Mark Speight Found Dead...

[Big Orange]

And so the great celebrity cull of 2008 continues:

TV host Mark Speight 'found dead'

The body of a man, believed to be missing TV presenter Mark Speight, has been found in a remote area of London's Paddington station, police have said.

Officers are treating the death as "unexplained" but have confirmed that the man had not been hit by a train.

Mr Speight, 42, disappeared last Monday, three months after the death of his fiancee, Natasha Collins, in the bath of the flat they shared in London.

Miss Collins' mother was devastated at the latest news, her spokeswoman said.

She asked for Carmen Collins to be given time to grieve in peace.

The BBC released a statement saying: "This is very sad news and our thoughts and sympathies are with Mark's family and friends.

"Mark was a hugely talented and very popular presenter for many years."

Video footage

Relatives had made a number of appeals over the past few days, with his father, Oliver, urging him to get in touch and not to "give up" during his time of grief.

The families of both Mr Speight and Miss Collins had issued a joint statement, expressing their "deep concern" and saying he had been in "a fragile state of mind" when he vanished.

A friend had also described how Mr Speight, originally from Wolverhampton, had been planning a concert as a tribute to his late fiancee, which would have raised money for one of her chosen charities.

Mr Speight, originally from Wolverhampton, had been arrested on suspicion of murder and supplying Class A drugs following the discovery of Miss Collins' body at their St John's Wood flat on 3 January.

No charges were brought, however.

She suffered burns on 60% of her body from boiling water and had suffered a drugs overdose after taking cocaine, sleeping pills and alcohol.

A coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure at an inquest earlier this month.

Speaking on behalf of Mr Speight's agent, Billy Marsh Associates, Jan Kennedy said the discovery of the body at Paddington had left the company "absolutely devastated".

"Caring and compassionate in everything he did, Mark was truly gifted in life and we are proud to have represented him as a friend and client for almost 20 years," she added.

"He was blessed with a remarkable personality, great artistic talents and the wonderful warm ability to communicate those skills with people, especially children of all ages.

"With his sensitivity of spirit, coupled with his dynamic presence and natural enthusiasm, he was loved and respected by his adoring family, friends and colleagues everywhere in the media," Ms Kennedy said.

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[Admiral Valdemar]

Holy shit!

[Big Orange]

I always liked him and he seemed a genuinely nice person, he was a big presence in my childhood, I'm sorry to see him go...

[Darth Wong]

Sounds like he and his girlfriend were a couple of boozing druggies.

[DaveJB]

I had a feeling this was going to happen ever since he went missing a few days ago.

Honestly, whatever Speight and Collins might have done in their children's TV careers, their greatest contribution is going to be as a precautionary tale about the dangers of drugs. Kind of sad really, but hopefully some good will eventually come out of this whole clusterfuck.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Sounds like he and his girlfriend were a couple of boozing druggies.

Collins, maybe so. Speight has not shown to have done anything of the sort. He was a talented children's TV entertainer and had never had anything in his past bring up doubts over his integrity. This death obviously got to him in a serious.

[Darth Wong]

Sounds like he and his girlfriend were a couple of boozing druggies.

Collins, maybe so. Speight has not shown to have done anything of the sort.

So she was an alcoholic and drug addict and somehow hiding this from her own fiancee?

[Admiral Valdemar]

So she was an alcoholic and drug addict and somehow hiding this from her own fiancee?

The police didn't charge Speight with anything, which would be easy enough to do if he was in on this. For all we know, he was totally against her behaviour and had the guilt of her habits drag him down after her preventable death.

Either way, this doesn't change the fact that it is a loss and another stupid one perpetuated by the celebrity culture of self-destruction we have now.

[DrMckay]

Either way, this doesn't change the fact that it is a loss and another stupid one perpetuated by the celebrity culture of self-destruction we have now.

Wait. Don't we need to sacrifice celebrities for the corn harvest?

[The Yosemite Bear]

Either way, this doesn't change the fact that it is a loss and another stupid one perpetuated by the celebrity culture of self-destruction we have now.

Wait. Don't we need to sacrifice celebrities for the corn harvest?

I thought it was prudish fundy cops*, or handled through a lottery**...


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*the Wickerman
** the lottery

[Darth Wong]

So she was an alcoholic and drug addict and somehow hiding this from her own fiancee?

The police didn't charge Speight with anything, which would be easy enough to do if he was in on this.

Being an alcoholic or a drug user is a crime now? I don't know much about British drug law, but that would come as a surprise to me.

For all we know, he was totally against her behaviour and had the guilt of her habits drag him down after her preventable death.

Would you make wedding arrangements with a woman who couldn't stop drinking and doing cocaine, unless you didn't have a big problem with that behaviour? There's no goddamned way I would marry a fucking cokehead. Just how clean do you think the guy really was?

Either way, this doesn't change the fact that it is a loss and another stupid one perpetuated by the celebrity culture of self-destruction we have now.

Definitely.

[SylasGaunt]

I thought it was prudish fundy cops*, or handled through a lottery**...

That's how they used to do it in the old days but it's too violent nowadays. *ominous quasi-latin chant*

[Big Orange]

Either way, this doesn't change the fact that it is a loss and another stupid one perpetuated by the celebrity culture of self-destruction we have now.

Definitely.

It is no secret that celebrities of most stripes tend to die disproportionately young, but it still seems rather bizarre that a kid's presenter working for ITV and the BBC and his girlfriend he met on See It Saw It both died suddenly like Kurt Cobaine, and this is by far the worst drugs related scandal the British Broadcasting Corporation has had yet (although Carmen Collins was in a serious coma a few years ago, with her TV work drying up since then, so it is partial explanation for her addiction problems).

Speight was dead for six days before the authorities found and he had hung himself in a derelict administration block in Paddington Station; more details found on the Daily Beast. Police even briefly detained him on the day he vanished due to his odd behaviour! I knew Mark Speight's career was pretty much fucked, but I had no idea he was going do something stupid like this..

[Adrian Laguna]

For all we know, he was totally against her behaviour and had the guilt of her habits drag him down after her preventable death.

Would you make wedding arrangements with a woman who couldn't stop drinking and doing cocaine, unless you didn't have a big problem with that behaviour? There's no goddamned way I would marry a fucking cokehead. Just how clean do you think the guy really was?

You are assuming he was emotionally stable, which is not necessarily true. It's entirely possible that he was against her behaviour but married her anyway because he thought he could change her, or couldn't let go, or whatever. Many women marry a man who beats them, that doesn't mean the approve of it, just that they have managed to rationalize it somehow.

[DaveJB]

According to their ex-neighbours, they were both at the booze and drugs. I suppose we'll have a better idea once they do the autopsy on him - apparently Collins' body showed sign of severe drug abuse, and she was well on the way to developing the mono-nostril that heavy cocaine users end up with.

[Big Orange]

According to their ex-neighbours, they were both at the booze and drugs. I suppose we'll have a better idea once they do the autopsy on him - apparently Collins' body showed sign of severe drug abuse, and she was well on the way to developing the mono-nostril that heavy cocaine users end up with.

Damn, with that sort of seedy information coming out, Mark Speight was going to be marked for life with little chance of going back to SMart or any other kids related endevor, a contributing factor to why he couldn't take it anymore. But in his last weeks he was said to have wanted to organize a tribute concert in Collins' memory (perhaps he got the cold shoulder by venue managers due to his worryingly intimate indirect implication in his fiancee's death).

I never fully understood why performance artists and other kinds of celebrities often unnecessarily end up complete messes.

[DaveJB]

I never fully understood why performance artists and other kinds of celebrities often unnecessarily end up complete messes.

Usually it's because either they got shoved into showbiz at an early age and therefore never had any chance to develop emotionally and cope with the real world (i.e. Britney Spears, Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan and a hell of a lot of other former child actors), or because of drug abuse - 9 times out of 10 it seems to be cocaine that's driven them over the edge. As far as I understand there's three common reasons why that happens:

1) They've got the money to buy high grade cocaine, so they try it out and get hooked almost instantly
2) "Every other celebrity snorts coke, why shouldn't I?"
3) Cocaine makes you feel as if you have more energy to cope with things like concerts and other live appearances. This one's particularly sad, as you can achieve the same thing just by eating a better diet.

[Jon]

I don't understand why everyone has come out on the side of Speight and getting all defensive about his death and his involvement in his girlfriend's. He seemed like a nice guy, presented kids shows, yeah. He already admitted to using cocaine, so chances of his girlfriend being a cokehead and him just sitting by her disapproving but doing nothing about it? I expect the both regularly used together, it had terrible consequences for her and he obviously became racked with guilt and decided to top himself. Just another preventable, drug related celebrity death.

[Broomstick]

3) Cocaine makes you feel as if you have more energy to cope with things like concerts and other live appearances. This one's particularly sad, as you can achieve the same thing just by eating a better diet.

I sort of doubt that. Granted my Other Half was never a world class celebrity, but he was a professional musician and the schedule was grueling at times even at his level. You get these high profile folks doing a concert in a different city every night, or even TV actors with 12-16 hour days, and just a better diet won't simply cut it. Sure, it's an important coping mechanism. Some of the scheduling is just insane, and if a performer takes even one night off for a damn good reason (legitimate illness, for example) the fans scream bloody murder. The pressures are enormous. Granted, not every performer succumbs to the lure of drugs to bring them up and take them down and ease those stage fright jitters, but the temptation is there.

[Big Orange]

Carmen Collins largely became an addict to drown out the highly vivid memories of her serious car accident which, following a comparatively brief coma, led to panic attacks for years afterwards. So that essentially ended her career in showbiz. She and Mark Speight both had that fateful binge to "celebrate" his recent success in pantomime.

And while I wouldn't recommend sniffing cocaine and were not doing Natasha Collins any good (not only was her nose caving in, but she was getting ghoulishly thin as well) I bet the sleeping pills coupled with the vodka was what really done the poor cow in (just 19 days before Heath Ledger died the same way). But of course the arbitrarily designated Class-A substance gets all the press and this is not the first time it has happened (despite the fact other infamous Class-A drugs like heroine, for example, are arguably less addictive than cigarettes).

I'm not really defending Speight for what happened, the whole event was nasty, stupid and very avoidable, but I get the lingering impression that celebrity agents do not look after their charges at all and that the BBC let Mark Speight go, not really taking responsibilty for a very damaged man.