Calum Best has reminisced about an unusual night out with his father, the football icon George Best, when he was just a teenager.
Recounting the incident to Vanessa on 5, the one-time Celebrity Big Brother contestant shared the complex feelings that event left him with and explained his involvement with Nacoa UK, an organisation supporting children affected by parental alcoholism.
He recounted: "Imagine a 15-year-old kid in the pub getting in a pub fight..
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"I remember there was a time when I was probably about 14 or 15, I'd come over, and my dad's local was The Phene Arms in Chelsea, but back then it was like a rundown place.
"And I used to think, 'why do you want to be in this place?' But he was quite old school and like real Northern Irish... hard, sit in the corner, play his cribbage, drink his booze.", reports the Irish Mirror.
"One day, this Irishman shows up, this kind of hard, hard Irishman. I remember looking in and going, 'you're not someone you want to mess with'.
"We went around the corner to play pool at this other pub, and I'm very grateful, because now, I love pool. It was one of the things my dad taught me growing up in a pub.
"But anyway, my dad and his pal get in a fight with this guy in the street, and I'm thinking, 'oh my goodness, what's going on here?' I'm so young, but at the time, I loved it. It was all this entertainment."
Reflecting on a tumultuous past, the Love Island celebrity recounted a chaotic incident from his youth: "So we go back around to our local, I go use the bathroom. I hear this big old kerfuffle. The guy who they've got in a fight with has pulled his van up. Five people have jumped out, beat everybody up."
He continued, sharing the impact of growing up with an alcoholic parent: "The police come and now I think, 'God, imagine a 15-year-old kid in the pub getting in a pub fight' but that's what came with - and I'm sure many people can relate - it's some of the troubles that come with the illness and the traumatic experiences of having an alcoholic parent."
The reality TV star didn't realise his father's alcoholism until his teenage years, often finding himself in pubs with his dad, George. He even shared a memory of being left alone in a hotel room while his father went out drinking.
In a heart-to-heart with Vanessa, Calum Best expressed his aspirations for the future, revealing his thoughts on settling down: "I've been single for so long, it's going to take a lot for me to change the comfort of my ways... I strongly believe that when the time is right I will know and I will know the right person. I've been on dates, and had semi-long relationships but nothing's ever gone, 'ooh, this is it, this is right now'. But I am of an age when I'm thinking about a wife and I'm thinking about kids and I'm very excited about that."
Calum also touched upon the "troubled times" he faced when launching his business ventures, including his debut fragrance.
He reminisced: "It was after the first Love Island, I think in 2004, when that thing first originated, and we were all living the dream.
"I remember I got a call saying, 'you're going on this show, it's in Fiji, you're going to live on this island for six weeks'. And I booked it with my friend Fran Cosgrave, and we were friends before we even did the show. I remember just living on this beach and the camera and the drink. It was one of the best times in my life, obviously.
"But off the back of that being such a success, I remember I launched my first fragrance and it was the first time anybody in the UK had done it and it was a huge success.
"But back then, Vanessa, I wasn't clued into business. Those were my troubled times. I was just going, as long as you give me a little bit of money here and there and I would go spend it, you know, the same day at a nightclub. Whereas now, I understand business.
"I understand that you can't just live how I did then. And I want to - you to know what it's like - the older you get and the more you learn, you try to put all these tools into more success."
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English (United States) ·