Singer Chesney Hawkes once shared that he was “blew everything” when he first rose to fame in the 1990s. The Celebrity Big Brother finalist has previously spoken about the lifestyle that he enjoyed after he topped the charts.
Chesney, 53 – known for his song the One and Only, which was released in 1991 – further commented on his experience whilst in the Big Brother house for the ITV show this month. He’s now among the finalists, with one of the remaining six housemates set to be named the winner in tonight’s final.
Despite his fame, it’s been reported that Chesney is earning one of the lowest salaries of this year’s housemates. Early in his career, he’s said to have raked in over £8 million from his chart-topping hit but he has previously opened up about losing the fortune that he amassed.
He once explained how he blew the staggering sum on his crazy lifestyle, and has since gone on to make regular appearances on shows and in clubs. He also revealed he burned himself out with “utter exhaustion” due to his lavish ways.
Speaking on the My Dirty Laundry podcast, he said: “I did that classic thing when I first made it of just blowing everything.” He added: “I bought a state of the art studio. I bought everyone in my family a car. […] So yeah, we had fun.”
He added: “My brother [Jodie] is my drummer [and] he was with me through the whole time. And yeah, we enjoyed it, because we were young. We were 19 and 17, and we toured all over the world – all over America, Japan. It was an amazing time.”
However, he said it was like “living in the eye of a storm”. “I had my family and the people around me in this kind of bubble, you know?,” he continued. “I would be thrown into the hurricane and I’d be gone. And I’m off to Sweden and then I’m off to New York. I never knew where I was waking up for that first year. It was mental. It was really crazy.”
He went on to say he has worked with a number of up-and-coming artists to help them avoid the “utter exhaustion” he suffered. “I’ve actually worked with a lot of artists that are just going through that first craziness and I always say, ‘Take it easy because you may burn out,'” he said.
“You see it with these young artists now. I remember Adele had to cancel a whole bunch of shows. Harry Styles had a similar thing. Ed Sheeran, I see it happening. So I always give them that little, you know [nudge], just be careful, don’t let them, [the machine], burn you out.”
Chesney’s earnings from this year’s Celebrity Big Brother were said to be the second lowest in the current series at £25,000, just ahead of the Only Way is Essex star Ella Rae Wise, who’s reportedly been paid £20,000. In comparison, actor Mickey Rourke was said to be raking in £500,000 for his stint in the house, though it’s unclear if his rumoured fee has since been reduced after he was asked to leave the show in the first week.
Chesney’s money began to dry out in his career a couple of years after the height of his success. He explained how purchases and mortgages saw him in debt. However, he has been able to rebuild his fortune and is thought to have a net worth once again of around the £8 million mark.
Whilst in the Big Brother house, Chesney spoke about experiences from earlier in his career with some of his housemates. He said: “When it all kind of fell apart, I was like ‘f*** it all’.” He clarified: “After kind of a couple of years, and the second album, they didn’t even release it, and then they dropped me, so I went from kind of like everything amazing …”
He continued: “And all the people that were surrounding me, like what I thought was my family, because I was an impressionable teenager, I suddenly couldn’t get them on the phone. That’s when the drugs came in. I mean, I wasn’t like ever gonna be kind of like y’know waking up under a bridge or anything like that. I was kind of masking it all. Like hiding the fact that it wasn’t there any more.” Asked what got him “out of that,” Chesney credited his wife, Kristina Hawkes, as the catalyst for changing his lifestyle.
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