Flying a plane put him on new high.
The Sun Friday March 11 1988
Death Of A Bee Gee BrotherThe last time I saw Andy Gibb, he was on a new high - at the controls of aplane.
During the Christmas holiday, I flew to Fort Lauderdale airport - to take Andy on a flight around South Florida in a light plane.
Little did I know it would be his last interview.
"This is what has taken the place of drugs for me," said Andy, smiling, as he took the joystick.
Andy, an avid student pilot, added: "The only time I get high these days is when I'm flying an aeroplane."
Andy said he couldn't wait to get over to England with his mother Barbara.
"We're hiring a cottage in Oxfordshire and I'll do nothing but work on my music," he said.
"I can promise you one thing - no matter what happened to me in recent years, I've had the most wonderful 18 clean months in Florida.
The future has never been brighter.
I know inside me that things will be fantastic in England."
He said that thanks to the love and support of his mum and dad and his brothers he has regained his confidence.
"I'm going to devote myself 100 per cent to my singing career.
I know I'm going to make it big again with my contract with Island records."
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Andy Turned To Drugs When His Affair Hit The Rocks
Tortured Andy Gibb never got over his heartbreak after Dallas beauty Victoria Principal ditched him. The pop idol sought comfort with his old love - cocaine - and it led to his tragic death yesterday.
Within weeks of his break-up with the soap superstar, Andy had a nervous breakdown and became a virtual recluse. He was snorting up to a thousand dollars worth of the jet-set drug every day as he turned his back on family and friends.
He even lost a job hosting a top US pop show because he refused to leave his beach home in Malibu, California
Ironically, Gibb, 30, died as he was taking the first steps toward a comeback after five years in the wilderness.
In his last interview the tormented star admitted: "There was only one reason for my downfall - Victoria Principal."
Gibb - whose hits included Love is Thicker Than Water and I Just Want To Be Your Everything - told top American show business writer Neil Blincow:
"I was so devastated by the split-up I fell apart and just didn't care about anything.
I think subconsciously I wanted to commit suicide. I started to do cocaine around the clock - about a thousand dollars a day.
I wasn't eating or sleeping. All I was doing was cocaine. I stayed awake for two weeks locked in my bedroom.
I lost two and a half stones in weight. It sounds awfully weak, but a woman can get to a guy in that way.
But she's not just any woman. Nothing existed for me except Victoria.
I just stopped turning up for work. I didn't care. I forgot the show existed. The producers kept calling up, coming to the house, sending cars for me, but I refused to go.
I locked myself in my room and nobody could get me out.
I couldn't have worked in front of a camera any way, I looked so bad -like a human skeleton."
Gibb said it was "love at first sight" when he met Victoria - Dallas's Pamela Ewing - in 1982.
"By the time we broke up 13 months later I still loved her - but in the same breath I also hated her," he said.
Gibb added: "It all began when I said in an interview that I liked Dallas and had always had a crush on Victoria.
Then I was asked to do an American TV chat show, called the John Davidson show.
Suddenly the audience started to go crazy. I looked around and there was Victoria behind me.
After the show I thought I've got to get this woman.
Next day she was ill with a cold, so I took some chicken soup and flowers to her home.
I moved in with her a couple of days later.
But the affair was doomed - as Gibb could not control the actress eight years his senior.
"Within the first week I thought to myself I can't live with her, she's so crazy," he said.
"I had heard a lot of stories about Victoria's background and the men she had dated
She was a Hollywood socialite who had played around.
Many people tried to warn me, but I wouldn't listen to it.
Her marriage to actor Christopher Skinner had just broken up,a and she was depressed.
But love is blind and I just stuck it out.
She was very insecure. She used to cry on me like a baby. She was always concerned about her looks and age."
Gibb took Victoria to Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Harry Glassman.
She promptly fell for the handsome doctor and eventually married him.
Gibb said: "Because of our problems, I got into cocaine. I had tried it when I was younger but I found I couldn't handle it."
He told of their last night together at an awards ceremony in Hollywood.
"We turned up arm in arm," he said. "But we started arguing at the table.
Victoria got up to receive an award with the Dallas cast, and when she came back it was like she didn't know me.
She was talking to her friends and I called out,"Victoria, I am here,you know."
She looked at me and walked away. I felt like killing her. When we got back home she started ranting and screaming.
I stormed out but the break-up was more than I could handle. I did and didn't want to be with her. I loved her and hated her.
I really think the major reason I fell from stardom was my affair with Victoria Principal."
Interviewer Neil Blincow said last night: "When I asked him about Victoria, all the sadness and grief came tumbling out."
Submitted by *Linda*
