McFly’s Dougie Poynter: ‘I didn’t want the world to know the ins and outs of my addiction’
Dougie Poynter didn’t want the world to know about the “ins and outs” of his mental health.
The 35-year-old guitarist - who is best known as part of McFly alongside Tom Fletcher, Harry Judd and Danny Jones - recently opened up about his experience of going to rehab twice in 2011 and again in 2018 for two separate addictions but wanted to try to keep his personal struggles away from his professional life.
He told New! Magazine: “I’ve always been a believer that your personal and professional life are two separate worlds. So, this has probably been the first time that I’ve 100 percent opened up about it and spoken properly in public about it. I’ve always thought that I didn’t want the world to know the ins and outs of my mental health, but I’ve known Matt for years so I trusted that If I talk to him, it would be presented in an honest way.”
Bandmate Harry Judd added: “Dougie may purely think he’s being honest, but what he did can actually help other people and be inspiring. Over the years, people have told us that our honesty about mental health has helped them. That’s really a good thing to hear.”
Dougie previously revealed how he "lost two years" of his life amid his Valium addiction.
Although telling his loved ones was the worst part about it, Dougie wasn’t prepared to go public as he didn’t want to mix business with pleasure.
He told The Sun: “That’s something which is really hard to come to terms with, literally losing two years. Two years just went as like a weird dream. Coming out the other end was like, ‘What? Where’s my band?’”