Tributes to the hugely popular recording artist Annie Lennox were pouring in last night after she was found lying in approximately eighteen inches of lukewarm bathwater, apparently none the worse for wear. The former Eurythmics songstress had been partying hard at the Q Awards in central London but complained to guests of feeling ‘artistically blocked’ and complained that she had ‘not had a chance to shower’ after arriving late at the salubrious venue in Covent Garden.
Lennox, 67, has been dogged by a fondness for baths throughout her long successful recording career and has been known to overdo it with the Radox bath gel, which, she claims, ‘helped ease muscular strain brought on by the rigours of touring’ and ‘having to watch someone carrying your equipment around for you’.
Her problems began in 1979 when she discovered hot water backstage at a Tourists gig in Glasgow. Lennox had complained of having ‘dirty hands’ after restringing a guitar. In a later interview she said, ‘I can trace my water issues back to that fateful moment when I turned on the tap marked ‘hot’. As I felt the water cascade down my hands, the pain of being a free-thinking organism who writes catchy pop songs seemed to ebb away. Some of it even went on my wrists.’
After her first three albums, co-written with bearded recluse Dave Stewart went platinum, her ‘sweet dreams’ turned to nightmares. In 1983 she received treatment for shower addiction but was later found prostrate in three feet of water in a sunken bath at the London Grovesnor, where she had been ‘soaking up the suds’. A gig later that night went ahead as scheduled with only minor issues with the PA.
‘I was caught in a spiral of turning the tap on just that little bit more. At one stage I was doing four kilos of bath salts a day. I was chucking everything in there, bottles of Evian, you name it..ooh la la la la la la laaaaaaa la laaaa la laaaaaaaaa-ahaaaaaaa...‘
In 1986 the pair, who became lovers after Stewart fitted a power shower at his London pied-a-terre, decided to go their separate ways citing musical differences, though industry insiders allege they fell out after an abusive row over a rubber duck.
Stewart, meanwhile, although free from water addiction, has been wanted in connection with Sex Crimes since 1984.
