X Factor winner Matt Cardle says he ‘was eating tramadol for fun’ as he reveals addiction nearly killed him ahead of comeback album Time to Be Alive
Less than two years after winning X Factor Matt Cardle had hit rock bottom, thanks to a daily cocktail of alcohol, prescription pills and illegal drugs
LESS than two years after beating One Direction to win X Factor in front of 19million viewers, Matt Cardle stared death in the face.
Addicted to a cocktail of drugs and a functioning alcoholic, he was “eating” a daily mix of prescription pills Valium and Tramadol and snorting illegal drugs.
Without a record company, manager or girlfriend, things hit rock bottom when he got into a physical brawl with his drug dealer.
In a revealing and dramatic interview ahead of his triumphant return to music, Matt, who is now clean, tells The Sun: “I got lucky on a number of occasions not to have been found f****** cold.”
After turning his life around, the 34-year-old Essex singer is even back on the books of Sony, the label which dropped him in 2012, as he embarks on his music comeback.
However, few in the industry predicted such a turnaround for the popular star who seemed destined for the pop scrapheap after succumbing to the pitfalls of fame.
Today he is ready to open up about the true extent of his downfall, which came three years after he was at the top of the world after winning X Factor in 2010.
Matt turned to drugs as he struggled to cope with the pressures of fame, particularly as his career started to bomb while his pals in 1D became international superstars.
He demanded to be prescribed Tramadol — the powerful painkiller Ant McPartlin branded “hillbilly crack” after becoming addicted — following a minor injury on his finger in a tour bus.
He recalls: “I wasn’t that injured, I didn’t really need it. I started eating Tramadol for fun if I’m honest.
“Then the first time I did Valium was on a flight to LA and that was it.
"Valium and alcohol are lethal together anyway. It’s a muscle relaxant and your heart’s a muscle.
“The danger with them is when you mix them with alcohol you forget what you’re doing.”
Indeed, the star says his drugs binges would only happen once he had a drink, or as he calls it, his “f*** it button”.
Matt explains: “You don’t go out, you don’t get up and leave and are like ‘I fancy a line’ you just don’t.
“You go out and you have a few drinks, then someone will be like ‘here you go’ and it all stems from that.”
For two years, Matt became completely dependent on drugs and booze, resulting in a number of near death experiences.
Asked how many times he came close to dying, Matt said: “There were a number of them.
“I didn’t realise because a lot of it was on my own.
"I would wake up in various parts of my flat, in the toilet, in my bedroom, on the bed, off the bed, in the lounge, and it would always be like, ‘Oh that’s where it ended’.
“If you were on your own and you’re completely smashed and you’ve taken one or two too many, you won’t wake up, it’ll stop your heart and that’s it.
"So it was getting to that point for me without knowing it.”
Matt’s ultimate low was when he ended up having a fight with his drug dealer after he refused to sell him more valium after performing at the Jingle Bell Ball in Belfast in December 2013.
He says: “I came and met him and he just saw the state I was in because I didn’t have any and then he went, ‘No I’m not going to give them to you’.
Show put gloss on his paint job
MATT won millions of fans on The X Factor for being the loveable painter and decorator from Essex.
But he now admits his job description was not exactly accurate.
Indeed, he has revealed the only time he was paid to use a paint roller was helping out his mate’s dad before the show.
Matt, who was in between jobs at the time, was portrayed as a workman by X Factor bosses.
He says: “I was such a fraud on my VTs carrying a six-foot ladder into the house. Like, ‘what you doing?’ It was so stupid but that’s fine. Everyone had their role and it worked very well.”
He insists he does not regret entering the competition despite fame contributing to his downfall.
He says: “People have asked me a lot and I’ve never said it was a mistake.
“Unfortunately there was a lot of people trying to put words in my mouth that I wasn’t right for this show when I came off it.”
“And I actually snatched them out of his hand and shoved him and it got a bit horrible.
“I was completely addicted. He was like, ‘You’re never having any more of them off me’.”
It was only Matt’s older brother Dominic who was there to save him when he had a breakdown at Heathrow Airport on the way to turn on the Christmas lights in Ayrshire, Scotland.
Matt explains: “The (dealer) called my brother and was like: ‘I think your brother’s in a bit of a mess’.
“I just had a little meltdown in the middle of Heathrow, posted my f***ing ticket in the post box and just collapsed on the floor and it just wasn’t pretty to be fair.
“He was there with me. A couple more times a very similar thing happened because what it does is, as soon as you start to withdraw from it, your emotions just bubble up like you’ve never felt before.
“I remember crying in the cab, to the driver, talking about Olly Murs and I can’t remember what he was saying and I just broke down.”
Thankfully a spell at The Priory rehab facility got him clean, a huge achievement given for 19 months there was nothing he didn’t “smoke, drink and snort”.
He says: “I was never suicidal but I honestly didn’t care about myself.
“You don’t wind up in The Priory if you’re looking after yourself. I really didn’t.”
Looking back, Matt believes much of his troubles were caused by the rejection so soon after his X Factor win.
He explains: “I was being rejected left, right and centre for a record, for all of this kind of stuff.
“I was still coming down hard from a place where I didn’t have a label, I didn’t really have any management at the time, I didn’t have a steady place.
“And none of it was bitterness, but it’s just frustration about my fall from grace.”
His split from Syco was compounded by the break-up of his relationship with dancer girlfriend Sarah Robinson, 30, who he dated for 18 months.
He said it made his personal problems worse.
But Matt is now dating project manager Amber Hernaman, 27.
He credits their two-year romance for keeping him on the straight and narrow and focused on his music once again.
Matt is releasing his fourth album with Sony, which won a minor bidding war to secure his services.
Matt explains: “I remember them saying, ‘How do you feel coming back?’. and I said, ‘just amazing’.”
The singer looks healthier and more confident than I’ve ever seen him during our meeting at The Sun HQ.
But he also accepts that his demons will always be lurking.
He admits: “I’m in an amazing place now, but that doesn’t mean I’m always going to stay here.
“I don’t have an urge to eat and drown anything but that doesn’t mean if something horrific happened to me that I would be steady as a rock and I’d be like, ‘No’. I could fall off at the drop of a hat, so I’ve got to watch myself.”
- Matt's new album 'Time To Be Alive' is available to pre-order now with instant download of new single 'Desire'. Also on all streaming platforms.