TV personality Michael Barrymore has admitted that he came close to killing himself over the allegations levelled against him after a man was found dead in his swimming pool in March 2001. In his first interview for ten years, he admitted that he felt as if he had been "murdered" by the tabloid press following the death of Stuart Lubbock - and that he planned to bring cases against them for phone hacking. "The press killed Michael Barrymore. My real name is Michael Parker, but Michael Barrymore is dead," he said in the interview with the Independent. "Although I have been a couple of times to the jumping-off point, I didn't kill myself. If I had, it would have completed the story." Lubbock, who was 31, was found to have traces of ecstasy and cocaine in his system when his body was found in the grounds of Barrymore's Essex mansion - while the TV star also had to weather allegations that he had been the victim of a sexual assault before he died. The subsequent inquest into his death, which recorded an open verdict, effectively destroyed Barrymore's popularity. The entertainer once against stated his innocence, saying: "I never shy away from the fact that I'm an alcoholic and that I have had my problems, but I've never murdered anybody. "I've never got up in the morning and thought I'll harm someone. I've just had an extraordinary sequence of events that have been on public display, that I've had no control over," he added. "It was just a party that went disastrously wrong, with a tragic ending. I've basically been framed for a murder - one that didn't take place."
