Ant McPartlin on warning signs ahead of addiction battle – ‘It was non-stop’

Geordie television presenter Ant McPartlin and his onscreen partner Declan Donnelly thought their joint future in telly might be in jeopardy when, in early 2018, Ant’s drinking addiction and stress levels caused him to crash his car.

He paid a hefty fine as a result – no one sustained life-threatening injuries, thankfully.

He also checked himself into rehab and in the process, in his own words, lost, then regained, his identity.

The duo have recently announced plans to bring drag queens back to Saturday Night Takeaway. They held the fort as usual during I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! last year. Among their 2025 commitments are Limitless Win and more SNT.

The Geordie presenter paid Britain’s largest ever drink-driving fine following the crash (Credit: ITV News)

Ant McPartlin admits there were warning signs ahead of alcohol addiction battle

But he ignored them.

The thing was, they were working so much that he was able to bury himself in his professional commitments.

Ant and Dec saw each other all the time. They lived three doors apart and spent long days together. But they barely spoke about the things that mattered.

“We hurtled along,” Ant told The Guardian in March 2019. “It was nonstop. Bullet-train speed. We’d go from one project to another. Having a great time, but like Dec says, other things take second place. It takes something big to happen, like becoming a father, or what’s happened to me, to make you stop and put things in perspective.”

“I was confused, unsure of who I was, what made me happy, what made me tick. You have to strip everything back – almost lose your job, lose your identity, to regain your identity.”

“I’d gone to a couple of rehabs, so I’d addressed my alcohol problem. It wasn’t a case of wake up and start drinking. I’d gone through a process, and you just slip. I hadn’t quite got a proper handle on it and when testing situations happen, or you’re going through emotional heartache, turmoil, you resort back to your default setting – which is just to drink on it.”

Dec added, wisely, that sometimes life has to tell you “a little more forcefully” to either slow down or change direction. Ant didn’t slow down in time – both literally and figuratively. As a result, he came off the rails, and has since learned to live differently.

Dec suffered as a result of Ant’s struggles with alcoholism, and feared that their relationship wouldn’t be the same again (Credit: The Graham Norton Show/YouTube)

They hold the record for most NTAs won for Best Presenter

And quite emphatically, too.

On January 28, 2020, Ant and Dec won the Guinness World Record for the most National Television Awards won consecutively for Best Presenter.

At the time, that was 18. 18 NTAs in a row.

Unfortunately, that record didn’t hold up for long.

Fortunately, it was them that broke it.

Within a year or two, they were back on track, and have since won numerous presenting awards for their work together (Credit: The Graham Norton Show/YouTube)

Since then, they have broken their own record five times. They won the same award five years consecutively. As of September 11, 2024, the record is now 23.

Their most recent foray into fictional storytelling was a cameo role in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. They play Anton Deck, of Up North News.

It’s therefore fair to say that they’ve found their feet since 2018’s upset, and appear to be as strong as ever.