'I'd have died without rehab'

Russell Brand makes shock confession...

09:14 19 April 2011

Russell Brand has confessed that he probably would have died if he hadn't been forced into rehab.

The comedian told Piers Morgan on his Life Stories show, that his addiction to drugs led his manager and friend John Noel to stage an intervention.

He recalled:

"I was probably six months away from - well [my friend] goes, 'You need to stop taking drugs right now or in six months you'll be in prison, a lunatic asylum or dead'.

"And that's the first time anyone had said anything like that to me.

"I still thought, 'Rehab, I don't like the sound of that'. So that's when John took me in a room... He said, 'Russell needs to go away, because he's doolally but he's got to want to go for himself'."

Brand, who is married to singer Katy Perry, insisted that he wasn't keen on the idea of getting clean initially, saying:

"The thing with drug addiction is the person themselves has to make that choice because it's got to come from within, and I go, 'Yeah, I don't think I fancy it'.

"John went, 'F**k that, you're going'."

The Get Him to the Greek star spiralled out of control after initially finding fame in the UK as a stand-up comedian and television host.

He has now been sober for six years.