Michael Barrymore

[ChairsAndStairs]

I’ve always wondered why his career was so badly damaged by what happened at his house.

It was awful that a man died, but he was never found guilty and it was never proved that he was in any way involved - as far as I remember.

He was so popular before and had a really strong career. AIBU to wonder why people turned against him so quickly?

I don’t mean this to be a goady thread, just generally wondering why he was the ‘only’ fall guy for what happened.

Spidey66 I agree. I looked on google earth during the programme as DH and I were wondering who would want to live there - and assumed that at the very least you’d want to fill in the pool but no, the house is complete with pool and jacuzzi still there .

That’s gross!! Who would want to go in the jacuzzi now! I mean I would buy the house, but I would landscape the pool area ASAP!

There are loads of houses that have had killings and yet people live there quite happily. It’s not unusual. It’s only when there is risk of the house attracting constant tourists like Fred and Rose West’s house, April Jones’ killer, the Fritz house etc that the house is demolished.

Even the Yorkshire Ripper’s house is still being lived in.

I think Peter Sutcliffe's wife still lives there.

I'm in North London and Dennis Nielsen's old flat was recently up for sale...despite a lot of work on it, the price was dropped considerably before there were any bites.

I think Peter Sutcliffe's wife still lives there

I didn’t know that! Just googled it, and you are right, but apparently her second husband refuses to move in with her and they live separately.

Why do the papers insist on calling it a mansion??

I saw this as well last night when looking up the house to see if he still lived there

@JillAmanda I was shocked to see how small the house actually is. At the time the papers presented it as a sprawling mansion

It looks quite big from bird’s eye but it also looks like it’s a bungalow so not that big.

I also found it odd that this all happened in March. Even if the jacuzzi was warm it must've been freezing outside. Who thinks of going swimming at 3am in March?

A five bedroomed bungalow is not a mansion, agree they should not be calling it that.

@Roussette I very much doubt anyone was actually swimming. It’s just bullshit made up by the other guests.

This might be reaching, but maybe the media called it a mansion to extend that ‘rough trade who was asking for it’ narrative that an op referred to?

I think calling it a mansion suggests that it’s possible for the murder to happen far away from the rest of the party goers.

Yes agreed Thedrowners30 but just going to put on swimming shorts is bizarre.

What disappoints me about the doc/people in it/media is the rush to say ‘he wasn’t gay’ ‘he didn’t go there for an orgy’. Even if he was gay/bi/experimenting and consented to going to MB house for a big gay orgy, he didn’t consent to rape and murder, it wouldn’t then be ‘his fault’.

Maybe there have been other victims of MB and they didn’t come forward because they’re gay/went back for sex and knew they’d be blamed.

@Roussette I don’t believe he went to get shorts, I believe he said that to give an excuse as to why they went outside and ‘found him’ and an excuse as to why he was away from the party.

Surely if you’re drunk enough to go swimming at 3am in March, you don’t have the presence of mind to say you’re going to go and change into shorts?

Sadly we will never quite possibly. I would like to think that maybe this documentary has done some good, but the Police botched up, the other people there aren't saying anything and unless someone has a crisis of conscience, nothing is going to happen.

The implication was very much that Stuart Lubbock was a star-struck gay man who had gone back to Barrymore’s house for some post-club fun and, well, we’ll spare you, the delicate public the details because it’s a bit, you know gay and seedy and you don’t want to know, OK?

I'm 51 and also remember this crime in the papers and I don't recall this being the case. I recall that Stuart was definitely labelled as straight from the start.

I defy anyone to watch that documentary and not be convinced that Barrymore must know more than he’s saying.

@MulticolourMophead I remember whom being portrayed as a gay or bisexual druggy party animal

Well, that’s how implication works, isn’t it? Some people pick up on it, others do not. Whilst none of the contemporary news reports explicitly said, ‘Stuart Lubbock was gay and it was a sex game gone wrong’, the rather prim and tight-lipped way in which it was reported was very different to the way in which the death of a 31 year old woman at that party would have been reported.

We’d have seen extensive profiles of the victim, testimonials from family and friends praising her good qualities and pictures of the victim as a young woman. That wasn’t how Stuart Lubbock’s death was reported.

I remember it being reported that Stuart's family said he was straight, and it was implied they were saying he'd been raped and murdered because they couldn't handle the idea he was gay.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/43931.funeral-of-barrymore-pool-victim/

www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/6421984.cabbie-tells-of-final-journey/

I remember the need coverage being confusing, thinking it was a big party of friends not a gathering of random people. Paints a bit of a sad life of MB.

The more I read about this case and the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that, along with an unscrupulous PR team who gave zero fucks for the victim, Barrymore had a bent copper on his payroll.

What else can explain the monumental police incompetence and the massive obfuscation of the facts?