re not going anywhere.”
Matt talks candidly in the documentary with his wife of 15 years and the mother of his children, the youngest of whom was just ten months old when he last relapsed.
He says: “I have hurt her so many times that I don’t really know where to begin.
“I’m terrified of relapse. If I do that again everything will end.
“I don’t drink or take drugs today but I’m not recovered. My head is f***ed still.
“Over the last two decades I’ve relapsed repeatedly and been to rehab four times.”
Matt, who won I’m A Celeb in 2006, now hopes he might be able to help other people in a similar position to himself, as well as the families and friends of addicts.
Emma says: “Living with someone with addiction is unpredictable and anxiety-inducing, which I’m trying to say with a smile on my face so I don’t start crying again.
“I try not to think too much about the past but then I have to remind myself he’s relapsed massively when I thought he was all good.”
Matt was born in South West London and his parents separated when he was three.
He started abusing alcohol and drugs in his teens, but it ramped up when he formed Busted with friend James Bourne and Charlie Simpson in 2000.
They quickly hit the big time, selling five million records and winning two Brit awards over a five-year period. But along with the success came the usual rock star temptations.
Matt says: “At just 18 we were signing contracts worth six figures and living a party lifestyle. But by the age of 22 I was completely addicted to drink and drugs.
“I couldn’t get to 12 o’clock without drinking or using. “It wasn’t rock ’n’ roll fing glamorous, it was really sad.”
In the midst of the maelstrom Matt met Emma, but she quickly realised he was an addict who needed help.
She said: “When I first met Matt he was just so much fun to be around. But within three months of us knowing each other he was in rehab for the first time.
“Sometimes I feel like I’ve got four kids instead of three. There’s been a lot of joy but equally it’s been incredibly heavy at times.”
Three days before their wedding in 2008, Matt was still in rehab.
Emma, who in the documentary looks at diaries she wrote during the dark days, had already gone to hell and back and wanted him on the road to recovery before tying the knot.
She says: “I remember I used to drive around looking for him. I’d go in all the local pubs trying to find him, but he always went to the ones I didn’t know about.
"I suppose when you see it written down on paper you realise how bad he was. There were so many ways that he hid things, I was so scared he would die.”
Matt says: “As addicts we are very good at hiding things. That was half of what I was doing, because I’m secretly hiding things around the house, going out and not knowing what I’m doing.
‘That little voice in my head talks’
“What’s hidden is always worse than what’s seen. Even though you’re really close to people, no one knows the full extent of what’s going on.”
There’s no sign of any issues in their wedding video, which features in the documentary.
In the presence of a packed church, which includes celebrity guests ranging from Ant and Dec to the late reality TV star David Gest, the couple exchange vows.
But Matt had only just made it down the aisle. He says: “I remember getting to a point where I knew she wasn’t going to marry me.
“It made me go, ‘Oh f***, you’ve got to sort your s**t out’. I was sober on my wedding day, which was amazing.”
Matt has tried to gain a better understanding of what might be causing him to be so drawn to drink and drugs — and how he can continue to combat that.
In the one-off show he looks back at his childhood, meets family, attends therapy and support groups and consults with scientists to see how some people’s brains can be wired to make them more likely to abuse substances.
Matt says: “I went into this wanting to know whether I’ll have this for ever.
“And less of me cares about that answer while doing this doc-umentary and less of me is ‘I want to be normal’.
“It’s more ‘What can I do on a daily basis that makes me the person I want to be’.”
But other things now worry him too, including the prospect of potentially “passing on” to his kids the propensity to abuse.
Matt says: “From what I’m learning, through things I’m seeing, is that it is passed down.
“I’m not too sure what the root cause of that is — is it genetics? Trauma? Is it all these things?
"But I’ve also met addicts who’ve had a perfect childhood so I don’t think it’s just down to horrible things happening to you as a kid.”
Now a greater concern is the Busted reunion tour this autumn.
Emma says: “Matt’s always had issues but they seem to really kick in when he’s on tour.
“I know he doesn’t want to be that person but is his brain going to trick him and go, ‘Just one more time, no one will know’? That’s the worry.”
One safeguard is not having drugs anywhere near Matt while he is on the road. Another is realising that relapsing while on tour is not an inevitability.
Matt says: “I’ve toured before and was sober, and I’ve toured since then and been clean. I do have a much better understanding of me, and my last relapse made me do that.
"The problem is sometimes I take my foot off the gas and think everything’s all right and then that little voice in my head talks.
“But I don’t feel terrified or scared of that.
“And Emma’s never told me not to do anything — apart from ‘Don’t take drugs’.
“She’s never wanted me to stop doing anything that I love and I feel comfortable there as long as I have everything put in place.
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“In the documentary it feels like this looming thing, but for me it just feels like my job — and it’s one I really do love.”
- Matt Willis: Fighting Addiction is on BBC One and iPlayer on May 17 at 9pm.
