Poor Mark Watson…

[PaperLanterns]

…driven to near suicide after his wife found out about his 3 YEAR AFFAIR just after giving birth because his job wasn’t going well…

Appreciate it’s the DM but surely being a shit to your wife shouldn’t be used to promote your current career?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12456509/amp/Comedian-Mark-Watson-cheating-wife.html

@CurlewKate 😂 true

I suppose it makes me ponder how we’re all of us fucking up in our own ways. We all have maladaptive ways of coping, be it emotional and sexual connection, drinking, drugs, phones/other screens, sugar, food, shopping, exercise, etc etc etc. Russell Brand is excellent on this topic, as is Dr Gabor Mate.

I suppose I can see Mark Watson’s behaviour in that light and be compassionate.

If it is an account of how “quick feel better fixes” were like taking a sledgehammer to the lives of those he loved/loves, as well as his own. The price you, and those you love/loved pay for that. Including self loathing and a wrecked landscape where your life used to to the extent you don’t want to exist anymore. Then I don’t think this is a bad thing.

He has to earn a living to support his children. They say write what you know. It is probably the thing he knows which occupies an awful lot of his headspace. It is original enough to compete in a quite stuffed marketplace. Anything else he did would attract news of his transgressions, potentially causing another set to fail to launch, making it harder to earn a living. This way his transgressions are baked into the centre, the point of buying in to see him, not something you have to overlook and go anyway.

It doesn’t sound like a message of grass was greener, sorry I hurt people, but god look at this lush new lawn I got !

More like grass was not only greener but I was spraying Roundup and tonnes of salt on my own lawn and the lawns of everybody who felt the ripples of the fucking huge breeze block I chucked in the pond that was our connected lives.

I don’t think that is a bad thing to be heard.

He’s unlikely to be touring on my side of the alps, but I’d put it on my watch list on my TV app. It’s a subject I experienced as one of the children. I’ve a vested interest in hearing experiences from all the adults positions in the equation. The more I can get nearer a 360° viewpoint the better able I feel I can make sense of it all. Working on making sense of it has been better for my own well being, outlook and “not wanting to be alive” tendencies than the other paths out of the wilderness I tried.

I can see entirely why it would feel like salt in the wound and distasteful for a lot of people. But I think there is an audience out there who might be interested. For some it might function as a cautionary tale. For other perhaps giving a more detailed view inside the mind of the person whose “taking a sledgehammer to my life” broke your previously intact and happy home.

I remember when humble, funny Justin Lee Collins was exposed as a vicious abuser. It was like finding out that Barack Obama was grabbing women by the pussy - it turned the world upside down.

But since then I've read and heard of sooo many beloved comedy performers who are arrogant, rude, dicks to their wives etc.

It's acting, all of it is acting. You see the self deprecating, witty guy on TV or on stage and because he performs under his own name you think it's him. But he's worked for years on his stage persona.

Watson has been a selfish knob, no doubt. Can't say I'm more or less likely to read his book based on that though, there wouldn't be much culture left if we shunned artists for infidelity.

Nadia Sawalha referred to her sister Julia's ex, the adorable curly headed Alan Davies, as a 'cunt'. I believe big sisters.

* 100% pear

I'm assuming he's not the big name abusive comedian Katherine Ryan talks about. Do we know who that is?

oh wow, I cringed reading that,

Weasel

My black and shrivelled heart breaks for him.

Suicide-baiting has long been the Narcissist's favoured form of control and a mechanism for weasling out of the consequences of their actions. We now also frequently see it with trans extremists (block your child's puberty or s/he will end his/her life!) and people who don't want to take responsibility for their misdeeds (see Phil Schofield and Huw Edwards).

@CurlewKate, I believe that was Russell Brand.

@TooBigForMyBoots Oh, really? I though it was going to be someone unexpected. I'm disappointed!

I agree, I don't think he wants anyone to feel sorry for him. I think he wants to sell books. I think his career isn't going as well he'd hoped, and complaining about his career disappointments on Twitter incessantly hasn't resulted in more TV work funnily enough, so he's going down the self-loathing to redemption arc route that he's seen work for other comedians before.

I live with a chronic mental illness, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But I reserve the right to judge the fuck out of anyone who cashes in on their affair by putting it out into the public domain when there are children involved. Affairs happen, it's wrong but it doesn't make him the devil and yes, of course someone can be unfaithful and also genuinely struggle with their mental health. I wouldn't "slag off" anyone for being suicidal, but the affair was a choice and monetising it years later is also a choice. I think it's these choices that the majority of posters are slagging him off for, not talking about his mental health.

Maybe I'm cynical because someone very close to me was in a relationship with a successful comedian for years (not MW) so I've come into contact with a lot of people in this industry. So many men in comedy present themselves as awkward, fragile, self-deprecating beta-males in public but are actually arrogant, ruthlessly ambitious womanisers and everything they do is a calculated PR move. I don't know MW so maybe he's not like that, but it's very much a thing in the industry and it makes it difficult to trust any show of vulnerability IMO.

As an honorary Welsh person (migrated from Serbia) I find the fake Welsh accent interesting. Did he think he'd be less open to criticism for his comic skills if he adopted the accent of a nation which has traditionally been underrepresented and poorer than England and Scotland? i.e. did he view it as a sort of identity shield, special pleading, like the suicide baiting?

And if so, why so fragile?

Hopefully the wanky title of the book alone would be enough to put people off. Quite why he thinks his clichéd pity fest of a story is particularly insightful is anyone's guess. Weak man feels insecure so cheats on wife. Inspiring.

I'm relieved. Would have been gutted had it been David Mitchell or god forbid the lovely Rhod Gilbert.

Shame.

I remember watching him on Taskmaster, and thinking what a nice "normal" bloke he seemed, compared to some of the ego maniacs you see on there. Ed Gamble and Russell Howard both gave me massive ick after seeing what unpleasant narcs they were. I'm really surprised at Mark Watson though! I didn't get that vibe at all.

I'm relieved. Would have been gutted had it been David Mitchell or god forbid the lovely Rhod Gilbert.

It's such terribly sad news about Rhod. I don't know a great deal about cancer prognoses, but I know that having stage 4 is a devastating position to be in for anybody. Not that I'd wish it on anybody, of course; but lovely Rhod, of all people??

Not that I'm a huge fan, but I suppose at least comedians like Jimmy Carr are honest about their moral compasses, and don't ever pretend to be 'nice guys' in the first place.

David Cameron made himself look like even more of an idiot when he took against Carr for not being all lovely and fluffy.

Omg, what an absolute tool.

Seen it said that it's Russell Brand.

David Mitchell would never, ever do that.

He’s my secret man crush.

and seems to be a fairly decent human being despite being a comedian.

Well there's a massive difference between "using something to help you bury your insecurities and feelings of failure whilst using a cloak of self denial to ignore the harm being caused", and "being faced with the reality of screwing up at least two people's lives, and potentially losing your children". He's clearly been an utter dick, I'm glad she divorced him and I hope she's getting plenty of maintenance now he's more successful, but it's odd to assume that facing up to your shit decisions should only make you feel the same way as making those shit decisions

Exactly, and we wonder why male suicide stats are so shit.

Female, has an affair, says she feels suicidal. You made a mistake, you're clearly regretful, move on and don't do it again. You'll find a happier relationship. Good luck.

Male, has an affair, says he feels suicidal. Omg I can't believe you're pretending to be suicidal and if you do then you deserve it. You're a shit human who deserves to never be loved again. Die lonely, loser.

Well they're divorced, so she'd probably agree

If David Mitchell turns out to be a terrible person I will leave the country.