West End Star Slept Five Months in a Car

Darren Day grew up in Colchester and became a household name in Britain in the 1990s as an actor and television presenter. He starred in West End musicals such as Joseph, and later appeared on I'm A Celebrity and Celebrity Big Brother.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, reported by the Colchester Gazette, he looked back on 2005 and 2006, the period when he was declared bankrupt. He said he was homeless. For about five months, from summer until around November, he slept in a friend's old car in a car park in Hampstead, north London, until the cold made it too uncomfortable to continue. He had no sleeping bag, only coats, and no bank account, and he said he barely ate or drank.

He linked the collapse to a cocaine addiction. He said he had spent 900,000 pounds on it, which left him owing 600,000, and that at one point the habit cost about 2,100 pounds a week. Bailiffs took his own car.

He later recovered and had been clean for several years when the article appeared. He also described a relapse during lockdown, a week-long binge during which, by the account, he did not sleep, eat or change his clothes, after which Robbie Williams helped him get back on track.

At the time of the report he was back on stage, performing in Chicago, which was touring the UK, and was due to appear in Footloose the following year.