{"id":77438,"date":"2025-08-18T12:51:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/77438\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T12:51:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:51:06","slug":"what-happened-to-alex-lloyd-his-australian-story-episode-is-a-tremendous-act-of-bravery-australian-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/77438\/","title":{"rendered":"What happened to Alex Lloyd? His Australian Story episode is a tremendous act of bravery | Australian music"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a musician disappears from the public view, most of us would hope they\u2019ve simply opted for a quieter life, rather than struggling in obscurity or walking a darker path into the ugly morass of showbiz. I\u2019m glad that Pete Doherty swapped \u201ccrack for camembert<\/a>\u201d and that Elton John opted for sobriety \u2013 though surviving addiction has given John a unique perspective on many things, including toddler tantrums, as he wrote in his memoir: \u201cYou think you\u2019re being difficult, my little sausage? Have I ever told you about the time I drank eight vodka martinis, took all my clothes off in front of a film crew and then broke my manager\u2019s nose?\u201d<\/p>\n

So it was with a strange sense of relief that I watched this week\u2019s Australian Story about Alex Lloyd, the singer-songwriter behind the 2001 elegiac pop hit Amazing. Twenty-five years ago, it was hard to avoid Lloyd, who has sold more than 1m albums, or Amazing, which was a once-in-a-decade crossover hit that topped the Hottest 100, was thrashed on commercial radio and eventually went where all good pop songs go to die: television advertising. (Last year, someone even edited Amazing\u2019s Wikipedia page to describe it as \u201cthe song from the Woolworths ad that makes everyone want to kill themselves.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Some of what happened to Lloyd after Amazing is already known: he moved overseas, had children, recorded more albums, then he seemed to disappear. But Australian Story revealed what happened before his rapid rise in his 20s. His memories of the domestic violence his mother endured. How he\u2019d wander the streets of Sydney singing to himself before finding a childhood career in busking. His retreat into food for comfort. His mother\u2019s sudden death from cancer when he was 16.<\/p>\n

We also learned more about what came after. In 2009 Lloyd was accused of stealing the lyrics of Amazing by another musician, who claimed he co-wrote the song with Lloyd soon after his mother died. But Lloyd\u2019s accuser got the year she died wrong, and withdrew his claim soon after the case reached court. Lloyd was awarded full costs, but it left him $300,000 out-of-pocket and forced him to revisit his childhood trauma \u2013 which, he says in the episode, \u201cjust comes and bites you in the arse\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lloyd\u2019s marriage disintegrated. He binge drank and comfort ate; at his biggest, he weighed 168kg. He developed nerve pain due to a lack of cartilage between two of his vertebrae and was prescribed oxycodone. The drug \u201cwas fucking awesome \u2013 too awesome,\u201d Lloyd recalls with a dry laugh. Things improved briefly: he stopped drinking, started running \u2013 and became addicted. \u201cI had no idea what I was getting into on that drug \u2026 I tried to get off it myself so many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lloyd remains on buprenorphine, an opioid replacement. \u201cI still have to take a little bit just to feel mentally OK,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s pretty sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Celebrity culture remains frighteningly inhumane, but Lloyd\u2019s Australian Story episode is a heartening reminder of how far we\u2019ve come since the 2000s, during his first turn at fame. For the most part, we remember famous people are people too; it is a rare celebrity who doesn\u2019t admit to some kind of anxiety in interview. At the peak of his success, Lloyd recalls being \u201cscared shitless\u201d and masking his anxiety with alcohol. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a name for that stuff at that time,\u201d he says. \u201cYou just had to man up, that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the most touching part of the episode is the spirit of generosity that pervades it. Lloyd is clearly distressed while standing outside his childhood home, but he persists anyway \u201cbecause there\u2019s a lot of kids who get fucked up by this\u201d. He now volunteers with kids who have survived trauma. \u201cI don\u2019t pretend to be someone who understands how to deal with childhood trauma; I\u2019m just someone who\u2019s been through it,\u201d he says, as if this was nothing.<\/p>\n

While his speech now sounds a little more fragile, Lloyd\u2019s singing voice remains strong; his first studio album in 12 years is coming out later this year. His friend and broadcaster Adam Spencer speculates that the episode airing \u201cis going to be a massive part of his healing\u201d. Anyone watching this tremendous act of bravery would say: welcome back Alex Lloyd \u2013 and we hope it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a musician disappears from the public view, most of us would hope they\u2019ve simply opted for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-77438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}