‘It explains why drugs made me feel normal’: Shaun Ryder on ADHD diagnosis

Published

4 years ago

August 3, 2021

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Shaun Ryder is talking TV. As one of Gogglebox’s resident celebrity armchair critics, alongside partner in crime Bez, he’s happy commentating on the small screen.

The X Factor (RIP) had its place for family viewing, he reckons – it’s good if you “sound like Frank Sinatra and can do a dance”, although he knows Happy Mondays “wouldn’t have made it through auditions” – but he has no patience for Love Island: “I can’t watch a load of adults with minds of babies.”

Ryder also keeps up with the news, especially in the 18 months since COVID-19 first hit. “The problem is, though, I don’t retain stuff, like that’s just on and done, so I’ve got to be constantly told what’s going on. Otherwise, it’s just gone.”

At 58, Ryder now, finally, has discovered the reason for his short attention span, previously blamed on his well-documented years of excess as the Madchester era’s most recognisable party animal. He was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year, which was “like a light bulb going on” in his brain.

“It explains everything,” he says in that unmistakable Mancunian accent. “I went and got tested because out of my four daughters I had two that had [been] diagnosed with ADHD. My youngest girl was finding difficulty with the education side of things and everything. And then I went and got tested and it’s all come from me.

“But as soon as I got the result… one, it told me why my life’s been so chaotic, you know, why I didn’t learn the alphabet till I was 28 years old. Why I find things like just paying bills difficult and lots of other stuff… why as a young man, a young kid, you know, when I took drugs, I felt normal. I didn’t feel like my underpants was on back to front, you know? I felt like I was in my own skin.”

ADHD is not the only diagnosis Ryder has received recently, having caught COVID-19 in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. He thinks he is suffering from long COVID, although it is getting better. “I’d be guaranteed once or twice a week I’d go completely under and have to go to bed, but over the months and months now that’s got less and less,” he says. “I’ve not had another episode for quite a few months now but I do still get one every now and then I’ll just end up floored.”

He pauses before adding: “I could breathe, though. Main thing with me is I’ve got a fixation about breathing, so as long as I could breathe, it was all right… yeah, it’s not a good idea not to breathe, is it?”

Ryder has also had to deal with his hair falling out, the result of a change in his treatment for an underactive thyroid a few years ago. Now, it looks like it’s starting to grow back. “No, that’s a tattoo!” he says. “That’s called skin pigmentation, that, so are my eyebrows, same thing.”

The doctor told him the reason for losing his hair was stress, he says. “But to me, I’ve been the least stressful in the whole of my life.”

He certainly seems content, and has long extolled the virtues of clean living after his years of taking heroin and other drugs. He is still working with the Happy Mondays and his second band, Black Grape, and is also just about to release a solo album, Visits From Future Technology, which comes almost 20 years after his first, Amateur Night In The Big Top, which was released in 2003.

The songs on this album were actually written years ago, before he reinvented himself in the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Jungle in 2010, and then put on the shelf while he continued to build on the nation’s newfound appreciation. During lockdown they were discovered “down the back of a sofa” and he decided to do something with them. Did he have to rewrite much to bring them up to date?

Not really, he says. “I mean, I’m always writing about the same old crap. I write about the same stuff I did back in ’88, which is like anything, madness, what I see on television, or conversations with people, or escapades that Bez gets up to and, you know, all the same stuff that I’ve wrote about for years, really. Nothing really changes in my mind. I’ve got about a million things going on at once, they all get to come out in songs.”

Fittingly, the first single is called Mumbo Jumbo. There’s also a track called Popstars Daughters, which is a tongue in cheek warning, he says. “A long time ago when I was a good looking young pop star – I could have been called a pop star, I don’t suppose now – but I’ve got four daughters, and I’ve also dated a couple of pop stars’ daughters, so… the song really I wrote for my girls is a bit of a tongue in cheek sort of thing.”

As well as his solo work, he’s also been collaborating with artists including Noel Gallagher and Robbie Williams during lockdown, which “kept me busy”. He’s enjoyed his time at home, though.

“I know people have had a really bad time and people [have been] locked up on the 24th floor of the tower blocks and that, but I had an all right, er, lock up… what was it called again, when we all stopped doing it? Lockdown, yeah! I had a pretty all right lockdown. I haven’t spent that amount of time at home in the last 25 years. I got to spend a lot of time with the wife and the kids and the family.”

But now Ryder, and his family – “they’ve had enough of me now” – are ready for live gigs once again. He has a tour with Black Grape coming up and later plans to tour the solo record; the singer is double jabbed and ready to go, he says.

How does he feel about the idea of vaccine passports potentially being needed for nightclubs and gigs? “Whatever [the government] is gonna do they’ve got to do it quick and it needs doing now, whatever they’re going to do,” he says. “There’s no reason why it’s… if we’re all supposed to be vaccined up and everything then they should be opening up, stop messing about, open everything up.”

He thinks the government’s handling of the pandemic has been “a bit of hit and miss” but “I suppose whatever government would be in power, they wouldn’t have got it right, straight away”.

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On the Matt Hancock affair scandal, he laughs. “Well, what’s new there? It’s always been one law for one lot of people and another law for another lot of people. I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

Ryder has performed two shows already since restrictions lifted, one with Happy Mondays and one with Black Grape, which were great, he says. Some people chose to wear masks, others didn’t. No one was “mithered about anybody else”. He has plans in place for touring and making music over the next few years at least. “I don’t have hobbies,” he says. “I get asked what my hobbies are and my hobby is making music and playing music and being involved.”

The only thing that will stop Ryder, he says, is “doing a Tommy Cooper or whatever”. (Cooper died on stage live on television in 1984). “Look at all the ones that I grew up with, like the Stones and Tom Jones and all those guys, and The Who and Roger Daltrey. I mean, Roger Daltrey is fit as a butcher’s dog. You seen him? If you enjoy what you do you don’t stop, you just do it.”

So that’s the plan for Shaun Ryder, along with Gogglebox and his other ventures, which continue to see him living his best life, reinvented as a national treasure. How does he feel about the term?

“Well, you know…” For just a brief moment he seems lost for words. “It’s better than n**head, isn’t it? So, you know… I can live with it.”

Entertainment

Stanley Tucci on Italian politics – through the prism of food

Published

6 hours ago

May 11, 2025

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Stanley Tucci on Italian politics - through the prism of food

Stanley Tucci says he doesn’t understand why there has been a sudden rise in the “very far right”.

The 64-year-old actor, author and food connoisseur leads a new show aptly named Tucci In Italy, where he looks at the world-renowned cuisine and how its ingredients tell much more than just what is served on the plate.

Speaking to Sky News, he says painting the full picture of the Italian landscape was the driving force behind the show and that he made a conscious decision to include stories from all backgrounds.

“I asked that we include a story about a gay couple and their children, whether it was adopted or surrogate or however, because I thought it was a really interesting story.

“I am confused as to the direction that so much of the world is heading now to the very far right and sort of vilifying the other, meaning people who aren’t like us, but I don’t quite know what that means because we are all so different.

“There is no us, right? We’re all different, so I don’t know what the problem is there.”

Tucci adds that he wants to “look at what’s happening in Italy politically and how it’s affecting people but, of course, all through the prism of food”.

“Those people are sitting there having a traditional Sunday lunch with the grandparents, with the grandkid, and they’re a family and yet the government says they’re not a family.

“I think that’s really interesting because Italy puts so much emphasis on family and for all practical purposes, Italy has a negative birth rate so why wouldn’t you want to welcome more children into your society who are Italian?”

In 2016, Italy passed a law that now recognises civil unions for same-sex couples in the country.

It grants couples many of the same rights and financial protections as married heterosexual couples, however, it doesn’t give LGBT+ couples the right to joint adoption or in vitro fertilisation.

In 2023, the Italian government extended its initial ban on surrogacy to include arrangements made by its citizens abroad.

Its legislation subjects any intended parent who breaks the law to jail terms of up to two years and fines of up to €1m (£846,000).

The law doesn’t include those children who were already registered before it came into effect.

The buzzword on social media over the last few weeks has been “conclave” following the death of Pope Francis and of course, the Oscar-winning film of the same name.

Our interview took place just before the real conclave took place, which resulted in Pope Leo XIV becoming the first American-born leader of the Catholic Church.

Starring in the film alongside Ralph Fiennes, Tucci became inadvertently connected to the news agenda when life began to imitate art.

“It’s fascinating. I mean, look, I don’t know anything about it, really, other than I made a movie about it. That’s all I know. But it is, the timing of it is unfortunate, but it’s also oddly coincidental.”

Tucci In Italy looks at traditional Italian cuisine but also explores the impact history, changing political landscapes, migration and culture can have on a dinner plate.

He visits the northern area of Trentino-Alto Adige, which borders Austria, to look at how Mussolini’s intense policies regarding German identity shaped the area and people today.

“It’s an incredibly beautiful region, but also it’s the way those two cultures have figured out a way to get along without violence, without blame, without hating each other, without divisiveness.

“I think it’s really wonderful. It’s a testament to… How easy it can be for us to get along.”

Tucci In Italy premieres 21 May at 8pm on National Geographic and all episodes stream from 19 May on Disney+.

Entertainment

Dance artist Moby on the destructive force of fame – and why he’s content being that ‘weird old guy’

Published

2 days ago

May 9, 2025

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Dance artist Moby on the destructive force of fame - and why he's content being that 'weird old guy'

He is the man behind the biggest-selling electronica record of all time, but the success of Moby’s album Play came with some unwanted side effects.

His fifth record, the album charted at 33 upon its release in the UK in May 1999, and fell out of the Top 40 after just a week. But despite the lacklustre initial response, Play started to pick up steam, slowly climbing the chart until it reached number one in April 2000.

It stayed there for five weeks and remained in the Top 40 until March 2001, re-entering the Top 100 several times over the next few years.

While Moby had experienced success with Go, the breakthrough 1991 single from his self-titled debut album, Play was next level. Even if you don’t know the album, you’ll know at least some of the songs – Porcelain, Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?, Honey, and Natural Blues. The record was ubiquitous and fame hard to escape.

“I think fame and fortune are, probably, empirically two of the most destructive forces on the planet,” he says, speaking from his home in Los Angeles. “I mean, if fame and fortune fixed things, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse would still be making records.

“I guess it’s a very easy system to buy into, especially in a place like… in New York, in Los Angeles, in these big cities that are driven by ostentation and consumption and the need for external validation. It’s hard to resist those temptations. But then… you look at the consequences of that.

“I’d rather try and live a rational life and not necessarily let other people’s concerns dictate what my concerns should be.”

Now sober and with a few years between him and those heady days of peak fame, in recent years Moby has been doing something few established stars in his position would do – giving his compositions away for free.

“I have a house, I have a car, I have some hoodies, I have food in the fridge, I don’t really need anything more,” he insists. “To live and work in a way where I’m not driven by money, why not use that as an opportunity?”

Selfless selfishness or selfish selflessness

Over a decade ago, the musician came up with the quietly radical idea of making a free music licensing platform, MobyGratis. The idea was simple and rather exciting, he admits – to allow anyone unrestricted access to hundreds of his compositions to use them however they wish. From film scores to remixes, whatever.

“It’s either selfless selfishness or selfish selflessness, meaning I’m giving these things away but the benefit to me is I get to see what people do with it,” he says.

“There are a lot of things about the current digital media climate that are terrifying and baffling and confusing, but one of the things I love is the egalitarian nature of it.”

The idea of giving his music away for free runs somewhat contrary to the AI copyright battle many artists are currently speaking out over, with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Damon Albarn calling for greater protections in law to prevent artificial intelligence software from scraping their work to learn from it.

Remix culture and creative processes

“I completely appreciate and respect the concerns that other people have,” says Moby. “I think they’re incredibly valid… but for me personally, I don’t know. Maybe it’s naive and stupid of me, but I kind of just ignore it.

“I put this music out there and you sort of hope for the best, which probably is completely dim-witted of me. Part of remix culture is seeing how people reinterpret your work; sometimes it’s mediocre, sometimes it is bad, but sometimes it is so inspired, and I can actually learn a lot from other creative processes.”

The dance artist also takes issue with how the act of giving and compassion more generally has come to be seen, and references Elon Musk‘s comments on Joe Rogan’s podcast in April, when the billionaire said: “We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on.”

Moby says that while “we live in this world of fear, selfishness, desperation and viciousness”, he supports “anything that is a rejection of the manosphere… anything that rejects Elon and the idea that empathy is a weakness and reminds people that life can be simple and decent.”

He jokes: “I’m definitely becoming like the weird old guy that you’ll see in the mountains, sort of like not making eye contact and mumbling about chemtrails or something.”

This is a man who is aware his approach to fame, fortune and giving stuff away is somewhat out-of-keeping with the times we’re living in – but the thing is, Moby doesn’t seem to care.

Entertainment

Lawyer for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs claims there was ‘mutual violence’ between him and ex-girlfriend

Published

2 days ago

May 9, 2025

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Lawyer for Sean 'Diddy' Combs claims there was 'mutual violence' between him and ex-girlfriend

A lawyer representing Sean “Diddy” Combs has told a court there was “mutual” domestic violence between him and his ex-girlfriend Casandra ‘Cassie’ Ventura.

Marc Agnifilo made the claim as he outlined some of the music star’s defence case ahead of the full opening of his trial next week.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy, two counts of sex trafficking and two counts of
transportation for prostitution. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

Ms Ventura is expected to testify as a star witness for the prosecution during the trial in New York. The final stage of jury selection is due to be held on Monday morning.

Mr Agnifilo told the court on Friday that the defence would “take the position that there was mutual violence” during the pair’s relationship and called on the judge to allow evidence related to this.

The lawyer said Combs‘s legal team intended to argue that “there was hitting on both sides, behaviour on both sides” that constituted violence.

He added: “It is relevant in terms of the coercive aspects, we are admitting domestic violence.”

Ms Ventura’s lawyers declined to comment on the allegations.

US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he would rule on whether to allow the evidence on Monday.

Combs, 55, was present in the court on Friday.

He has been held in custody in Brooklyn since his arrest last September.

Prosecutors allege that Combs used his business empire for two decades to lure women with promises of romantic relationships or financial support, then violently coerced them to take part in days-long, drug-fuelled sexual performances known as “Freak Offs”.

Combs’s lawyers say prosecutors are improperly seeking to criminalise his “swinger lifestyle”. They have suggested they will attack the credibility of alleged victims in the case by claiming their allegations are financially motivated.

The trial is expected to last around eight weeks.