Gogglebox star Shaun Ryder reveals heartbreaking reason he still has to ‘work hard and make money’ at 61

SHAUN Ryder has revealed the reason why he’s still having to work hard now at the age of 61 – and it’s to pay for therapy for five of his six children who have ADHD.

The Happy Mondays and Black Grape star has previously only revealed two of his daughters had the condition, which then led to his own diagnosis when he was in his fifties.  

But now he has told of its effect on five of his six children – Jael, Coco, Pearl, Lulu, Joseph, Oliver – while adding that one of them was a Maths genius as a result.

The Celebrity Gogglebox star also spoke of the difficulties he has doing his music as the condition can affect his behaviour and can lead to impulsive actions

Shaun said: “So I have six kids and five of them have it. That’s why I’m always working, because I’ve got to pay for their f***ing therapy.

“One of my girls is a Maths genius – there’s traces of autism in ADHD.  Not everyone’s got traces of autism in the ADHD, not everyone has a bad memory. 

“No ADHD is the same. It’s always affecting my memory.

“Even though I wasn’t diagnosed until 50 odd years old, when I was at school while I was in the class I would take things and understand it, by the time the lesson had ended and I walked out that door I couldn’t remember anything. I just didn’t retain the information.

“And also the ADHD, with me, led to promiscuous behaviour, drugs, trouble.”

Shaun shares his two daughters with his wife Joanne, while his other children are from previous relationships.

But Shaun, who has been recording an album with a new supergroup Mantra of the Cosmos which includes The Who’s drummer Zak Starkey, son of the Beatles Ringo Starr, said he’s now put his past wild days of drugs and drink behind him.

He said: “When I’m at home we don’t have alcohol in the house.

“We’ve still got teenagers in the house so we don’t want alcohol in the house with teenage girls, especially with ADHD.”

The star also explained how the condition has led to him making mistakes recording and playing music and even becoming fixated with random words like ‘kangaroo’.

However being able to read off an auto cue has made life easier.

He added: “In my early days when the Mondays started off, before we had auto cue, I had a book with all the lyrics.

“Because of my condition I’d start off the song a lot of times with the second verse.

“I’d sing the song but back to front and inside out.

“Still today, I’ve been singing some of the songs nearly 40 years, and I still have to have them on auto cue.”

Shaun was joined by Zac Starkey on the Brydon & podcast and spoke about how his Shaun’s difficulties had manifested themselves with Mantra of the Cosmos.

The band made their live debut in June at The Box in Soho, London, and have released a first single ‘X (Wot You Sayin?).

Zac said: “There’s a sign ‘Exit’, and we wrote a song called X and every time we’d say X, you’ll go ‘Exit’ because you can see it.

“And later on you’ll go ‘Eggs, what you laying’, instead of ‘X, what you sayin’ ‘.”

Shaun, who’s been nicknamed ‘X’ himself since 1980, said: “The thing is everything’s X at the moment. So I f***ed up with that one. We’ve got X on ITV, Twitter’s changed to X, X Radio, everything’s f***ing X.”

Zac added: “This kangaroo keeps popping up, I have to edit him out.

“He’ll say something and then he’ll go ‘him and his kangaroo’. It’s like some mad slang or something.”