Jimmy Barnes has opened up about a harrowing period in his life when he attempted suicide in a hotel room.
In his latest Channel Seven documentary, “Working Class Man,” which aired on Monday night, the 69-year-old singer recounts reaching a breaking point in his struggle with alcoholism during a 2012 visit to Auckland, New Zealand.
Having consumed the entire minibar and taken sleeping pills, Barnes found himself contemplating the end.
His wife, Jane, then 67, lay asleep beside him as he wrestled with these dark thoughts.
“I thought Jane would be better off without me. I am gonna leave,” Barnes reflected on his mindset at the time.
“I couldn’t get any lower emotionally, spiritually. I was just messed up,” he continued, describing how he found himself “pouring alcohol and pills” down his throat in a daze.
Jimmy Barnes has shared the devastating moment that he attempted suicide in a hotel room. Speaking in his new Channel Seven documentary, Working Class Man (pictured), on Monday, the singer, 69, says he had hit a low point in his battle with alcohol in 2012
‘I think about ending it. Never having to face myself again,’ he said.
Barnes blacked out, and when he woke, he saw the sash from his robe tied around the clothing rail in the wardrobe, ‘where I must have left it.’
The star said that he was ‘waiting to die’ but either ‘luck or fate’ stepped in that night.
‘And it was like, holy s**t. But I didn’t die. (I decided) something’s got to change. This is it, something’s got to go,’ he said.
Barnes decided to see a psychiatrist after that episode, where he talked through the childhood trauma he had suffered at the hands of his violent father.
‘I was sort of being smothered and suffocated by memories of bad things. I tried to lay bare all the stuff from my childhood,’ he said.
Jimmy has always been honest about his battle with personal demons in the past.
He previously recalled the devastating time he came face-to-face with a man who had taken his own life in a parking lot – a moment which went on to haunt him throughout his life.
The rocker’s wife, Jane, 67, was sleeping beside him when he was gripped by dark thoughts. Pictured together in a throwback image
Jimmy and his wife Jane have been married since 1981
Speaking to The Courier Mail, Barnes detailed how the 1984 incident was one of the reasons he attempted suicide himself, as he discussed his new tell-all book on his life, Killing Time.
‘I remember I was downstairs for an hour sitting with him, waiting for an ambulance to come. I didn’t want to leave him alone in this pool of blood,’ the Cold Chisel singer said.
‘I just sat there with him thinking “How could you do this? Why did you do this?” It was a bit of me talking to myself in a way.’
Moments before, Jimmy said he had stood on his own balcony wrestling with his own troubled thoughts about suicide.
And it wasn’t the first time, he admits.
Jimmy added that following the death of AC/DC’s Bon Scott in 1980, he had found himself contemplating taking his own life as he drank a bottle of vodka on the edge of ocean cliffs at The Gap in Sydney.
‘I had to move away because it started to be enticing, you know, thinking of a way out,’ he added.
Jimmy and his wife Jane have been married since 1981.
He believes his suicide attempt was a ‘subconscious thing’ and came after years of battling demons from his childhood and his addictions.
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