Stephen Fry: 'Beethoven helps soothe my depression'

By Neil Wilkes, Editor-in-chief

Published: May 14 2020 | 16:02

Last updated: May 16 2020 | 16:05

Stephen Fry reveals that the music of Beethoven helps get him through episodes of depression.

Stephen Fry has opened up on his long battles with depression, bipolar disorder and suicidal feelings, crediting classical composer Beethoven for helping him through his toughest times.

The 62-year-old actor and comedian has been candid about his mental health issues and previous suicide attempts, most recently in 2012, and also documented his experiences in the Emmy-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive in 2006.

"There is a healing quality to [Beethoven's music] that helps... when combined with not drinking too much and walking and eating properly and the other things that supposedly help one's mental health," Fry told The Art Of Change podcast.

"One of the ways I cope with it is to bathe myself in music like Beethoven's and to think of people who have gone before me who have been lit by the flame of mania and danced by the icy water of depression."

Explaining what led him to attempting suicide, he added: "Inside you do not see the point of anything. Nothing has flavour or savour. Nothing has any meaning. Everything is just hopeless.

"There's no future. There's no sense of anything ahead of you. You have to hope something will stop you. In my case it was just failed attempts and waking up in a hospital."

Fry has also battled physical health problems in recent years and in 2018 revealed that he had undergone treatment for prostate cancer.