Former Coronation Street star Chris Fountain has explained that being fired from the ITV soap over a dark toned rap music video left his mental health spiralling.
The 35-year-old soap star built up an impressive career on the small screen - playing heartthrobs Justin Burton on Hollyoaks and Tommy Duckworth on Corrie.
But his professional career was nuked in 2013 when footage emerged of him performing - while wearing a mask that covered his face - music under the stage name ‘The Phantom’ which included misogynistic rap lyrics and references to rape.
The video sparked a backlash which ultimately led to Chris being sacked from Coronation Street - despite the star issuing a heartfelt apology and the footage dating from a year before his dismissal.
Speaking on Scott Thomas's Learning As I Go podcast, Chris explained that his mental health took a tumble in the aftermath of his sacking - which occurred with near immediate effect.
He said: "That singular week in August 2013 just blew my entire life apart.
"All the foundations of what I'd built as a career just completely came crashing down.
"And it was the start of a real downward spiral in terms of my mental health, my confidence."
More recently, Chris’s resilience has been tested by a horrifying health scare.
The actor recently suffered a stroke that left him temporarily unable to speak and also required surgery to mend a hole in his heart
The performer - who has struggled to secure acting work since his Coronation Street firing - says that these major tests of his professional and personal lives has made him feel more resilient.
He said: “I’ve developed a level of resistance that is untouchable now. The amount of stuff that's happened, you can keep throwing it at me and I'm going to keep getting up."
Chris’s firing from Corrie sparked debate at the time with charities blasting his lyrics that appeared to glorify rape, which stated: “I will f*** anybody up in the worst way, rape a b**** on her birthday.”
The actor apologised profusely for the offence his lyrics caused, stating: “I can’t condone anything that I said. I’m ashamed of it, I’m embarrassed of it, but at the time, I wasn’t thinking, ‘Yeah, I want to be really vicious towards women’. That wasn’t the case at all."
And adding: "I’ve got more respect for women probably than men, because the way that I was brought up and the passion and care and protection I’ve had from women has been incredible throughout my life."
However, others argued that the lyrics of the experimenting rapper were nothing compared to mainstream artists who have achieved international success with graphic songs about violence.
Most notable among those is Eminem who has built a £190m fortune out of music which included murder fantasies of his own ex-wife.
The American star has also faced his own backlash over a ‘rape-rap’ - however he has continued to win commercial and critical acclaim.
ITV bosses said they fired Chris over his lyrics at the time as, they argued, it was “the only action we could take” and also highlighted that Coronation Street stars sign a ‘code of conduct’ which it was deemed Chris had breached.
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