Tony Slattery’s numerous health problems – from tragic cocaine addiction to bipolar disorder and depression

Stand-up comedian Tony Slattery has died aged 65 from a heart attack, his 40-year-old partner Mark Michael Hutchinson has revealed.

While further details about the actor’s heart health have yet to be revealed, he has often spoken about his challenges with multiple other health issues over the years.

The actor, best known as the star of Channel 4’s Whose Line Is It Anyway?, fluid addiction to cocaine and alcohol, and was open about his mental health diagnoses bipolar disorder and depression.

In the years before his death, he spent his days out of the spotlight after publicly admitting to the difficulties he had faced throughout his life.

In 2019, the comic – a contemporary of Dame Emma Thompson, Sir Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie at the University of Cambridge – revealed to interviewers that he had battled addiction and suffered sexual abuse as a child.

He admitted that at his lowest moments he took 10 grams of cocaine every day and drank two bottles of vodka to deal with the terrifying memories of being raped by a priest at the age of eight.

In 2020, Slattery revealed that his problems and drug addiction had led to him going bankrupt.

He told the Radio Times that his ‘fiscal illiteracy and general innumeracy’ and his ‘misplaced trust in people’ had also contributed to his money problems.

Candid: Tony Slattery has detailed his harrowing battle with addiction and bipolar disorder during an appearance on Thursday’s edition of This Morning

He said, “If you are not born with money, you don’t know when it will end; you think it’s a matter of luck. I really enjoyed working, but all work, no play, takes its toll.

‘The overtime, no vacation, no taking a break, eventually you snap, you try to replace it with something. In my case it was cocaine.

‘Then came the booze, and then the depression started… I drank two bottles of vodka a day and drank 10 grams of cola.’

After kicking his drug habit, he sent it in for a toxicology report, which revealed that he had actually snorted 5 percent cocaine, cut glass and – to his horror, human and animal feces.

Of his experience with the drug, he said: ‘It’s not fun, I wouldn’t recommend it, the devil’s dandruff, which worsens, makes you disengaged, irrational and uninterested.’

In the early 1990s, Slattery met with a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with bipolar disorder, a mental illness that affects your mood and can swing from one extreme to another.

Mr Slattery, second from left, with members of the 1981 Cambridge University Footlights Revue including Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Paul Shearer, Penny Dwyer and Hugh Laurie (left to right)

The actor and comedian was one of the biggest names on TV and radio

He died on Sunday evening after a heart attack

Tony Slattery and his 40-year-old partner Mark Michael Hutchinson (left), pictured together in 2020 for the documentary: What’s the Matter with Tony Slattery?, which studied the link between depression and addiction

Speaking about the condition, which affects more than 1 million Britons, he said: ‘Bipolarity is like autism or any disease, it’s a huge spectrum, it’s everything in between.’

He added: ‘The isolation that comes with bipolarity and depression alienates people. They want to like you and love you. If you don’t answer messages, that’s all they can do.”

His partner Mark Michael Hutchinson, who met Slattery when they appeared in a West End musical in 1986, admitted in a 2020 BBC documentary about his battle with alcohol and mental health that caring for him is a challenge.

He described Slattery as “always tense” and “erratic,” and said he has seen “dozens” of versions of him over the years.

In the BBC documentary, Slattery explained that he regularly suffered from paranoia.

The actor recalled throwing electrical equipment into the Thames, convinced they had been bugged, and said he would do it so many times that the police had to be called.

“He kept saying he was being spied on,” Hutchinson explained, adding that the actor had been a danger to himself at times.

Slattery also appeared on a BBC Two program The Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive in 2006 to speak about his condition.

He said: ‘I rented a huge warehouse on the River Thames. I just stayed there by myself, not opening the mail or answering the phone for months.

“I was just in a pool of despair and mania.”