I’m on the downwards slide, says Liam Gallagher as he talks health woes from arthritis to autoimmune condition 

DURING his hell-raising prime, Liam Gallagher would stay up all night downing pints of lager and snorting cocaine.

But these days, when the ex-Oasis frontman misses his beauty sleep it is more likely because his joints are sore and his psoriasis is flaring up.

Today, the rocker admits age is catching up with him — he suffers from a range of ailments and is no longer able to go jogging following a hip operation.

But Liam says he is battling to extend his life and counter- act his years of hard partying.

Promoting a new tour, Liam, 51, said: “You’ve got to undo all the bad work you’ve done through f***ing getting off your head and all that.

“It’s time to undo it all now and get back to reality.

“All that stuff that you thought was cool in the early days . . . it’s time to get healthy.”

The star is on a “health trip” that has seen him cutting back on booze, drugs and fags and getting up at 4am every day.

Liam said: “As you get older, life is precious, do you know what I mean?

“When you are younger you don’t care. ‘I’m a thinker’

“But as you get older, you’re getting closer to wherever you’re meant to be going.”

Opening up about his fear of mortality, he added: “I have my days when I’m f***ing buzzing about every- thing and then I have days when I’m just like, ‘This is s**t’, as in life — you know what I mean?

“Even though I’ve got everything, I mean, it’s just not enough.

“Sometimes I just want the answers now — where are we going, why are we here, what are we doing? But it’s just not possible.

“But other than that I’m a pretty happy-go-lucky guy. I love waking up early in the morning.

“Round about six or seven I start nodding off. But early doors I’m up four o’clock in the morning — come on!”

Asked what he does at that time, Liam replied: “Nothing. Just sit around at the end of the bed thinking. I’m a thinker.”

Liam’s health kick stands in stark contrast to his swaggering years when he was notorious for his Champagne Supernova lifestyle, where he hoovered up hard drugs and was famous for getting into drunken scraps.

Even in his forties, he admits he found it hard to just have a single drink and would often stay out until the early hours knocking back pints of beer.

However, in 2017 he revealed he had been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune condition of the thyroid gland, and it affects his singing voice.

Then last year the rocker underwent a hip operation and had to cut back on the jogging that had become part of his fitness routine.

He revealed: “My hips are fed. I’ve got arthritis, bad. I went to get it checked out and my bones are mashed up.

“I can’t sleep at night for the pain. Tossing and turning. So I’m on herbal sleeping tablets and they’ve saved my life.

“One of them, seven hours out, no pain.

“I’m definitely on the downwards slide, though. But we’re all going to die, aren’t we?”

Liam also told of suffering from skin condition psoriasis.

He said: “I remember meeting someone, some very strange kid, who came up to me and thought I had cocaine in my hair.

“I’ve got psoriasis, so I had obviously been scratching it during the day and there were little white bits and s**t. They were taking it out of my hair and putting it on their gums and putting it up their f***ing nose!”

“I had four years away from music and it was f***ing awful. I need to be around it. I need to be singing.

Liam Gallagher

Liam — dad to Molly, 25, Lennon, 24, Gene, 22, and 11-year-old Gemma — is these days likely to be seen exercising around Hampstead, North London, where he lives.

“All the partying and all that, it’s like, do all that and then back on the health trip and feel good about life and live in the moment,” he explained.

Liam is currently on tour with Stone Roses guitarist John Squire, with whom he has just released studio album Liam Gallagher John Squire, with singles including Just Another Rainbow and Mars To Liverpool.

Liam says he struggled mentally after Oasis separated following a series of bitter rows, most of them between him and his brother Noel, 56, in 2009.

He formed band Beady Eye but also spent years in the musical wilderness.

Liam said: “I had four years away from music and it was f***ing awful. “I need to be around it. I need to be singing. And I’m not bothered about the f***ing riches it brings.

“The riches are singing it and making it, being around good musicians. It’s addictive.”

On making up with Noel, Liam said: “Nothing new to report. He’s still not as cool as me.”

“As you get older you want to keep proving to people that you’ve still got it. It’s like, ‘You f***ers, you think I’m not taking this serious?’.

Liam Gallagher

But he has found a connection with French capital Paris, where his recent gigs with John have been staged.

He said: “I’ve always felt like I might have been French in another lifetime.”

The Mancunian continued: “I’ve lived in London now for 25 years and I still feel like I don’t know my way around. It still feels alien.”

Liam credits his children, his dogs and fiancée Debbie Gwyther, 41, for keeping his feet on the ground, but insists he has lost none of the fight that drove him to become a rock star.

He said: “As you get older you want to keep proving to people that you’ve still got it. It’s like, ‘You f***ers, you think I’m not taking this serious?’.

“That’s the only thing, I mean, besides me missus and me kids and me mam and all that, and me dogs . . .  I get real f***ing joy from it.

“And I also get a lot of calmness from it as well. And there’s chaos in the calmness as well, and I like that.”

Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/feed