Inside CBB’s Chesney Hawkes’ drug and alcohol addiction as he struggled to cope with music flop after The One and Only
CHESNEY Hawkes admitted to misusing drugs and alcohol to help deal with the fallout of his music careeer.
The Celebrity Big Brother contestant opened up on the struggles of fame and what it felt like to get dumped by his record label after one hit.
Chesney, 53, rose to fame when he was just 19 years old with his hit song, The One and Only.
The single spent five weeks at the top of the U.K music charts but he struggled to match that success afterwards and was worried about being a one-hit wonder.
“One piece of advice that stuck with me from my dad was the phrase: ‘Don’t believe the hype’,” Chesney told The Guardian earlier this year.
“It’s not real. None of it is, but I found out the hard way. After the craziness of The One and Only I got dropped by the label.”
Chesney added: “I hadn’t followed up its success and I suddenly couldn’t get hold of anyone on the phone; the family I had for two years, the friends I’d met at the label, none of them wanted to talk.
“All of that tenacity and self-belief I had before was gone.”
The singer and actor admitted following that rejection that he never wanted to play The One and Only ever again and tried to “push down” the trauma of his experience.
“I wanted to be in Radiohead, so I formed other bands, turned my guitar up to 11 and shoe-gazed,” he said.
“I got into drugs and alcohol, too – nothing too extreme, but looking back it was my way of avoiding the trauma of it all.”
COME BACK STRONGER
Chesney admitted that aging has helped him to feel liberated and that he’s come to realise The One and Only is actually a good song.
“I didn’t want to know about The One and Only for a decade, but now I can appreciate that it’s a great record. In many ways, it’s not mine. I recorded it, but it has a life of its own,” he said.
“People often tell me it was the song they had played as their first dance, or at their family member’s funeral, or that it reminds them of their mum.”
Chesney added: “It’s also a banger, so when I play it at gigs it raises the energy in the room. I am lucky to have it in the canon.”
PERSONAL HEARTACHE
The singer released a new album before entering the Celebrity Big Brother house earlier this week, but had to cancel tour dates to do the ITV show.
Celebrity Big Brother 2025 line-up
Celebrity Big Brother is back for a brand new series, with a whole host of stars set to live it up in the famous compound.
Here’s the FULL line-up of star housemates:
Trisha Goddard – Talk show host
Mickey Rourke – Hollywood actor
Donna Preston – comedian and TV star
JoJo Siwa – influencer and singer
Chris Hughes – Love Island hunk
Jack P. Shepherd – Coronation Street star
Patsy Palmer – EastEnders legend
Daley Thompson – Olympic athlete
Chesney Hawkes – 90s singer
Ella Rae Wise – Towie star
Michael Fabricant – former Tory politician
Angellica Bell – former CBBC presenter
Danny Beard – Drag queen and Britain’s Got Talent
He opened up to his fans on the heartbreaking reason why he said yes to being on the reality show, and that was that he had made a pact with a close friend who tragically died a few weeks ago.
“I made a pact with a very good friend of mine a few weeks ago that I was gonna take life by the horns and say yes to every crazy opportunity that came my way,” he said on social media.
“And this, rather timely, is the first instance of that,” Chesney added referring to going on CBB.