Old footage for addiction documentary

Footage of Russell Brand smoking heroin in a dingy flat are to be show in a shock TV documentary about the power of addiction.

The footage was filmed more than ten years ago, when he was in his 20s and still a junkie.

However, he admits that he still yearns for the drug.

The BBC filmed him at the Savoy Hotel reacting the footage, which was shot by a friend,

He said: ‘It doesn’t matter that I was sat in that flat in Hackney and now I’m in the Savoy. I’m jealous of me then.

‘It doesn’t make a difference to me. The money, the fame, the power, the sex, the women — none of it. I’d rather be a drug addict.’

However, he added that the drug will ‘take everything. First it’ll take your money. Then it’ll take your friends, your family, your car, your house. Then it’s going to take bits of your body. In the end I used to be scoring with people that had eyes missing, limbs missing. You’ll take it until it takes your life.’

The footage will be show in BBC Three’s Russell Brand: From Addiction to Recovery on August 16, in which he also meets people in rehab.

Here is a trailer:

Published: 4 Aug 2012