Dreamboys star tells of weeks-long drug binges during Covid lockdown hell

A DREAMBOYS star has told how he got through the first Covid 19 lockdown by embarking on hellraising cocaine and booze binges.

Zac Smith – who once serenaded Holly Willoughby with a TV striptease – says being unable to perform left him at “rock bottom”.

But the 28-year-old dancer and performer has now turned his life around and is speaking out during Mental Health Awareness Week in a bid to help others with anxiety and depression.

In an exclusive interview with GB News, Zac said of his ordeal: “It was really, really bad. The worst of it was during the first lockdown when the industry crashed.

“I’ve always found a sort of affirmation or a purpose from being on stage. I never knew really where I belonged but whenever I was performing to anyone, it was always such a rush and a high and that sort of affirmation.

“When the industry crashed, I didn’t really have anything to cling to and I had a massive loss of identity.

“And you know, I didn’t get that adrenaline hit that I would get from being on stage and then sort of started to look to other places for it.”

Speaking during an interview on Breakfast with Eamonn and Isabel on GB News, Zac said he spiralled into drug binges and ended up spending all of his money on drugs.

“It was incredibly bad,” he admitted. “There was a period in the lockdowns where I don’t think I was sober for a good three or four weeks, like just day in day out spending all my money I had, the savings I got.

“I spent all of my savings on drugs and things and I was in such a state in my head that because I avoided it so much.

“I didn’t see another way out and you know, it was getting to – I wanted a way out.

“It was getting to that sort of suicidal place of ‘I just can’t do this anymore, I don’t know what my life is without performing’.

“I felt like I was in a real rut and I didn’t really know what to do.”

Zac said he had issues with drug use previously and started again during the first Covid lockdown.

“I’ve always had a bit of an anxious disposition and in the past I’ve had problems with drugs.

“Growing up, leaving college I was smoking marijuana and things like that. And then it was in the first lockdown where I fell heavily into cocaine, because I was reaching for a high to replace.

“It was all about avoidance. I couldn’t face what I was feeling, I didn’t know how to deal with it.

“I hadn’t sort of cracked communication or been able to ask for help and people that I was trying to speak to around me were telling me that I didn’t have a problem.

“I was trying to ask for help but maybe not directly enough.”