John Barrowman was alone in his car, deep in the Colorado Desert, when his thoughts turned terrifyingly final.
John Barrowman found himself being pushed out the limelight after revelations about his lewd behind-the-scenes antics while working on TV shows such as Doctor Who and its spin-off, Torchwood
The 58-year-old entertainer — once a fixture of British television and theatre — was contemplating how to end his life when his phone suddenly chimed. A fan had requested a personalised video message on the Cameo app.
Instinct took over. The performer smiled, switched on the camera, and recorded the message there and then.
Barrowman with Torchwood co-stars Eve Myles and Mekhi Phifer, alongside whom he played Captain Jack Harkness
“I don’t like to disappoint people,” he said.
That unexpected interruption pulled him back from the brink. He drove home to Palm Springs. But it was not the first time — nor the last — that he had driven into the desert to think about dying.
Barrowman with his husband, Scott Gill, and his parents, Marion and John Barrowman, after the actor was awarded an MBE in 2014
Only weeks ago, Barrowman spoke candidly about those moments.
“I drove out there quite a few times to figure out how I was going to do it,” he said.
“I didn’t tell anybody.”
Sitting behind the wheel, head in his hands, the thoughts spiralled.
“You’re looking at the dashboard thinking, ‘How do I get out of this? I don’t see a way.’ You think, ‘Can I drive into something? Pull into traffic? Drive off a cliff?’”
The shunned in a Jack And The Beanstalk pantomime with Janette Tough in 2004
Then came the grim irony.
“Unfortunately,” he added, “I’ve got a Tesla. It stops.”
This was the psychological fallout of being cancelled in 2021.
A born showman — a man whose entire identity was bound up in performance — suddenly found himself unwanted, his career abruptly frozen after allegations about his off-camera behaviour surfaced.
Barrowman was dragged into a Guardian investigation into Noel Clarke in 2021 – his former co-star on Doctor Who – who faced allegations of bullying and sexual misconduct
Revelations about his lewd antics behind the scenes of Doctor Who and Torchwood saw him swiftly removed from projects and dropped as a judge on ITV’s Dancing On Ice.
Of the BBC, he now says:
“They never came to me. They never asked anything. They just shut it all down.”
The phone stopped ringing. The work dried up. He felt, he says, “completely blacklisted”.
Depression followed — and thoughts of suicide soon after.
Barrowman – who had long been open about his ‘tomfoolery’ on set – later ventured into the jungle for ITV’s I’m A Celebrity
Four years on, the picture looks very different.
Barrowman is back in Scotland, touring a new festive stage show, Camp as Christmas. Performances in Glenrothes, Edinburgh, and a grand finale at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall are close to selling out — a far cry from the bleak period when previous tours were quietly abandoned due to poor ticket sales.
The shunned actor had hoped to kickstart his career last year with an appearance on Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, but he quit just 32 minutes after arriving on base
“The audience is still there,” he said recently. “The fanbase is still there — and that means everything.”
Originally from Mount Vernon, Glasgow, Barrowman moved to the US as a child before building a career that spanned West End musicals, pantomime, and prime-time television on both sides of the Atlantic.
‘He gave up at the first opportunity and wasted a space that another person could have taken, so it was very disappointing,’ said the show’s chief instructor Mark Billingham
That trajectory derailed dramatically in May 2021, when he became embroiled in a Guardian investigation into former Doctor Who co-star Noel Clarke, accused by multiple women of bullying and sexual misconduct.
As part of that reporting, a resurfaced 2014 YouTube video described Barrowman repeatedly exposing himself on set — behaviour he had long framed as harmless “tomfoolery”.
In an era reshaped by MeToo, that defence no longer held.
Barrowman has consistently argued three points:
that the behaviour occurred during productions involving nudity;
that no one complained at the time;
and that the culture of the 2000s was very different.
Yet his own 2008 autobiography Anything Goes details repeated flashing incidents — including on Torchwood — described as morale-boosting jokes.
While no suggestion was made of predatory intent, there was a complaint, and in 2008 an executive producer ordered him to stop.
Even years later, the pattern continued. As recently as January 2021, Barrowman appeared on Lorraine wearing a sequinned jockstrap and offered — twice — to reveal it on air.
Just four months later, his career collapsed.
Speaking on the Inside of You podcast, Barrowman admitted the silence from friends and colleagues hurt deeply.
“People were scared to reach out,” he said.
“What upset me was that people I would have been there for weren’t there for me.”
Asked whether he now believes his behaviour was wrong, he replied:
“It was probably daft and dumb. I wouldn’t do it now.”
Attempts at a comeback were uneven. A hoped-for revival via Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins ended abruptly when he quit just 32 minutes into the programme — a move criticised by the show’s chief instructor Mark Billingham, who said Barrowman had “wasted a space”.
Viewers were unimpressed — particularly when reports emerged of a £30,000 fee.
Yet theatre remains his refuge.
Following therapy and intense self-reflection, Barrowman has chosen to rebuild where he feels most alive: on stage, face-to-face with an audience.
“They can say what they like online,” he says of critics.
“Delete. Delete. Delete.”
His current tour spans 16 venues, with near three-hour cabaret performances and premium meet-and-greet packages — and next year he plans two major tours with My Life In Musicals.
Scottish entertainment journalist Beverley Lyons believes his resilience defines him.
“When a performer gets cancelled, they either disappear — or they stand up and face the music,” she said.
“John was never going to hide.”
In a final twist, Barrowman recently reunited with the fan who ordered the Cameo video that saved him that day in the desert.
“I told them the truth,” he recalled.
“That message stopped me killing myself.”
The fan was stunned.
“You thanked me,” Barrowman said.
“But I was thanking you.”
There is life after cancellation, it seems.
And for John Barrowman — slowly, tentatively — it is beginning to resemble life before
