Sir Stephen Fry was 'minutes from death' after drug and alcohol binge
Sir Stephen Fry was "minutes away" from death following a drugs and alcohol binge, his pal Ben Elton has recalled.
Sir Stephen Fry was "minutes away" from death following a drugs and alcohol binge.
The Celebrity Traitors star's close friend Ben Elton claimed he "saved" his pal by rushing him to hospital in a cab when things took a dark turn after they had been out for dinner in 1992 before enjoying an afterparty at the London home of late author Douglas Adams, for whom Stephen was house-sitting at the time.
Ben revealed doctors told him Stephen had been “minutes away from permanent brain damage – and not many more minutes away from death."
He joked in his autobiography What Have I Done?: “I saved the most celebrated brain in showbiz.
“The throbbing, cerebral epicentre of national treasure-dom has throbbed on these last three decades ’cos of me.”
According to the Sunday Mirror newspaper, Ben wrote about how he and Stephen were smoking and drinking late into the night, with the former QI host, consuming some "weird organic Belgian stuff", despite not usually drinking beer and also snorting cocaine.
The Blackadder writer was about to head home when his friend began to wheeze and collapsed in his chair.
Ben called a taxi and they arrived at hospital around 2am, where he put Stephen in a wheelchair, where he slumped like a sack and his breath sounded like a death rattle.
But the 66-year-old writer, in his own drunken state, struggled to move the wheelchair and dragged it backwards, only for Stephen to bash his head against a wall as he tried to turn.
When they finally saw a doctor, Ben feared his pal could end up arrested and losing his career because he knew he had to tell the medics Stephen had been using cocaine.
He wrote: “A doctor told me Stephen was in the emergency room. ‘Has he had much alcohol?’ the doctor asked. ‘Yes, a lot,’ I said, ‘and many cigarettes.’ “I took a deep breath. ‘Also, I need to tell you that I think it’s possible – quite probable, in fact certain – that he has had cocaine.’ Have you any idea how hard that was?”
Ben described his friend as looking like a corpse, with grey skin, almost lifeless eyes and numerous wires attached to his body, but Stephen still offered him reassurance when he admitted he'd divulged his drug use.
He wrote: “He squeezed my hand and whispered that it was fine. ‘Don’t worry,’ he added between mercifully longer breaths. ‘I’ll be writing an entire book about it in 20 years’.”
Stephen did go on to disclose his 15-year drug addiction in his 2014 memoir More Fool Me, in which he revealed he had taken cocaine in numerous royal residences and the House of Commons.
He wrote: “I am confessing to having broken the law and consumed, in public places, Class A sanctioned drugs.
“ I have bought gorgeous palaces, noble properties and elegant honest establishments into squalid disrepute.”
He admitted to having wasted “tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds, and as many hours,” on the drug."
