The Specials lead singer Terry Hall has revealed he was kidnapped by a paedophile ring in France when he was just 12-years-old.
Speaking on Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre podcast, Terry revealed how he started taking Valium to cope.
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“I grew up in Coventry, at 12 I got abducted by a paedophile ring in France and that was a real eye opener,” he told the interviewer.
“I can laugh about it now, but it sort of switched something in my head and that’s when I started not listening to anyone.”
“Is that why you left school early?” Richard asked him.
“I was sort of drugged up then, on Valium for a year, so I didn’t go to school,” Terry replied.
“Wow, I didn’t realise it was extreme as that,” said Richard.
When speaking about leaving hatred in the past, Terry went on to add:
“I find it quite easy to forgive and forget, going back to my abduction, you can let that eat away at you but then you think: it’s paedophilia, it’s part of life really, it’s unfortunate that it happened to me, but you can’t let it destroy your life.”
He was then asked how he managed to get over something like that, to which he replied:
“Valium. I fancied David Essex, which was a bit wonky, and I connected the two. Then I started discovering girls. You forget about it, it’s too short.”
As Richard went on to say people often suggest comedians and other performers need to have suffered to unlock something within them, Terry agreed.
“It helps. I suffer from manic depression and I avoided all sort of medication for a long time, until 10 years ago and I started taking lithium and I’m on these drugs and it sort of helps.”
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The 57-year-old formed The Specials – originally called The Coventry Automatics – in 1977. They became The Specials in 1979.
After their single Ghost Town reached number one in 1989 Terry and two of his band mates left to form Fun Boy Three, who teamed up with Bananarama on several hits.
Terry joined several other bands before embarking on a solo career. The Specials reformed in 2008.
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