Soccer legend Paul Gascoigne today vows to tackle Chris Eubank – claiming he mocked him over his boozy past.
Gazza and ex-world boxing champ Eubank appear in new TV show Scared Of The Dark, which sees eight celebrities thrown together for a week in a blacked-out bunker.
A clip shows Eubank pretending to drink from pints in each hand.
Alcoholic Gazza, 55, is sure the gesture was aimed at him – and will challenge Eubank when the cast attend a get-together tomorrow.
In a no-holds-barred interview, Gazza says his fellow star is arrogant and loves himself, accuses him of making actress Donna Preston and reality star Chloe Burrows cry – and reveals he wound him up by calling him EUBANKS.
Former Tottenham and England star Gazza – who goes on to hilariously poke fun at himself – says: “I will have a go at him at the premiere.
“He’s not getting away with that. That is, if he has the b**** to turn up.
“He probably will, because he’s that arrogant, things will just go over his head. But when that f****** clip comes up, I will say something.
“In the one I saw he was saying, ‘He’s full of that’ and miming necking pints with both hands.
“And I was the only alcoholic in there, so it was about me. He was nice to my face on the show, and was even calling me ‘Paul Gascoigne, the King of England’ so it just shows you how two-faced people can be.”
Channel 4 show Scared Of The Dark is on five nights this week and is hosted by actor Danny Dyer. It was reported last week that Chris, 56 – whose son Chris Jr is also a top boxer – quit the show after being told he couldn’t smoke cannabis.
Sources close to him dismissed the cannabis claim.
Gazza says Eubank vanished from the bunker minutes after The Wanted star Max George said he could smell weed.
Gazza claims: “When we sat down for dinner, he often wouldn’t be there for 10 minutes. I remember Max saying, ‘I can really smell some weed’. Five minutes later, it was, ‘Can Chris come to the booth’ and that was it. But he wasn’t much of a loss because he didn’t really sit with us. He didn’t mix with anyone. He rubbed everyone up the wrong way. I felt really sorry for Donna and Chloe when he made them cry. They were petrified at times and he would accuse them of whingeing. It was horrible behaviour.
“I am a team player, and he is definitely not. He loved himself too much for that.”
Gazza, who joined the show in a bid to conquer a fear of the dark, said his heart sank when he realised he was banged up with Chris. But he denies any suggestions that they came close to exchanging blows.
He says with a grimace: “When I first got in there, I ended up sitting next to the worst person I could have thought of... Eubanks. I’ve met him before and when I heard his lisp next to me in the dark, I was like, ‘It’s f****** him.’ I knew we wouldn’t be able to shut him up. He thinks he’s better than everyone else because of all these big, stupid words he uses. It’s like he was born with a dictionary up his a***.
“He was telling us how he proposed to his wife and it went on for about five minutes. I said, ‘You’re lucky she didn’t divorce you before you were married’. He did rub people up the wrong way. Apart from him everyone was nice. It was a good atmosphere, we all supported each other.”
Throughout our interview, Paul refers to Chris as ‘Eubanks’. I ask if it’s deliberate – and he grins: “I wound him up by calling him ‘Eubanks.’ He’d shout, ‘It’s Eubank, there’s no S’ and I’d go, ‘All right, Eubanks.’ Another time he complained about swearing, and I just replied, ‘F***’ and walked off.
“At times, he wasn’t a bad guy, but he just loved himself too much.”
Paul, widely hailed as the best footballer of his generation, has suffered a lifelong fear of the dark. His family urged him not to do the show and there was speculation his previous struggles would see him excluded.
But Paul had a mental health screening before being accepted and insisted he was more than equal to the challenge. He says: “I’ve been scared of the dark since I was a kid. I slept with the lights on. As an adult I slept with the TV on and the sound turned down. I think it’s a fear of the unknown. I think I did the show because I wanted to conquer it.
“But my family thought I was mad. Mam said, ‘Don’t do it, Paul’. One sister said, ‘You can’t do that, you’re s*** scared of the dark’ and my other sister said, ‘But you’re petrified’. I told them I’d be all right. But I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t do those first few hours again. I was waiting with Danny and I asked him, ‘We’ll be alright, won’t we?’ He told me, ‘I will, I’m not going in. It’s horrible.’
“Then the lights went out. I nearly collapsed. I was sitting on the floor, crying, saying I wanted to quit. But after the first few hours, I started to get my bearings and I got to grips with it.
“After a few days I was taking the mickey out of the others and having a laugh. People think I’m not mentally strong enough to do something like this, but that’s a load of b*******.”
Eubank is not the only boxing star on the show – Olympian Nicola Adams is also in the bunker, as are comedian Chris McCausland and reality star Scarlett Moffatt. Viewers will see Paul taking food from Scarlett, swapping Max and Chris’s clothes and tossing cheese at Donna to make her jump. He laughs: “I’m going to be bang to rights at that premiere, they’re going to see what I was up to. They’re going to be like, ‘You b******’! It really was some experience. I cried when I came out.
“And now I can sleep without the TV on... most of the time.”
While Eubank may not be top of his contacts list, Gazza says he is still in contact with plenty of his soccer chums – including migrants tweet row star Gary Lineker, who helped pay for one of his rehab stints.
He adds: “I still talk to my old pals, though I’m not too good on the phone. The problem is I send one message and get 10 back. But I still get on with everyone. Gary I’m still good pals with – I was surprised he was kicked off Match of the Day as he’s normally such a squeaky clean guy. I can’t watch football any more though. Aged 55, I still miss it too much. And I couldn’t go to games anyway, because so many people want selfies.”
I can see his point. As we step outside to take photos, we are quickly interrupted by two fans. Paul shrugs:
“I say ‘yes’, because I don’t want people thinking, ‘What an arrogant b******’ because I’m not. Do I ever wish I hadn’t been famous? No. I’ve had a good life. It’s had ups and downs, but I take responsibility for the downs, and I look forward to the next thing. When things are good, I make the most of it, when they’re not, I just try to get through it.”
“Like the premiere?” I ask. He agrees, and adds: “I am dreading it. But not because of Eubanks. Because of those pranks! I might be more nervous walking into that room than I did walking out in front of 100,000 people at Wembley Stadium.”
Channel 4 insisted no complaints were made about Chris’s behaviour.
A spokesman added: “It’s untrue to suggest anyone was asked to leave because they were smoking. Smoking was strictly prohibited. There were alarms throughout the building. Celebs remained in the bunker, filmed 24 hours a day, by over 50 cameras.”
Chris’s team did not offer a comment.
Scared Of The Dark is on C4 at 9pm on Sunday
Covid boredom was horrific... I binged but am better now
Gazza says he threw himself into work after twice falling off the wagon in lockdowns during the pandemic.
As well as his latest foray into reality TV, he has taken on a new series of his popular Audience With... stage shows.
He said he is enjoying being busy after the pandemic flung him into a dangerous downward spiral.
Paul, who has undergone seven rehab stints – including one in which his heart stopped three times – said: “If I get bored, I start to feel s*** about myself. I hate not doing anything. I hate it.
“That’s why Covid was horrific. I had a couple of relapses. I went out, got booze – I don’t know what it was the last time, but it was a high volume – and drank it indoors.
“I woke the next day and thought, ‘That was a waste.’ I stopped myself before it got worse. I’m in a good place now. I don’t sleep too well, sometimes I stay up all night watching Netflix and waiting for that first chink of light.
“But I’m enjoying life, and feeling better. I think I look better too. The Botox helps with that. I want to get my chin sorted though – at the moment I’ve got more chins than the phone directory.”
Paul, who is based in Poole, Dorset, also spoke fondly about his kids Mason, Regan and Bianca – who recently had a baby girl.
“I’m happy for her,” he says. “And I saw Regan the other week. He was telling me that he was proud of me for going on Scared Of The Dark, which was nice.”
