My son feared I’d kill myself amid booze hell over £2m debt & homelessness, says Bradley Wiggins…disgraced star saved me
WITH five Olympic golds, a knighthood and a £13m fortune, Bradley Wiggins once had the world at his feet.
But in June, the sporting hero was declared bankrupt over £1m debt and it was revealed he was homeless and sleeping on his ex-wife’s couch after losing his £975,000 home.
Now the 44-year-old has opened up about his spiral into depression, his booze battle and how his 19-year-old son Ben feared he would kill himself as he lay for days in a dark hotel room in November last year.
In an emotional interview on The High Performance Podcast, he said: “There were some really extreme moments. Probably the last one was about a year ago without going into too much detail.
“But I was in a very dark place in a very dark room for many days, and it was a hotel, and my son actually was the one who kind of intervened and made me realise, recognise the self-destructive mode I was in.
“There were a lot of reasons for that.
“There was always something that was causing me issues and giving me a reason to not be happy and there was always something on the horizon. But I’ve realised now that there’s never going to be a clear path.
“I realise we’re born into a struggle and it’s what you make with that struggle, this life.
“I refused to accept therapy. I was like ‘no therapist is ever going to be educated enough to understand what’s going on in my head’.”
He revealed he is now in a ‘happy place’ – and vowed to claw back a lot of the money his company owes following his bankruptcy, which now stands at £2million.
And he says he turned a corner thanks to an unlikely saviour – disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.
The seven-time Tour de France winner – who was stripped of his titles and banned for life after admitting to taking performance-enhancing drugs – has become a close friend and recently offered to pay for him to have therapy for the first time.
After initially refusing the offer, he now feels he’s in the right place to finally try it.
He said: “Lance, he’s helped me a lot in recent years – more so this year. We were talking about therapy, he wants to pay for me to go to this big place in Atlanta, where you go and stay for a week.
“He’s a good man. He did what he did, that’s not to condone what he did. He’s got a heart under there somewhere.”
Dad’s drinking
Bradley first began opening up two years ago about the mental torment that has plagued his life and previously led him to drink – stemming largely from his troubled childhood and sexual abuse by a former coach.
His professional cyclist father Gary, an alcoholic and drug abuser, left the family when Bradley was 18 months old, before stepping back into his life when he was 19 after his early success with cycling.
But even after their reconciliation his father cruelly told him “You’ll never be as good as your old man”.
In one of my darkest periods I smashed all my trophies off the mantelpiece because like ‘what are these things doing up here?’
Bradley
Between the ages of 13 and 16, Bradley was sexually abused by his coach Stan Knight, who died in 2003.
During his illustrious career as one of the country’s most popular sports stars he bagged eight Olympics medals including five golds – and in 2012 became the first Brit to win the Tour de France.
But following his retirement in 2016 he admitted cycling was a distraction from his troubled childhood – and he told how his life plunged into greater despair once it came to the surface when he stopped competing.
Speaking in an interview recorded last week for this week’s High Performance podcast, he said the abuse had the greatest impact of many damaging events on him, but in the past year he’s learned how to live with them.
He said: “I’m honestly in the best place that I have been for 44 years of my life.
“And that’s largely down to the fact that I’ve been to the arse end of the world and I’ve been in dark places at times for various reasons.
“I always blamed the success, but I realise now it was multi-factual and there were many other things that contributed to that, and I’ve spent the last five years sorting that out in my head.
“I finally took responsibility for my own life and I’m not in a sort of position now where I’m playing the blame game.”
Son saved me
Asked what the catalyst was for taking responsibility, he said it was when his son Ben, 19, also now a top cyclist, rescued him from a “very dark place” on November 20 last year on what would have been the 71st birthday of Bradley’s father, who was tragically murdered in 2008.
He died from a head injury after allegedly getting into a fight at a party in New South Wales, Australia – although no one has ever been charged over his death.
After that dark day in the hotel room, Ben told Bradley he feared he would one day get a phone call saying his father had taken his own life.
Bradley initially thought opening up about his struggles would help him cope but he now admits it had the opposite effect.
He said: “By talking about it, I was projecting myself as some sort of martyr – that I could talk about the subjects that I was talking about, that I was there and I was through it, and I could be a help to other people.
“I think that was a distraction for me in being able to do that, or thinking that I could do that – the fact that I’m helping others I’m not having to look at myself and help myself.
“Two years ago I thought I was doing well but I failed to see that I was smoking and drinking and doing all sorts and I thought that was alright. But I’m really on an upward journey now.”
He described himself as an “avoider” who swept his traumatic past under the carpet while he concentrated on achieving cycling glory but he reveals when he reached the peak of success in 2012 – winning his fifth Olympic gold and the Tour De France in quick succession – he felt lost.
“Win an Olympic gold, stand on the rostrum, certainly at Hampton Court having won the Tour de France ten days before that, and walking away from that rostrum as Olympic champion, and thinking ‘What do I do now?’ And having to deal with that,” he says.
“Nothing was ever going to top that day from what it meant and the millions of people at the roadside that day, the boom that happened in cycling.
“You know, The Sun were giving out sideburns that day on the front of the newspapers.”
‘Darkest period’
Bradley won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award later that year, and was knighted in the 2013 New Years Honours list, but he later took out his troubles on those awards.
He said: “In one of my darkest periods I smashed all my trophies off the mantelpiece because like ‘what are these things doing up here?’
“I threw my Sports Personality of the Year one out, my knighthood – the things that came with external validation that you were great, because I had a real issue with the things I’d achieved that that meant that I had a hierarchical position in the household as to what’s deemed success.
“And I was trying to make the point in the worst possible way, off my head, that this means nothing, it’s just junk.
The biggest thing that caused me the greatest amount of pain that made me not want to be here – was the fact that I was sexually abused for three years by my first coach
Bradley
“There were various events like that.”
Asked if he now finally feels proud of himself, father-of-three Wiggins replied “Yes”, adding he could “definitely not” have done so 12 months ago.
“I’m proud of the person I’m becoming. I feel like a good father to my children.”
As well as Ben, Bradley has a daughter Isabella, 18, from wife Cath, who he separated from four years ago, and a three-year-old daughter Ava Joy with Laura Hartshorne, with whom he has also split.
Although he has previously cited his cycling success as one of the contributors to his difficulties, he now says “it saved his life” and he would not change that.
He said: “It saved my life in many ways. I don’t know where I’d be today. Cycling’s given me everything.
“I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t change any of my journey up to this point, because it’s what we do with the things that happen to us that shape us, that make us the people we are. I think my best years are yet to come.
“I think greatness stems from adversity and a dark place. I’ve met a lot of hyper-successful people and they all tend to be a bit f***ed up or had a f***ed up past.”
‘F***ed up past’
Highlighting the impact of his own past, he said: “The biggest thing that’s really impacted me, and it’s the biggest thing I’ve come to terms with – it’s the biggest thing that caused me the greatest amount of pain that made me not want to be here – was the fact that I was sexually abused for three years by my first coach when I was between the age of 13 and 16.
“Having ignored it for 30 years, I realised that had a huge part as to why I was successful because it was the greatest distraction that I could have in those years.
“But when I retired I really resented cycling. Because I blamed cycling – for getting into cycling – for the reason I met this guy.
“The interview I did with The Times last summer, four people came forward afterwards that were also in the (cycling) club, that it had happened to as well.
“That was like a weight off my shoulders. It was external validation.
I used to have to drink because I thought I was introverted and it took my anxiety away – actually it added to my anxiety
Bradley
“There’s so multi-layers. It’s connected with my father, not having a father growing up – he got murdered in 2008.”
Bradley says he never felt loved as a child as, after his dad left, his mother fell for a new man who was “quite handy with his hands towards me”.
He said: “My dad left when I was one and a half. I met him when I was 19, he walked back into my life because I was successful.
“The famous quote he gave me which drove me for years, and breaks my heart to this day. He said after a week of meeting him when I was 19, ‘Don’t forget you’ll never be as good as your old man was’.
“I think about this all the time still as part of my recovery.”
Unlikely supporter
Talking about the generous offer from new pal Lance Armstrong, he says he is now considering taking him up on it.
Explaining how his initial reaction to Armstrong’s therapy offer was to reject it, he said: “Straight away, ‘I don’t need help – how dare you, but thanks for the offer’.
“That was five months ago and I’ve actually considered speaking to him this week and saying ‘is that offer still on the table Lance?’
“I wanted to get back to a semblance of order myself. If you can come back from that yourself, without sitting down with someone and them being the reason you got back. I wanted to get back.
“Now I know what I want to talk to him (a therapist) about. Now I’ve got much more of an idea about my behaviour patterns that I’m left with and what drives me and where do they come from, and knowing what I want to talk about.
“I didn’t want to just go in there and go ‘Sort me out’.
“Never forget the past. I think the past is the biggest thing that’s helped form me. What I have to do is not live in the past, but change my relationship with the past.
They were exploiting my name left, right and centre. And I was busy riding my bike
Bradley
“I know where I want to be as a person.
“Happiness is a short-term emotion and it can come and go, but fulfilment is something that really I’ve learned is far more important.
“I don’t drink any more because I’ve made better decisions. I’ve got better thought processes.
“I used to have to drink because I thought I was introverted and it took my anxiety away – actually it added to my anxiety.”
Wiggins also revealed he is confident of turning his finances round after it was revealed in June he’d been declared bankrupt and last week liquidators said his company’s debts were £2million – double what was previously thought.
Wiggins, once said to be worth £13million, has had his £975,000 family home repossessed and sold, has lost his Majorca home, and has been staying on sofas and been housed by his former wife.
But he told interviewers Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes: “There was a lot of professional negligence and there’s lots of cases going to be happening going forward where I get a lot of that back fortunately.”
The full interview will be available on The High Performance Podcast on all major platforms.