ANT McPartlin used to sneak off to booze when he was performing with Declan Donnelly as PJ & Duncan, his former tour manager has revealed.
Mike Faux says in an explosive documentary to air on Friday that the Britain’s Got Talent presenter turned to boozing in the 1990s to deal with his newfound fame.
The Comeback of Ant McPartlin charts the career recovery of Ant, 43, who has been to rehab twice in the last two years and was convicted of drink-driving last year.
Mike said: “Out of the two of them, Ant was a bit more one of the lads.
“It used to be a nightmare for me with the two of them because we’d have an after-show party, so to speak, and Ant would always come up to me and say, ‘Might we look after Dec,’ and so on.
“Then he’d be sneaking off with his mates and going and having beers with them and so on. It would make it a nightmare for me.”
Songwriter Deni Lew also describes Ant as “darker”, “more mysterious” and “much more guarded” than Dec, 43.
She also claims the pair used to enjoy boozy nights out together playing wild drinking games.
Deni, who wrote songs for PJ & Duncan’s 1994 album Psyche, said: “It was the whole ‘who could drink the most pints before you went to the loo’.
“That’s what they would be looking forward to at the weekend, going to do that, so they were very laddish.”
After his drink-driving crash last March, Ant told The Sun that social drinking had descended into alcohol addiction.
Jake Spencer, a witness to the smash, tells the documentary that he saw “a man who looked visibly shaken, visibly in discomfort, arguing with a police officer”.
He adds: “It suddenly clicked that it was Ant McPartlin and it looked like he’d drunk too much.”
Ant was fined £86,000 and got a 20-month road ban.
Ex-Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona, 38, tells the programme, on Channel 5 at 9pm, she is “annoyed” at how Ant has been forgiven and allowed to return to TV.
She says: “If a man falls off the rails and goes and does a statement outside the police station, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve had this issue’, everyone applauds and he’s back winning awards.
“If you’re a woman, especially if you’re a mother and you have children, the public are a lot less forgiving.”
