James Packer has revealed that he is taking miracle weight loss drug Ozempic but is still gaining weight due to a secret addiction.
The former Crown Resorts magnate tells Channel Seven reporter Liam Bartlett the real reasons behind his string of failed relationships – and why he thinks his ex-wives deserved better.
In a candid interview for Seven Spotlight aboard the billionaire’s $300 million superyacht off the coast of Tahiti, the 57-year-old revealed he has struggled with serious mental health issues for more than three decades.
He said he suffered his first breakdown at the age of 33, after his new telecom company One.Tel went bankrupt in May 2001.
The failed venture was his first attempt to emerge from the shadow of his famous father Kerry, but it left him mired in $327 million in debt.
The former Channel Nine heir said the venture also ultimately cost him his short-lived marriage to former first wife Jodhi Meares.
“I had a breakdown after One.Tel went bust,” he told Bartlett. “I felt terrible.
‘It’s not just the money: my marriage has fallen apart…It was on the front page of the newspaper every day…it felt like the biggest news.’
James Packer opens up in a candid interview on Channel Seven’s Spotlight programme
Packer says he had his first breakdown after trying to step out of dad Kerry’s shadow
The billionaire blames the One.Tel disaster for the failure of his marriage to former model and first wife Jodhi Meares (pictured together in 2001)
When his father died a few years later, in December 2005, the new owner of Nine Network decided to withdraw from the media world and instead invest heavily in Crown.
The gamble – and the debts that came with it – took an irreparable toll on Packer’s mental health as well as on his marriage to his second wife Erica Baxter, also a former model.
Packer said he became “self-destructive” and turned to “substance abuse” to cope with his manic depression before they split in 2013.
“I don’t want to get too deep into that because I drank too much and did things I shouldn’t have done,” he told Bartlett.
‘I can only advise people not to do that. I’m sure that’s played a part in some of my mental health issues – without a doubt.
‘I felt very guilty that my marriage to Erica wasn’t working.
She deserved better than I gave, and I became self-destructive.
‘Looking back, I was really into a mania in 2013.
Packer says her second wife Erica Baxter (right) deserved better than what he could offer her
‘When you’re manic, or at least this is my truth, when I’ve been manic, I’m at my best and probably at my most unreasonable.
“And looking back, it probably cost me my marriage to Erica.”
Despite the difficult times of those dark days, the former couple, who have three children: Jackson, Indigo and Emmanuelle Sheelah, remain close to each other.
The same cannot be said of another famous former lover of Packer: American pop star and former fiancée Mariah Carey.
The ultimately mismatched couple began dating in 2015 and announced their engagement to the world in January 2016. They split in October of that year after much public outrage.
Mariah Carey’s whirlwind romance with Packer ended almost as quickly as it began
“I was engaged to Mariah Carey for a while. And that same week it came out that Mariah and I had broken up, and she thought I ran a story in a magazine about it, which I didn’t, and it made her look bad,” Packer said.
“And so she threatened to say things about me, and that’s how it ended in failure.”
After his ugly fight with Carey, Packer decided to seek professional help in late 2016. In 2017, he finally quit drinking.
When he experienced a disturbing “hallucination” the following year, he decided it was time to quit more than just the bottle.
“I had a hallucination and was sober,” he told Bartlett.
‘I thought the world was against me. I thought people… I’m too ashamed to say what it was.
‘But when I had this hallucination, I resigned from all boards of my company.
“I called my mom and said, ‘Mom, you have to come and help me.’”
Billionaire businessman says he has resigned from all his directorships after a ‘sober hallucination’
Packer spent the next two weeks at McLean Hospital, one of the world’s leading psychiatric care facilities at Harvard University, where he was diagnosed with bipolar.
“The medications they prescribed me were, quite frankly, perhaps worse than the medications I was already suffering from,” he said.
‘The last psychiatrist I went to (since then) told me I was bipolar, I had OCD, and I had PTSD. So he told me I was all three.
“But when I was first told I was bipolar, my truth was that my doctors would do everything they could to keep me from becoming manic. And as long as I wasn’t manic, they were happy.”
He said the early focus on avoiding manic episodes led to a debilitating experience with medication.
“I was put on lithium in 2022,” he said. “And within two weeks I was a zombie. I was a complete zombie.”
Packer has remained close with his ex-wife Erica, with whom he has three children
Packer says he’s been “doing better” lately and is on different medications. Just don’t ask him which ones.
“I use something and I’m really embarrassed about it (but) I have a nurse who travels with me,” he told Bartlett.
“I can’t tell you what I use because I use a lot of stuff and someone else does it for me.”
The only thing he knows for sure is that he is on Ozempic. The only problem is: it doesn’t work.
“I’ll do it and I’ll arrive,” he said.
And although he insisted he was still not drinking, he feared he had traded one addiction for another.
“I eat a lot of sugar. I consume a lot of sugar,” Packer admitted.
“It’s just truckloads of sugar, truckloads of sugar – cookies, everything, that kind of thing.”
Packer opened up during a candid interview with Liam Bartlett aboard his $300 million yacht
Today the magnate weighs about 130 kg.
But he said it was a happy trade, given his improved mental state, and that he was determined to work on his weight once his mental health was back on track.
“It’s one thing at a time. I think mentally I’m a lot better than I was six months ago,” he told Bartlett.
‘In 2022 I had a mania and then from 2022 to mid-2023 I used lithium.
‘So I lost the weight. But mentally I wasn’t great.
‘I have gained weight since then, but mentally I am doing better.
“For me it’s a journey. You don’t interview someone who says to you, ‘I’ve got it together and I’ve got all the answers.’
“I’m saying here, ‘I’m not that person, but I’m trying my best.'”
For free mental health support call Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14
For support with anxiety and depression, call Beyond Blue: 1300 22 46 36