S Club singer Jon Lee has opened up about the challenging ordeal he went through with a crystal meth addiction, admitting at one point he found himself “smashing my flat up with a hammer”,
The 43-year-old singer joined the pop group S Club 7 aged 15. The band became known for their uplifting hits including “Reach” and “Never Had a Dream Come True”. They initially split in 2010 before reuniting again in 2022.
After Lee’s dad died in 2014, the performer said he “didn’t cope very well” and was offered crystal meth, sparking an addiction that left him with psychotic hallucinations, he told MailOnline.. He recalled spending £250 a week on the substance, which he first smoked and later injected, adding the cost was “more than my mortgage”.
“As well as the crystal meth, I was taking GHB, which just knocks you out if you take a certain amount,” he said.
Recalling the violent episodes caused by the addiction, he said: “I didn’t even recognise myself at that time. Sometimes, in the midst of one of the psychotic episodes where I’d be smashing my flat up with a hammer, I’d catch sight of myself in the mirror and say: ‘What the f***?”
“I’d have a moment of lucidity, thinking: ‘I was a successful young man, I had a brilliant career, incredible life. What am I doing?’ I’d be standing there, holes in the walls around me, cuts all over my knuckles, my eye swollen from where I’d been punching myself in the head. I’d shaved my hair too. I didn’t look anything like Jon from S Club.”
During one incident, Lee’s neighbours rang the police. “It was 3am and I’d been smashing the place up, screaming and shouting. The police came, saw what a frenzied state I was in, and by the time they led me downstairs there was an ambulance there.
“I don’t know where they took me to. It wasn’t a hospital, but some sort of clinic. I guess I was sectioned there, because they held me overnight. I remember I had to keep the door open, and someone sat outside. I suppose I was a danger to myself. It was after that I walked out on my own life.”
He added: “My biggest regret is that I put my family through that.”
“I was just trying to get away from my life, from the reality of what was happening to my dad. I am ashamed now because my family needed me, but I just couldn’t deal with it.”
S Club 7 were renamed S Club in the wake of Paul Cattermole’s death in 2023.
If you have been affected by this article, you can contact the following organisations for support: actiononaddiction.org.uk, mind.org.uk, nhs.uk/livewell/mentalhealth, mentalhealth.org.uk.
