Al Porter on the allegations that stalled his career. ‘I’m disappointed by my younger self’

Al Porter has said alcohol played a large role in his behaviour in 2017 when he was accused of inappropriately touching several men leading to an “incredibly dark time” in his life. The comedian, who is now sober, said his life would be far less complicated if alcohol had not been part of it when he was younger.

Speaking on Sunday with Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1, the Tallaght comedian said he apologised to many of those who had accused him of inappropriate behaviour in the past.

“I’m disappointed by my younger self,” he said. The comedian said he thought his life could be “fun and party party” but realises now he was being “unprofessional”.

Porter said he was “deeply immature, hugely immature” until the allegations were made against him, which snapped him back to reality in November 2017.

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“I wish I had been a better colleague, a better friend, I wish that I had been just an all round better person and I think that it’s no one factor that caused everything to fall apart as it did - it’s a combination of factors.

“You can’t blame youth or you can’t blame fame or money or drink or anything else, those are contributing factors to one big ego, one massive self-centred ego that was at the heart of all of that back then. And I suppose that’s where I tried to emphasise over time that I blame myself,” Porter said.

“You go, ‘I’m at the heart of this and ultimately the buck stops with me, I’m responsible for my past, I’m also responsible to my present and my future, and I was the reason that everything fell apart.”

Gay Byrne spoke to Porter after one of his shows in Vicar Street, when he was drinking on stage, downing a pint with members of the audience calling for him to down another.

“I think you’re going to need to look at that,” Byrne told Porter, with the comedian saying it was “almost a prophetic statement”.

“I think Gay could tell this isn’t an intentional part of your act, you don’t have control over this, you don’t have a handle on it,” Porter told O’Callaghan.

The comedian said he feels that for those who met him when he was aged between 19 and 21, it may be some “small consolation” to hear he is three years sober and “very professional” now.

“I understand that person is listening going, ‘Well, you weren’t when I met you and I still don’t like you’, and I understand that, and I’m very conscious of that,” Porter said.

Having attended cognitive behavioural therapy for six years, Porter said his therapist recommended removing the “crutch” of alcohol from his life, and that since doing so, he has a better relationship with his family and friends.

“There’s no cause for self pity, and there’s no self pity in the show, I don’t pity myself. I realised very early on that pity is due, not when you’re the idiot at the centre of it all, you’re the stupid person, you’re the person who caused everything to fall apart,” he said.

Porter admitted that he is trying to make amends with people over time, and has written letters to some, but “some people didn’t want them”.

“There are people who you speak to in person, that’s often easier and more successful, and then there are some people who you say, I’m not going to make contact with you because there is nothing I can say that I think is going to improve the situation,” Porter said.

“And you have to live with that because there’s no closure there for either person or resolution, but I hope in those scenarios that how I live my life now and how I live it until the end is a response.”

When the allegations first came to light about Porter, he told O’Callaghan it was a “shock, and it shouldn’t have been”.

“It was such a shock, and so overwhelming that I was just numb to it for years, I mean, that’s where the drink became even more, and the Xanax and Valium and anything you can do to numb yourself from it, and I kind of lived a bit of a non life for years, it was a purgatory, a purgatory of my own making.”

Porter said he stayed in his mother’s house, in bed with the curtains drawn. At times he felt it would be better for his family and friends if he was no longer there.

He said he discusses this period in a comic way in his new show. He recently performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, painting himself “as this pathetic loser at the centre of it all”.

Porter said he gained weight at a rapid rate when his career stalled, and that regardless of how much light he makes of the struggles, “it was an incredibly dark time”.

Having gained so much weight, Porter told O’Callaghan he thought he should lose weight if he was going to take his own life.

“They won’t have a suit to bury me in,” he said. “I was out jogging and my neighbours were saying ‘Oh, you’re getting in shape, you must be going back on the TV’, and I was thinking, ‘No, I’m killing myself’.”

Speaking of his gigs in Edinburgh, Porter said there was pushback on Twitter, but that he expected and understands it. However, he hopes that in time he’ll win over his audiences.

“I’ve been gigging, anybody who’s gigging with me this year would be able to say that they gigged with somebody who was professional, and I’m hyper-conscious, all eyes are on me, so I’m hyper-conscious that everybody is comfortable.”