Matt Willis ’ relationship with drugs and alcohol “really changed” following the birth of his daughter Isabelle, his wife Emma Willis has said.
Former Busted star Matt, 39, has always been open about his battles with addiction, and the star is reportedly set to candidly explore his past addictions with alcohol and drugs in an upcoming documentary with the BBC.
And as filming reportedly commences, an unearthed interview with his wife Emma, 46, has emerged where she discussed the birth of their first child and how it helped expedite Matt’s recovery.
The couple have been married since 2008 but Matt encountered issues in 2005 when they first started to date.
Matt became sober three years after he began dating Emma and went to rehab three months after they started dating.
Life dating a musician was very hard, but it was more difficult to “understand” Matt’s addiction troubles, Emma said in an interview in 2020.
Matt achieved sobriety the year after they married but Emma said she was convinced the birth of daughter Isabelle, now 13, was the turning point.
She became teary-eyed as she told The Telegraph: "What really changed him was our daughter, Isabelle.
"Isabelle was his real… Oh God, I’m going to start crying. Isabelle was his real focus.
“He was already doing it [recovery] himself, then she arrived and that made him even more determined."
Last year, Matt revealed how he discussed his past addiction issues with his three young children.
He has never hidden his past from his children, who are all aware Matt cannot drink as he has spent time in rehab to address his struggles with drink and drugs.
Opening up about how he addresses this past part of his life, and his ongoing recovery with his children, Matt told Fabulous magazine: "I quit alcohol a few months into Isabelle’s life and I just hope she wasn’t impacted by [me drinking] at all.
"They’ve never known me to drink, but they’ve noticed I don’t do it and I’ve been very open about why I don’t, so it’s not really a big deal to them.
"We’ve talked about it and they know what I’m about and why I don’t do these things.
"They understand the words, although I try not to use them because they’re quite scary – words like ‘alcoholic’ and ‘addict’. So I say: ‘It doesn’t work for me, I can’t do that’, and that’s enough."
Emma previously revealed in 2020 she had refused to leave Matt during his battles with addiction.
She told The Telegraph: "I wasn’t going to leave him because he had a problem. I wanted to help him, but he had to help himself and I believed he would."
