Paul Danan's troubled life: Crippling health battles, addiction to wild conspiracies

Hollyoaks star Paul Danan was a widely sought-after celebrity after his appearance on the long-running soap.

He appeared on the likes of Celebrity Love Island, Celebrity Big Brother and Coach Trip. He even made it as far as Hollywood but things soon took a turn when he ended up working at a phone repair shop. Last year, the TV star, who battled drug addiction, blamed the demise of his TV career on starring in reality shows.

The 46-year-old tragically died this week, with his management confirming the heartbreaking news. They said: "It is with heavy hearts that we share the tragic news of the passing of @pauldanan at just 46 years old. Known for his television presence, exceptional talent, and unwavering kindness, Paul was a beacon of light to so many.

"His untimely departure will leave irreplaceable voids in the lives of all who knew him. During this difficult time, we kindly request respect and privacy for Paul's family, friends, and colleagues. No further comments will be made at this time." The star battled with health problems and addiction in the past, with Paul opening up about his struggles with fans.

Health Battles

Last summer, Paul was rushed to the hospital and ended up in the ICU with pneumonia. Doctors warned his family that he 'might not make it through the night'. The actor smoked cigarettes for many years before switching to disposable vapes - which he would sometimes 'go to sleep with' for comfort.

The doctor warned Paul that he would have to use an oxygen tank later in life if he didn't stop smoking. He previously told The Sun: "I was dead — it's a miracle I'm here. I'm upstairs puffing away on my vape then suddenly I lost my breath and collapsed. My family called for an ambulance and started giving me CPR, then police arrived and took over before paramedics took me to hospital.

"I was on a machine in ICU and ended up with pneumonia. My family were warned I might not make it through the night. I'm so lucky. The doctor was so, so harsh with me. She told me, 'Paul, you don't know how serious this was and you are going to be in here for a while now, on this oxygen."

He said that the flavours and "a YouTube video" convinced him that vaping was safer than cigarettes, adding that his ADHD had made "everything very visual" and "always thought they’d be OK."

Addictions

Paul had been very open about his past addiction to drugs and alcohol. Speaking on The Dozen with Liam Tuffs podcast, he discussed his struggles and the moment he almost died from a heroin overdose. He revealed he had an overdose not long after returning from a rehab stint in South Africa following his exit from Hollyoaks.

"It took a bad route, a very dark route. Drugs, I had an overdose. I came out of rehab in South Africa. The psychiatrist had put me on all these anti-psychotics. I was there for months," he said at the time. "I got back home and my parents were so proud of me. I was fat and horrible and didn't feel like myself."

He revealed he left to get cocaine but also bought heroin - which he never used before. Paul continued: "They gave me my keys and car and I detoured and got some gear, some coke. I got a bag of brown [heroin] which I'd never done before. I snorted it and shouldn't have snorted it because that's dangerous. I ended up having an overdose really bad."

Moments after he returned home to go to bed, his parents noticed something was wrong and called the ambulance. His mother found him and he 'couldn't breathe'. She heard him 'gagging on his last breath' when she came into the room but couldn't wake him up.

"My little brother was next door which was the saddest thing about it because still to this day he's been traumatised by it," Paul added. "She called the ambulance and luckily they were parked down the end of the road. They came and said what has he taken and she said he doesn't do drugs. They knew they had to give me the antidote. F*** me, it was Pulp Fiction. All I could see was my dad's face at the end of the ambulance. My mum said to me she'd already said goodbye to me. I saw my dad's face and could see this look of absolute disgust and hate, but relief, 'Oh my God, he's alive'."

In 2022, the soap actor opened up about suffering hallucinations after taking cocaine in a hotel room. At that point, he had been to rehab 17 times. Speaking to The Sun, Paul said that he "felt so terrible, guilty and ashamed" when he began using again and that it became "really scary".

“I didn’t want to be on my own in lockdown so I left my flat in Hertfordshire and moved back in with mum and dad in Essex," he said. "I thought everything would be fine as I hadn’t touched any drugs in 18 months and life was good.” After seeing an empty baggie, he soon relapsed and ended up at a hotel.

Paul said: "I didn’t eat apart from one croissant a day from the hotel breakfast buffet and then went back to the room. People were worried, phoning and asking where I was but I was losing my mind.

“I started having psychosis and believing that the police were going to come in through the door."

Paul, who had ADHD, once questioned why none of the rehabilitation centres ever thought about a possible link between his ADHD and addiction. He said during a podcast: "I was angry that all these treatment centres I've gone to, why didn't they ever test me for it? Why didn't they help me around that?

"Why didn't they go, 'You know what, this guy, surely there's a bit of ADHD', that maybe this is the underlying cause to this addiction and why he keeps using and why he keeps coming back to rehabs. Why? Because they're businesses and they want you to keep coming back, they want you're money. At the same time, they want to see you well."

Paul slept with over '1,000 women'

During his interview on the Dozen podcast, Paul looked noticeably different from earlier in his career, with him sporting curly hair and some facial hair, after having a shorter hairstyle for many years.

At one point during the podcast, host Liam Tuffs brought up his personal life, asking: "How many women have you slept with in your life?" Paul replied: "That's a good question. I don't know. [...] I think we're definitely, yeah, in the higher range. I think ... we're definitely ... more than a thousand, yeah."

Paul continued in the episode: "I just enjoyed [it] and I think there's a bad thing, a flip side to that, because now I really miss it." Asked if he's now celibate, he told the podcast host during the discussion: "It just don't happen like it used to."

He went on to discuss the idea of dating someone in their twenties or thirties, saying on the podcast: "And you have to be really careful that if you're looking at like 25, 30 [year olds] and they look f***ing 20, 25 - y'know is that wrong? Is that right? Are you alright to even kind of fancy someone that's say 25, 30 [years old]? They're not really on your level because you're 45. And you're talking about [different things than they are] and they don't know what the f*** [you're talking about]."

Paul also previously claimed a Playbol model performed a sexual act on him on Celebrity Love Island. On Jamie East's Reality Check podcast, he claimed Nikki Ziering performed a two-minute X-rated act on him in the bathroom.

"Nikki Ziering... the Playboy model comes in and overtakes everything... 2 minutes 58 [seconds] b*** j**!" he boasted at the time. "They put the little time counter at the top of the screen. We went in the toilets, and then we were out... but a minute of it was spent taking off our microphones!"

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