Lee Ryan was left traumatised after watching his friend’s father shoot himself in the head, which he believes later attributed to his battle with addiction.
Lee Ryan
The Blue star has revealed he witnessed the horrific incident when he was a child, and said the unresolved trauma he suffered manifested itself when he “got famous” as a member of the popular boy band, which led him to indulge in drink and drugs.
He said: “I remember watching a film and I heard, ‘Bang, bang,’ I was like, ‘What the f*** is that?’
"I actually looked outside and I saw my friend lying on the floor holding her shoulder and her dad walked out with a sawn-off shotgun.
“He walked out into the middle of the road, stuck it to her head and went to shoot it but he’d already done two shots, so he went back inside, re-loaded, and she got up and ran off.
“Then he turned around and he put the gun to his head and blew his brains out. I saw his head explode.
“It affected me, really badly. There was a woman who got murdered in my block of flats, she got cut up with her kid. It was rough round those ways.
“I think growing up I had a lot of things to deal with that I’d seen and then I got famous. It’s not a good mix.”
Lee became convinced he would “join the 27 club” – which is the name given to a group of celebrities who all died when they were 27, including Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse – and “didn’t care” about dying.
He added: “I was like, I’ve got loads of money in the bank, I’m in the biggest boy band in the country and I honestly thought I might die young.
“I honestly thought I might join the 27 club and I didn’t give a f***, I thought it would be a good way to go out.
“That’s why I just acted like a nutjob. I did crazy things, I was trying to be the most crazy rock‘n’roller I could ever be … I just didn’t care.”
And the 37-year-old singer and actor feels sorry for his Blue band mates – Duncan James, Simon Webbe, and Antony Costa – as he said watching him struggle with his demons must have been “tough” for them.
Speaking on the ‘Family Business’ podcast, he said: “I just thought, ‘You know what? This isn’t going to last forever.’ The first car I bought was a 911 Porsche, I had that James Dean idea of living fast and dying young and being rock‘n’roll.
“It must have been tough for the Blue boys, they were more sensible than me.”
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