Stephen Fry was ‘minutes away from suffering permanent brain damage’ and even death after ‘whacking cocaine up his nose’ at a party with comedian Ben Elton
Celebrity Traitors star Stephen Fry survived a “near-death experience” after a booze and coke binge, his close pal has revealed.
Comedian and telly writer Ben Elton has told how he rushed the actor to hospital in a cab because he was in “extreme danger”.
He said that doctors then 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”.
The revelation comes just after Stephen became one of the latest stars to leave Celebrity Traitors as he was voted out despite being Faithful.
Pals Stephen and Ben had been out for dinner in London before an afterparty together at the Islington home of late author Douglas Adams.
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Stephen – who he affectionally nicknames ‘Bing’ – was housesitting for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy creator at the time. Ben, 66, said: “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. We were smoking fags pretty copiously as we did in those days and, on top of that, Stephen was whacking cocaine up his nose.
“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.
“I was a member of the Groucho through the notorious days of the late ’80s and used to sit with my beer while everybody else was in the toilets. I just thought everybody had a weak bladder.”
In his new book What Have I Done? Ben said that he was set to call it a night and was waiting for a taxi when he realised something was wrong with his mate.
He continued: “Had I decided to have another beer, Stephen almost certainly would have been dead in an hour because shortly after he’d called for the cab, he started to wheeze.
“As the wheezing turned to throaty gasping, I realized that something was wrong. ‘Bing? Is this serious?’ ‘Yes.’
“His head was rolling a bit and his breathing suddenly sounded alarmingly hollow. It happened in a minute. ‘Do you want me to call an ambulance?’ ‘Yes..’ He was beginning to slump in his chair.”
Ben admitted he had to abandon a 999 call when he realised he didn’t know the address and Stephen couldn’t catch a breath to tell him – but luckily his taxi arrived.
He then asked the cabbie to take them to University College hospital, adding “it must have been at least two in the morning”.
Ben explained: “I got Stephen out of the cab and virtually dragged him up the steps to the front entrance. I don’t know where either of us found the strength because he was pretty much a dead weight (literally). His breath sounded like a death rattle and I couldn’t imagine he was getting any oxygen into his lungs at all.
“At the top of the stairs, I found a wheelchair. I got Stephen into the chair and through the doors. Stephen was slumped like a sack, almost falling out of the chair. His long legs were splayed out and I couldn’t get his feet onto the foot plates.
“And the only way I could move the chair was by turning it round and dragging it backwards. I remember as I turned it in the corridor, Stephen lolled further and I bashed his head against the wall.
“He didn’t seem to notice but I felt absolutely sick about it as I dragged the chair and Stephen into what was clearly a reception.”
Ben said the area was deserted at the time so he yelled “I have an emergency” which prompted a nurse to come to his aid. He continued: “She ran in, took one look at Stephen and called for help.
“A doctor came running and, a minute later, they’d spirited him away and I was left absolutely alone. I don’t even recall that there was anywhere to sit down. I just stood there, wishing I hadn’t drunk so much because I knew I had to concentrate.”
At this point, Ben confessed in his autobiography, he felt he had to alert medics that his friend had a coke habit. He said: “It had occurred to me that I needed to tell them something. Urgently.
“Fortunately, the nurse reappeared with a doctor who told me that 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? This was the early ’90s and Stephen was years and years away from his drug confessions.
“Since those long-gone innocent days, he and Kate Moss and a host of other white-nostrilled celebrities have established a culture where talking to Jonathan Ross about how much illegal powder you’ve ingested is commonplace.
“Spun properly, cocaine can even be cited as the protagonist in a heroic narrative struggle with personal demons, which has resulted in a greater understanding of the need to focus on mental health.
“But, back then, cocaine was a scarily illegal Class A drug and I was grassing up my old mate to an authority figure. I hated doing it but absolutely I felt I had to. I didn’t know what was wrong with him or what drugs they were giving him.
“Who knew what one drug did to another drug? The doctor nodded and made a note. ‘I don’t bother with it myself,’ I added rather weakly.
“While true, that sounded so pathetic. It seemed to me that, at best, an entire hospital would now be telling all their friends that I did cocaine and, at worst, I was going to be spending a night in a police station while Stephen died and avoided all the unpleasantness.
“I was worried sick about Stephen and also vaguely expecting the police to turn up and arrest me.”
Ben said that doctors later reassured him he would be alright – but that it had been a close call, when the incident happened in the Nineties. He added: “I was shown into the emergency room and he certainly didn’t look okay.
“He looked like a corpse – grey, translucent skin, seemingly no life left in his eyes, numerous tubes and wires attached to every part of him.
“It was then that the doctor told me that Stephen had been minutes away from suffering permanent brain damage.
“And not many more minutes away from death. I said I was quite sure that, given the choice, Stephen would have preferred the latter. So there you go. 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.”
Ben also admitted he wanted to stay with Stephen to tell him that he had shared his cocaine use with the doctor and “was still really worried”.
He said: “I imagined that the big ‘coke’ word was all over Stephen’s notes and I felt he needed to know.
“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.
“Stephen was pretty woozy and nodding off, but he was conscious enough to hear me. ‘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.'”
The pair have been friends for years and Stephen starred in Blackadder when it was co-written by Ben and Richard Curtis, playing Lord Melchett in the second series and General Melchett in the fourth series.
The 68-year-old was one of the top stars in hit BBC show Celebrity Traitors but exited the game in Thursday night’s episode.
He said afterwards: “It’s a word that’s overused as people give them as Christmas presents, but it really was an experience. A remarkable experience. And of course, it’s shaped by the rules of the game. No question, the structure of the rules of the game gives it its shape. And I was familiar with those from watching it, but it is formed more, in a way, by the nature of the group who are participating. That was just wonderful to get to know some extraordinary people I would probably otherwise never have met. And some people, of course, whom I knew, that made it very rich and interesting. Every day was astonishing.
* What Have I Done? By Ben Elton is out now published by Macmillan