Top comedian reveals porn addiction and says 'I was in denial'

Comedian Marcus Brigstocke has confessed to becoming addicted to pornography. The 51 year old Love Actually actor spoke candidly about overcoming his addictions to drugs and alcohol at the age of 17, but then suffering from a porn addiction after being unfaithful to his ex wife.

Marcus was previously wedded to Sophie Prideaux from 2001 until 2013, but their marriage ended when she found out about his infidelity with Corrie and Dancing On Ice star Hayley Tamaddon in 2010 while they were touring together in the musical Spamalot.

While speaking to host Ben Branson on The Hidden 20% podcast, Marcus admitted: "I did the most hurtful, chaotic, devastating thing I could think of, I had an affair which ended my marriage and there were two kids in the mix. The amount of shame I carried with that was huge, I didn't defend myself publicly.

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"I carried the mess of that around with me, and it led to a lot of very dysfunctional behaviour that I was in denial about. And, so I'd stayed sober from drugs, alcohol, and my compulsive eating disorder, but I had become addicted to porn."

He went on to say: "I really had no idea that I was addicted to it. I sort of thought I looked at a normal amount of porn. The normal amount of porn today is not like a normal amount of porn. Well before the internet.

"So, addicts now who have a porn addiction, most of them were addicted from about the age of 11 to something that no one knows about, that changes your brain chemistry. And there are so many people with different depths of addiction to porn. But porn is the most toxic and it's, it's changing an awful lot of young men."

The comedian reflected on how quitting his addiction was a significant "relief". In discussing his weight journey, he shared that he dropped an impressive 13st in just nine months when he went to rehab as a teenager.

"I went into a 12 step recovery for addiction when I was 17, I got sober when I was really young, I had a very very dramatic body change - I went from 24st to 11st in about nine months. I lost 13st in under a year as I turned 19," Marcus shared.

Marcus is now married to fellow comedian Rachel Parris. He is a familiar face on the British stand-up comedy scene, best known for his stand-up routines and regular appearances on the likes of Have I Got News For You and Would I Lie To You?. He also played the radio DJ in Love Actually.

Back in 2016, Marcus was forced to stop work for a year after he injured himself on skiing reality show The Jump.