Former model Linda Lusardi says she fears getting a phone call saying her close friend Paul Gascoigne has died.
Linda said the troubled football legend reminds her of the late George Best.
She became friends with Gazza when he signed for Spurs as a teenager and moved in opposite her and her Spurs fan husband.
Linda, 64, said: “He used to come over with pies his mum had made that he’d bought back from Newcastle, and he quite often spent an evening sitting watching the telly with us.
“He was quite lonely to begin with. He was a very vulnerable character. He wouldn’t sleep with the light off.”
So Linda says she was surprised when Gazza this year not only took part in but won Channel 4 ’s Scared of the Dark, in which celebs have to live in darkness.
Gazza, now 55, went on to score 10 goals in his 57 games for England and played for clubs including Rangers and Lazio. But he has struggled with alcoholism – as did George Best, who Linda also knew around the same time and who died aged 59 in 2005.
Linda told the British Scandal podcast: : “I think for the moment he’s OK, but he’s the first person to say himself that he struggles to keep away from the alcohol.
“I do fear for him because there may come a day when you’re getting that phone call that he’s just overdone it. He does remind me of George Best.”
* British Scandal: Gazza, from Wondery, is available on all major podcast providers.
