'IT'S EVIL'
I’m a snooker legend but became addicted to smoking crack – I spent £35k of my own cash on the drug
SNOOKER legend Jimmy White opened up on his drug addiction and admitted burning through £35,000 on crack.
The 60-year-old is still among the sport's most-loved players after breaking on to the scene in the 1980s.
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He continues to play snooker to this day although his lifestyle away from the table is vastly different.
White struggled with an addiction to crack when he was a young star and explained how he "drained" his bank account during his struggles.
He said in Louis Theroux's documentary Gods of Snooker: "Cocaine was absolutely everywhere.
"It was like the devil’s dandruff, but crack – it’s evil. I tried smoking it and got completely addicted.
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" I remember I had £35,000 in an account and I drained that on crack.”
The Whirlwind has previously discussed his addiction issues in his autobiography.
He claimed he and Canadian snooker player Kirk Stevens once tore through a hotel room after White's 1984 World Snooker Championship final loss to Steve Davis.
White wrote: "We started breaking down the furniture in the room – a table here, a wardrobe there – trying to get a fire started so we could cook this stuff up.
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"That's how sadistic the drug is – that's how crazy it sent us.
"Two of the best snooker players in the world, holed away in an Irish hotel room, smashing up chairs and ripping up a duvet so we could make an indoor fire and smoke some crack."
White was a formidable snooker player at his peak and claimed the Masters in 1984 and the UK Championship in 1992, as well as losing SIX World Championship finals, although he has struggled to emulate that same success in recent years.
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