Episode 79 | Paul Drayton — Ride or Die Trying: Beach Blanket Babylon, Two Brain Operations & the Love Story at the Heart of It All
Paul Drayton grew up in Sunderland — doors unlocked, family holidays, a dad who ran his own petrol station, a childhood he describes as idyllic. His first real taste of alcohol was chocolate liqueurs at his grandmother's, and he loved the feeling from the start. Not that he became a big drinker early — quite the opposite. As a teenager he was the designated driver, ferrying his friends to gay bars in his little box Astra while they drank cider and he listened to Erasure.
Then came London. Drama college. Beach Blanket Babylon, where the tips sometimes came in wraps and the shift ended at 3am and the mornings brought in with Bloody Marys to take the edge off. The trendy bars of the nineties. A life built around parties, people and performance. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, a relationship that would define the next decade of his life — with a man who became, over time, one of the most recognisable faces in Britain, while Paul quietly built everything around him and slowly stopped being Paul.
By 2015 he was at home alone with the dogs, self-medicating sciatica with alcohol, going to neighbours' houses to ask if they had any wine left. The drinking went from functioning to dependent. A drink driving incident that Paul still doesn't believe tells the full story ended up in court and in the tabloids. Two lots of brain surgery for a chronic subdural haematoma. A divorce. A month in rehab. And through all of it — all of it — he stayed sober.
The book — Ride or Die Trying — is at its heart a love story. Paul talks about the dogs who kept him honest, the 274 days that ended with champagne at a wedding, the ADHD diagnosis that finally made his whole life make sense, and what it means to finally be somebody again on your own terms.
You can find Paul on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/pauldrayton1
His website:
and you can buy his book, Ride or Die Trying here: