Thursday, 18 October 2007

• Prev
• Next

Jason Donovan: I quit drugs after baby ultimatum

Actor says how birth of his daughter was turning point

Jason Donovan kicked drugs after his partner Angela Malloch issued him with an ultimatum.

The couple's daughter Jemma, 7, had just been born and Angela had had enough.

She told him to 'clean up or clear out'.

‘If I wanted to be part of the family, drugs weren’t going to be on the menu,’ Jason, 39, explains. ‘Ange was very strong about that.

‘It wasn’t as though I was doing ounces of cocaine and then, bang, it stopped, but it started to fizzle away. Ange was the turning point in my life.’

Initially, though, the actor wasn’t keen on the idea of fatherhood.

‘For most men, there’s never a right time to have children, and when you’re in the cycle I was in at the time, it just seems inappropriate, I suppose,’ he tells Weekend.

‘But again, you have to take responsibility for your actions.’

Jason and Angela also now have a 6-year-old son, Zac.