Comedian Tony Slattery has died at the age of 65 after a heart attack, his partner of 40 years, Mark Michael Hutchinson, has revealed.
While more details about the actor’s heart health have yet to be revealed, he often spoke about his challenges with many other health difficulties over the years.
The actor, best known as the star of Whose Line Is It Anyway? from Channel 4, He struggled with cocaine addiction and alcohol, and was open about his mental health diagnoses of bipolar disorder and depression.
In the years before his death, he spent his days away from the spotlight after publicly admitting the difficulties he had faced throughout his life.
Childhood trauma, addiction, and money concerns
In 2019, the comedian, a contemporary of Dame Emma Thompson, Sir Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie at Cambridge University, revealed to interviewers that he had struggled with addiction and suffered sexual abuse as a child.
He admitted that at his lowest moments he took 10 grams of cocaine and two bottles of vodka each day to cope with disturbing memories of being raped by a priest when he was eight.
In 2020, Slattery revealed that his problems and drug addiction had bankrupted him.
He told the Radio Times that his “tax illiteracy and general illiteracy”, as well as his “misplaced trust in people”, had also contributed to his financial problems.
Tony Slattery on Christmas Day in an Instagram post to fans while promoting his Rambling Club podcast. He died at the age of 65

Candid: Tony Slattery has detailed his harrowing battle with addiction and bipolar disorder during an appearance on Thursday’s edition of This Morning.
He said: “If you weren’t born with money you don’t know when it’s going to stop, you think it’s a lucky streak.” I really enjoyed working, but all work and no play takes its toll.
‘Overwork, lack of vacation, lack of rest, eventually you break down and try to replace it with something. In my case it was cocaine.
“Then alcohol came, then depression came… I drank two bottles of vodka a day and did 10 grams of coke.”
After kicking his drug habit, he was sent for a toxicology report, which found that he had actually been snorting 5 percent cocaine, cut glass, and, to his horror, human and animal feces.
Speaking of his experience with the drug, he said: “It’s not fun, I wouldn’t recommend it, the devil’s dandruff, it increases, it makes you unstoppable, irrational, disinterested.”
Battles with bipolar disorder
In the early 2000s, Slattery met with a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with bipolar disorder, a mental health condition that affects mood, which can swing from one extreme to another.

Mr Slattery, second from left, with members of the 1981 Cambridge University Footlights Magazine, including Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Paul Shearer, Penny Dwyer and Hugh Laurie (left to right)

The actor and comedian was one of the biggest names in television and radio.

He died after a heart attack on Sunday night

Tony Slattery and his partner of 40 years, Mark Michael Hutchinson (left), photographed together in 2020 for the documentary What’s Wrong with Tony Slattery?, which studied the link between depression and addiction.
Speaking about the illness, which affects more than a million Britons, he said: “Bipolar is like autism or any illness, it’s a huge spectrum, it’s everything in between.”
He added: ‘The isolation that comes with bipolar and depression alienates people. They want to like you and love you, if you don’t respond to their messages that’s all they can do.’
His partner Mark Michael Hutchinson, who met Slattery when they starred in a 1986 West End musical, admitted in a 2020 BBC documentary about his battle with alcohol and mental health that caring for him is a challenge.
He described Slattery as “always nervous” and “erratic”, and said he has seen “dozens” of versions of him over the years.
Attacks of paranoia and mania
In the BBC documentary, Slattery explained that he suffered regular attacks of paranoia.
The actor recalled throwing electrical devices into the Thames, convinced they had been tapped, and said he would do it so often that the police had to be called.
“He kept mentioning that he was being spied on,” Hutchinson explained, adding that the actor had, at times, been a danger to himself.
Slattery also appeared on a 2006 BBC Two programme, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, to talk about his condition.
He said: ‘I rented a huge warehouse next to the River Thames. I sat there alone, not opening email or answering the phone for months and months and months.
“I was in a puddle of despair and mania.”