completely.
True to her word, Tania had gone home that morning and done a fine job of convincing her parents that she’d spent the night in her friend’s garage – alone. Relieved that their daughter, who had already been branded a cheat for entering the show in her sister’s name, was at least absolved of the ‘slag tag’, they had immediately contacted the press, resulting in numerous interviews with the tearful girl, who doggedly stuck to her story throughout.
That, coupled with the blood-test results which proved that there had been nothing but alcohol in Larry’s bloodstream, should have been enough to clear his name and win him back his job – especially after the police declared that he had no case to answer.
But it didn’t.
He might have been proved innocent, but Frank Woods had already made an appearance on the local evening news by then, naming Matty Kline as the new host of Star Struck , and citing Larry’s continuous drunken behaviour as the real cause of his dismissal. And, pre-empting Larry’s threat to sue him for slander, libel, defamation of character, unfair dismissal – or anything else he might choose to throw into the mix – he’d backed up his claims with out-takes from the Star Struck archives, showing Larry in the worst possible light: reeling drunkenly around the set, forgetting his lines, being abusive to the crew, and groping the female contestants.
His professional reputation in tatters, Larry had to accept that there was no going back as far as Star Struck was concerned. But he consoled himself with the belief that something bigger and better would soon come along. He was a major star, after all, and his fans would demand that some body get him back on screen as soon as humanly possible, because everybody knew that there wasn’t another host in Britain who could hold a candle to him when it came to looks, charm, and personality.
Wrong again.
The rumoured alcoholism and teeny-bopper sex scandal lingered around Larry’s head like a toxic cloud. Producers wouldn’t touch him, and his showbiz so-called friends shunned him because they were afraid of being tainted by association. But if all that was humiliating enough, it was nothing to the knock his pride took when he discovered that he’d been left off the guest list for the annual TV awards ceremony.
For five years solid, since exploding onto the screen and into the female population’s hearts with Star Struck , Larry had been invited to the awards and had always come away with a symbol of his success: Best Newcomer; Best Host; Most Popular Male Star;Most Downloaded Pin-up . . . Accolade after accolade, seemingly forgotten in the flash of a viciously penned news story. And he couldn’t even sue Sam Brady, because the bastard had worded the original story so carefully – and implication, according to Larry’s solicitor, was not the same as accusation, so he had no case.
Battered and bruised, and tortured by the injustice of being barred from Oasis TV and overlooked by the awards’ organisers, Larry ventured out to the clubs in search of women, intent on fucking away the pain of rejection – only to find himself blacklisted from every VIP lounge in town as word got out that he was no longer considered a celebrity. And he wasn’t even afforded the respect of being informed about this via a quiet word in the managers’ offices, which was the least he’d have expected given how much money he’d spent in their establishments in the past. Oh, no . . . it was left to the doormen to inform him that he was no longer welcome – in full view of the everyday punters, who jeered him from the queues as his old still-celebrity friends sailed past him as if they didn’t even know him.
Upset and frustrated that, despite being cleared, nobody wanted to give him a chance, Larry slid ever deeper into despair. Unable to show his face outside without some smart-arse picking a fight or calling him a pervert, he hid away by day,
True to her word, Tania had gone home that morning and done a fine job of convincing her parents that she’d spent the night in her friend’s garage – alone. Relieved that their daughter, who had already been branded a cheat for entering the show in her sister’s name, was at least absolved of the ‘slag tag’, they had immediately contacted the press, resulting in numerous interviews with the tearful girl, who doggedly stuck to her story throughout.
That, coupled with the blood-test results which proved that there had been nothing but alcohol in Larry’s bloodstream, should have been enough to clear his name and win him back his job – especially after the police declared that he had no case to answer.
But it didn’t.
He might have been proved innocent, but Frank Woods had already made an appearance on the local evening news by then, naming Matty Kline as the new host of Star Struck , and citing Larry’s continuous drunken behaviour as the real cause of his dismissal. And, pre-empting Larry’s threat to sue him for slander, libel, defamation of character, unfair dismissal – or anything else he might choose to throw into the mix – he’d backed up his claims with out-takes from the Star Struck archives, showing Larry in the worst possible light: reeling drunkenly around the set, forgetting his lines, being abusive to the crew, and groping the female contestants.
His professional reputation in tatters, Larry had to accept that there was no going back as far as Star Struck was concerned. But he consoled himself with the belief that something bigger and better would soon come along. He was a major star, after all, and his fans would demand that some body get him back on screen as soon as humanly possible, because everybody knew that there wasn’t another host in Britain who could hold a candle to him when it came to looks, charm, and personality.
Wrong again.
The rumoured alcoholism and teeny-bopper sex scandal lingered around Larry’s head like a toxic cloud. Producers wouldn’t touch him, and his showbiz so-called friends shunned him because they were afraid of being tainted by association. But if all that was humiliating enough, it was nothing to the knock his pride took when he discovered that he’d been left off the guest list for the annual TV awards ceremony.
For five years solid, since exploding onto the screen and into the female population’s hearts with Star Struck , Larry had been invited to the awards and had always come away with a symbol of his success: Best Newcomer; Best Host; Most Popular Male Star;Most Downloaded Pin-up . . . Accolade after accolade, seemingly forgotten in the flash of a viciously penned news story. And he couldn’t even sue Sam Brady, because the bastard had worded the original story so carefully – and implication, according to Larry’s solicitor, was not the same as accusation, so he had no case.
Battered and bruised, and tortured by the injustice of being barred from Oasis TV and overlooked by the awards’ organisers, Larry ventured out to the clubs in search of women, intent on fucking away the pain of rejection – only to find himself blacklisted from every VIP lounge in town as word got out that he was no longer considered a celebrity. And he wasn’t even afforded the respect of being informed about this via a quiet word in the managers’ offices, which was the least he’d have expected given how much money he’d spent in their establishments in the past. Oh, no . . . it was left to the doormen to inform him that he was no longer welcome – in full view of the everyday punters, who jeered him from the queues as his old still-celebrity friends sailed past him as if they didn’t even know him.
Upset and frustrated that, despite being cleared, nobody wanted to give him a chance, Larry slid ever deeper into despair. Unable to show his face outside without some smart-arse picking a fight or calling him a pervert, he hid away by day,
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