Love Actually star Marcus Brigstocke admits he was addicted to adult sites after his cheating triggered the collapse of his marriage.
The comedian and actor’s first marriage ended in 2014, after he started an affair with Corrie actress Hayley Tamaddon. Marcus – who played a radio DJ in the festive 2003 movie – had previously struggled with addictions, overcoming substance abuse problems and losing 13 stone when he was in his teens.
He stayed sober in the wake of his marriage breakdown but said he had become “addicted” to sex sites. Opening up about the addiction on The Hidden 20% podcast, he shared that he ended up seeking help and that it was a great “relief” to have got past it.
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“My first marriage ended when I had an affair,” said the 51-year-old. He went on: “I did the most hurtful, secretive, chaotic, devastating thing I could think of, I had an affair that ended up ending my marriage and there were two kids in the mix.
(Image: Getty Images)
“The amount of shame I carried with that was huge. And I didn’t, perhaps quite rightly, but I didn’t defend myself publicly anywhere when that all was in the newspapers.”
“I just carried the mess of that around with me, and it had led to a lot of very dysfunctional behaviour that I was in denial about,” Marcus said. “And, so I’d stayed sober from drugs, alcohol, and my compulsive eating disorder, but I had become addicted to porn.”
(Image: Getty Images for Bauer)
The star, who is now married to fellow comic Rachel Parris, continued: “I really had no idea that I was addicted to it, you know. I sort of thought I looked at a normal amount of porn. The normal amount of porn today is not like a normal amount of porn, well before the internet.”
The star said he felt he wasn’t hurting anybody, that nobody knew about it and that he didn’t feel particularly “ashamed” of the addiction. But after realising that he was looking at porn all night, he decided to stop.
(Image: Getty Images)
“It has been such a relief,” he said. “When I went to get help for it I didn’t go expecting that I would never look at porn again, that was not why I was there. And when that was first suggested I was like, ‘Oh no, oh come on, I’ve got such a list of things I don’t do’.
“And after four months I was like, ‘ Oh I feel so much better.’ My brain has a clarity to it, it has a peace to it, and I don’t feel ashamed.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
