Denise Welsh reveals 'guilt' over son's drug battle

Denise Welch fought back tears on Monday’s Loose Women when she opened up about her son’s battle with drug abuse.

The 60-year-old former Coronation Street actress and Celebrity Big Brother winner recalled how she first discovered her son was going to rehab for heroin addiction.

“It’s been a struggle because Matt has had issue with drugs, as you know and he’s 29 now…last year he realised he was in trouble, and I wasn’t seeing a great deal of him because he is on a world tour all the time.

“It felt I’ve lost my son to this other world so it’s not like I was witnessing the effect it was having on him…he told me when I was in LA last year that he was going to take himself off to rehab,” Welch said on Loose Women.

Matty Healy is in the rock band The 1975 and recently revealed in a Q Music magazine interview that drugs made him “a worse writer, person, friend, partner, son.”

Welch went on to say she feared her own struggles with alcoholism could have influenced her son’s troubles.

“Obviously I do have shame and guilt in regards to some of the things Matt had to see – it’s not like I was staggering around the house with a vodka bottle but if I could redo parts of Matt’s childhood, I would do that.

“So to hear he has had issues with drugs has been very difficult for me. As a mum you do always look to yourself to see if there’s anything different you could have done,” she said.

She says Healy is now ‘completely clean’ after receiving rehabilitation treatment in Barbados and that he intends to write songs about his time spent there.

“I’m incredibly proud of him, he’s completely clean now. He’s a wonderful young man – a wonderful son and a wonderful brother – he’s coming back from LA this week and I can’t wait to see him. I’m very proud he’s decided to tell his truth,” she concluded.

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