The Ordinary Boys frontman Samuel Preston has reflected on his loathing of fame and his battles with addiction.
The star, 44, who goes by the mononym Preston, soared to commercial fame away from music when he appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006 and met his future wife Chantelle Houghton, making them a celeb magazine favourite.
The couple became engaged four months after leaving the house in April 2006, before tying the knot four months later, in an ill-fated union which Preston said was the result of a ‘trauma-bond’ amid his hatred of the spotlight.
On being catapulted to mainstream fame after Big Brother, he said: ‘I hated being famous. I hated, hated, hated it… It quickly became a nightmare… Of course [Chantelle and I] fell in love. We trauma-bonded through this intense experience.’
Speaking to The Guardian, the star also relfected on becoming addicted to prescription painkiller OxyContin following a near-death fall from a balcony during a holiday in Denmark in 2017, which left doubts over him ever being able to walk again.
Preston’s career began in The Ordinary Boys in 2002, with the group best known for their 2005 track Boys Will Be Boys before he entered Celebrity Big Brother.
Eventual winner Chantelle was placed in the house as a non-celebrity, who had to pretend she was in a girl band, alongside stars including Pete Burns, Michael Barrymore, George Galloway and Jodie Marsh.
The couple became tabloid sweethearts, even scoring an eye-watering £300k each for their wedding pictures, however Preston professed his hatred for the fame.
He said of magazines at the time: ‘It was that Nuts and Zoo Weekly magazine era. The way that people were talked about – ‘Preston looks fat today’ – it was just awful.’
An iconic moment for Preston came in 2007, when he appeared as a guest panellist on comedy gameshow Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
He made TV history when he left filming midway through the episode after Simon Amstell mocked Chantelle, by reading extracts from her book Living the Dream.
Reflecting on the moment, Preston said: ‘That’s a proud moment. It was actually cruel and classist. I really don’t know what other choice I had.’
After removing himself from the spotlight to become a songwriter rather than a band member, Preston suffered his horrific accident.
In September 2017, Preston was hospitalised after falling from a second-floor balcony while drunk. He admitted he was ‘careless’ and ‘drank too much’ when he plummeted – breaking his leg in four places, shattering his pelvis and puncturing his lung.
Liam meanwhile passed away following a drug binge late last year, when he fell to his death. Liam’s medical cause of death has now been announced to be ‘polytrauma’, a term which means a person has multiple traumatic injuries to their body.
He went on to seek drugs in his recovery, leading to his addiction.
He said: ‘I got four different doctors to prescribe me the amount I was allowed. I’m an idiot for doing that.’
Preston admitted he had a year of ‘dread and horror’, before going cold turkey: ‘I had a weekend where I vomited and shook in bed, fitting. It was awful.’
