Legendary presenter John Humphrys has opened up about his excessive drinking in his first decade at the BBC, and the on-air incident that made him give up alcohol.
The 82-year-old joined the BBC in 1966, going on to present flagship properties like Radio 4’s Today and Mastermind, before he left the broadcaster in 2021.
While his first major presenting role at the broadcaster was at the helm of the evening news in 1981, Welsh presenter Humphrys had started out in Liverpool. He eventually moved along with late wife Edna Wilding, who he married in 1964, and their family out to the United States as he set up a BBC news bureau across the pond.
open image in galleryIt was in America in 1974, Humphrys has shared in a new interview with The Times, that he was forced to reckon with his relationship with alcohol.
“I think I was an alcoholic. I suppose I can’t have been, otherwise… You don’t know, do you, whether you actually need a drink. Now what I do know for sure is that I don’t.”
That August, Humphrys was working in Washington for the BBC when he’d received the news that US president Richard Nixon was going to resign that evening.
Earlier in the day, he’d done his “usual” and “gone for a very, very, very lavish lunch” where he’d “had a couple of glasses of red wine” and then had gone to a restaurant for “a martini or two, then a glass of wine with lunch and brandy afterwards”.
“Anyway, I staggered back to the office and my PA, or BA [broadcast assistant], whatever they called them in those days, said, ‘Are you sober?’ and I said, ‘What do you think, darling?’ or something stupid. And she said, ‘You’ve got to get on. They’ve booked a satellite.’”
open image in gallery
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The father-of-three continued: “I got through it. Just. But only just. She said to me the next day, my BA, ‘London probably won’t say anything to you, but they’ve said it to me. You can’t do that again.’
“I got through it. I didn’t fall off the chair, but it was painfully obvious I was pissed. That was the last time ever.”
Having lost both his grandfather and uncle to alcoholism, Humphrys initially went cold turkey and gave up drinking for good. In a 2006 interview, the former news reader told The Telegraph that he “wouldn’t be here if I had carried on drinking”.
Today, the presenter – who now presents his own show on Classic FM – is far less strict, but still drinks very little, saying that he “will go for days without a drink”.
“Most evenings with supper, if I’m by myself, I will have half a pint of beer, but half of that will be non-alcoholic beer. So I virtually don’t drink at all,” he said.
If you or someone you know is suffering from alcohol addiction, you can confidentially call the national alcohol helpline Drinkline on 0300 123 1110 or visit the NHS website here for information about the programmes available to you.