Andrew Lloyd Webbers truth about alcohol as wife | UK News

Andrew Lloyd Webber is set to public sale the last 1,000 bottles of wine from his legendary cellar after his wife shared her emotions about his alcohol dependancy.

The West End composer, 78, had written some of the great hits — like Cats and Evita — during lunch, often accompanied with a glass of wine, sometimes three. In 2016, he said he had stopped ingesting but has now admitted he was hiding a secret. In a candid new interview, he admitted: “I’m a recovering alcoholic. 16 months ago I decided that I needed help and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. You think it’s secret, but it’s now. Everybody knows.”

The broadway maestro continued: “Everybody knows. I started getting into a downhill spiral and about 18 months ago the family were in a desperate state. My wife was feeling she couldn’t go on.” Since then, he began attending AA conferences and he had a lightbulb second when somebody described the “stupidity” of dependancy.

“When you are a wine drinker, you don’t think of yourself as…well, alcoholics drink spirits,” he said. “That was the shocking thing for me, when I realised that I was drinking vodka to hide it.” Having a drink while composing boosted his creativity as that was the consequence when he wrote No Matter What, which was a 90s hits for Boyzone.

But being sober has introduced his household together. He was in New York a few months in the past and the doorman requested if he was internet hosting a child’s birthday celebration. It turned out that his youngest daughter had despatched him balloons with “1” on them to rejoice him being one 12 months sober.

The upcoming wine sale, managed by public sale home Christie’s, would be the “final treasures” that includes an array of uncommon and beneficial vintages, including a 1900 Chateau Margaux estimated to fetch up to £7,000.

The money raised will go to the Music in Secondary Schools Trust, and the composer said of the choice to promote now: “I am proud that I have supported the musical education of around 30,000 children, and helped provide them with their first instruments — but there’s so much more to be done.

“This public sale will help educate many more, and I hope these wines, that are very personal, will give as a lot pleasure to their new house owners as they’ve to me and my buddies over more than half a century.”