Sir Michael Parkinson: I was ugly when I was drinking

Sir Michael Parkinson has said he was thinking about “people I knew who had become tragically involved with the booze”, including his friend George Best, when he decided to stop drinking.

The veteran talk show host added the most important factor was his wife Mary, who told him he was “ugly” when he was drinking.

Asked if his close relationship with footballer Best provided a moment of clarity in his own relationship with alcohol, Sir Michael, 85, said: “I think it did in a way. George wasn’t the only example. I grew up in Fleet Street, in television at a time when heavy drinking was not frowned upon, well it was frowned upon, but it was there all the time.

“I didn’t want to end up… I pulled out at the right time and I must say that when I pulled out, I had in mind people I knew who had become tragically involved with the booze.

“The killer, as far as I was concerned, psychiatrists can make of this what they want, but I might remember it as being the thing that stopped me, was Mary my wife.

“She said to me one day, ‘do you know what happens to you, the worst thing when you drink?’ No, says I. She said, ‘you become ugly.’

“And that did me. Ugly! Oh yes.”