Lulu opens up about alcoholism in memoir, saying sobriety has given her freedom

Lulu has gone public with a hidden chapter of her life, revealing in her memoir that she is an alcoholic and that she is close to 12 years sober. In an interview tied to the release of If You Only Knew, the 76-year-old pop icon discusses a life spent in the glare of fame while concealing a dependency she once kept under wraps. An early preview of the book in a Times interview drew attention to the candor, and Lulu says the response has been liberating.

She sought help in 2013 after confiding in family at her 65th birthday party. “My name is Lulu. I am an alcoholic,” she writes, describing the moment when a dinner-table confession shifted the course of her life. She traveled to the United States for six weeks of rehab and committed to Alcoholics Anonymous, with a regimen of two meetings a day for five years. On the way to the airport, she called her son Jordan, who was stunned by the revelation. “I’d kept it from a lot of people.”

The singer’s struggle traces back to a difficult upbringing in Glasgow, where she grew up in tenements marked by hardship and volatility. Her father, Eddie, was also an alcoholic who regularly assaulted Lulu’s mother, leaving the household in a state of fear. “The fights in the house were loud and violent,” she recalls, adding that the children were told not to talk about what they saw. The memory of those early years, she says, followed her into adulthood and shaped her perception of what she could reveal about herself.

As she rose to fame as a teenager, Lulu adopted a new stage identity that would define much of her life. The name Lulu, chosen by her first manager, Marion Massey, was meant to signify a remarkable person. But the transformation came with caveats: she was urged to flatten her Glaswegian accent and suppress the fiery temperament that had fueled her early life. “I’d been handed an opportunity to leave the pain and shame of my past behind, so I happily stepped into the character created for me,” she writes, adding that in the process she lost touch with the fuller person she was.

In the music industry, Lulu’s path was shaped by a push toward lighter pop, even as she drew inspiration from R&B legends like James Brown and Big Mama Thornton. She recalls recording the early hit Shout at age 15 and then finding herself tied to tracks that emphasized charm over grit. Yet she often felt stifled by industry expectations, a tension that would echo through the rest of her career. She found moments of creative vitality in collaborations, notably in the 1971 recording Everybody Clap with a heavyweight lineup that included John Bonham, Jack Bruce and her then-husband Maurice Gibb. Although the track did not chart, it remains a vivid reminder of the scope of her collaborators and the ambitions she carried.

A pivotal artistic partnership with David Bowie later offered a glimpse of Lulu’s full potential. Bowie, who recognized that labels did not fully hear her voice, urged her to pursue a hit. They recorded a take on Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World in New York, returning Lulu to the Top 10 after a five-year gap. They also cut Dodo and Can You Hear Me, but Bowie’s own struggles with drugs disrupted the project. The collaboration carried both promise and complexity: Lulu describes Bowie as magnetic and unpredictable, and she candidly acknowledges the toll that his drug use took on their professional plan and their personal dynamic. The pair’s brief romance followed the end of her marriage to Maurice Gibb.

In the mid-1990s, Lulu found renewed commercial momentum with Gary Barlow on the duet Relight My Fire, which helped propel her back into the spotlight. She joined Take That on tour, performing her solo material in a dramatic red lace catsuit, and she continued to balance theater and television work with a busy recording schedule. Throughout this period, however, she maintained a careful boundary around her drinking: she was “a social drinker” who managed her intake, even as her drinking habits began to creep upward during times of personal upheaval.

But a period of upheaval in her 50s—the end of a second marriage, followed by the loss of her manager and her parents—pushed her toward greater loneliness and a more fragile balance with alcohol. “If you’re honest with yourself, you know that record companies are looking for fresh meat,” she reflects. “New energy, something different. So there was always that feeling of, ‘Well, what am I going to do now?’” The accumulation of drink, she says, gradually eroded her sense of control. “It’s accumulative,” she explains, “in the dark, everything ferments and becomes toxic. But with alcoholism, you can’t just control it. You have to stop. And if you don’t stop, there’s a chance you might die.”

Today, Lulu is approaching the 12th anniversary of her sobriety and has chosen to tell her story in the hope that it can help others, particularly family members affected by addiction. She describes recovery as a family disease but says the process can break negative patterns, offering hope for future generations. “There’s a lot of people who don’t get here – but I have tenacity. I have resilience, which I’m very grateful for, because no matter how many times I’ve fallen down, I’ve bounced up again.”

The memoir and accompanying interviews emphasize that Lulu’s life has never been simply about fame. It is also about the costs of keeping secrets, and the power of seeking help after years of struggling to maintain appearances. She notes that the journey has not just altered her health, but reoriented her relationship with her audience and with the people closest to her.

As part of the book’s rollout, Lulu says she hopes to reach other readers who may be struggling with addiction or who carry similar family histories. She frames recovery with a practical, hopeful lens—acknowledging pain, admitting vulnerability, and choosing to continue living with purpose. Her message is reinforced by the rituals of recovery she learned in AA, including the shared language that has helped many maintain sobriety across decades.

For readers seeking support, the piece ends with a reminder of resources available to those affected by addiction and those near them. The BBC Action Line and comparable services provide assistance to individuals and families confronting alcohol dependence.

In public statements tied to the memoir, Lulu emphasizes that telling her story is not about sensationalism but about accountability and connection. She notes that she has faced years of scrutiny and still seeks to use her platform to encourage honesty about addiction. “As they say in AA, you’re only as sick as your secrets,” she writes, a maxim she hopes will resonate with readers who are grappling with similar challenges.

Her narrative culminates not in a dramatic rescue but in a steady, ongoing commitment to sobriety that she says remains fragile and valuable. “It’s a family disease,” she repeats, but she also frames recovery as a transformative process that can redefine a life’s trajectory for the better. The book tour will likely combine questions about her life with selections from her catalog, offering fans a chance to hear old songs in a new light while hearing a much more intimate story behind them.

In closing, Lulu says she has learned to value resilience, even after years of difficult experiences. She acknowledges that her past will always be part of who she is, but she asserts that recovery has given her a chance to move forward with clarity and purpose. “Tenacity and resilience,” she says, “are what keep me going, and I’m grateful for every day I’m here to tell my story.”