Stephen Fry’s friend Ben Elton has revealed the moment he had to tell the TV presenter that he had told of his cocaine use as he feared for his life
Stephen Fry’s close friend has revealed the star’s reaction to him sharing his cocaine use during a near-death experience. The TV presenter, 68, was reportedly “minutes from death” due to a booze and coke binge.
His pal, TV writer and comedian Ben Elton told how he rushed the actor to hospital in a taxi during a night out together because he was in “extreme danger” following the incident. Ben revealed doctors told him that Stephen, famed for his intellect, had been “minutes away from suffering permanent brain damage – and not many more minutes away from death”.
Ben, 66, said of the scary escapade: “It was that time of the night when you know that it’s time to pull the pin but you don’t and instead you open another couple of bottles. We were drinking beer, which Stephen very rarely did, and for some reason he had some weird organic Belgian stuff which he thought we should try.
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“We were smoking fags pretty copiously as we did in those days and, on top of that, Stephen was whacking cocaine up his nose.”
Ben went on: “I can say this because he’s been entirely forthright about it in his own memoir and, having admitted to doing it at Buck House, doing it with me is hardly a scandal. I have never been interested in hard drugs myself.”
And he revealed that he panicked after telling doctors of Stephen’s cocaine use due to his stardom and how it could have destroyed his pal’s career.
“I imagined that the big ‘coke’ word was all over Stephen’s notes and I felt he needed to know,” he said. “Stephen taking coke would have been very big and entirely surprising and probably career-destroying news to the public in ’92. Plus, it could have led to his arrest and even imprisonment.”
But he described how his friend was “pretty woozy and nodding off”. “He was conscious enough to hear me,” he said.
“‘Bing, mate,’ I whispered. ‘I’m sorry but I told them you’d been doing coke. I felt I had to because they were medicating you.’
“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.'”
Ben had confessed that had he have stayed for another drink rather than realising his friend’s need for medical care, it could have been catastrophic. The shocking statements came in Ben’s new book titled What Have I Done?
The pair have been friends for years and Stephen starred in Blackadder when it was co-written by Ben and Richard Curtis. He played Lord Melchett in the second series before returning as General Melchett in the fourth series.
* What Have I Done? By Ben Elton is out now published by Macmillan
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