Why was Steve Coogan blamed for Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt?
British comedian and actor Steve Coogan rose to prominence in the 1990s, portraying the eternally awkward and hopeless broadcaster Alan Partridge. In contrast to his unsuccessful and increasingly isolated character, Coogan enjoyed a seismic lurch to stardom, and by the turn of the century, he was a common feature on UK screens and had begun to break America.
While his success as a comedian and actor earned high praise on an international level, the media began to pick up on his inner party animal. As far back as the mid-1990s, there were rumours of Coogan enjoying a rock star lifestyle. In fact, in a 2017 interview with John Doran for the Noisey British Masters series, Liam Gallagher recalled a comical encounter with Coogan from Oasis’ heyday.
“I love Coogan,” Gallagher said. “I partied with him once, there was a wedding going on, Me and him are sat at the bar, having a couple of drinks. Loads of people come in and they’re going ‘Liam, are you going to sing ‘Wonderwall’?’.
“I was like, no none of that nonsense. He’s going, ‘Leave him alone, I’ll sing a song’. And I don’t think they really knew who he was. And he got up on stage and sang ‘It’s Not Unusual’ by Tom Jones, but fucking mega. Anyway, we drank loads of Guinness and gone up to our room and we crashed out. I woke up in the morning and I see this lump in the bed. I go, ‘Oh God, who’s this?’. A little tap on the fucking [shoulder].
“He’s fully clothed and he goes [mimes throwing back duvet] ‘Ahaaaaaaa!’”
Over a patch in the mid-2000s, tabloids spread stories of the Hyde to Coogan’s Jekyll, who enjoys an ample share of fast cars, cocaine and coitus. In 2005, he was briefly engaged in a romantic affair with Kurt Cobain’s ex-girlfriend Courtney Love, and a year later, he became particularly close with Hollywood star Owen Wilson after the pair starred together as feuding figurines in Shawn Levy’s Night at the Museum.
Wilson and Coogan had become acquainted in 2003 after the latter approached the former about a potential role in his first Hollywood film, Around the World in 80 Days. However, the bond became stronger in 2006, and the media began to take an interest.
Tragically, Wilson was reported to have made an attempt on his own life in August 2007. In the aftermath, the media turned its eyes toward Coogan, fuelled by accusations made by his’s former lover, Courtney Love.
“I went through it with Steve,” Love told US Weekly at the time. “I was just out of rehab, and he was right there with the drugs … I tried to warn Owen. I tried to warn his friends … I hope from the bottom of my heart that Owen stays the hell away from that guy.”
As the hysteria mounted, it was reported that Ben Stiller, who had joined Wilson and Coogan during a visit to London to promote the 2004 film Starsky & Hutch, was told by his wife, Christine Taylor: “If you ever go out with that man [Coogan] again I will divorce you.”
Some outlets alleged that Kate Hudson gave Owen Wilson a similar ultimatum before she broke up with him in 2007. It is understood that after Husdon left, Wilson’s drug habits worsened, leaving him with crashing lows between the highs. “When Owen is out on the town with Steve, they seem obsessed with being at the centre of the party, surrounding themselves with the most trashy girls, doing the most coke, running up the biggest bar tab,” an anonymous source allegedly told the tabloid press in 2007.
Following the media frenzy linking Coogan to Wilson’s suicide attempt, the celebrated British actor issued a “curt denial” of Love’s claims instead of launching any legal action because he didn’t want to make Wilson’s situation any worse. “There is absolutely no truth in the allegation,” Coogan said while giving evidence at a public inquiry into the British media in 2011. “I had not been on the same continent as Owen for nine months prior to this episode, and I’ve never taken drugs with him or in his presence”.
Adding: “Primarily, I didn’t want to give the story legs, and my chief concern was my friend at that time. I didn’t want to shine a light on him when he was in that vulnerable state. I thought any emphatic courting of the press to protest my innocence, beyond that short, curt denial, would make life difficult for him.”
In 2009, Coogan reflected on the media blow-up of two years prior as an “unfounded, unhelpful and hurtful” story planted by Love. “It was a complete fabrication put out about by someone who had a different agenda,” he said. “In America, they realised it was bullshit as soon as they established that it was spread by someone who was trying to throw a grenade in my path. The industry made it very clear to me that they knew, so thankfully, it had no effect on my career or my friendship with Owen.”
“Yes, Owen did have a bit of a personal wobble between the first Night At The Museum film and the one we’ve just finished, but he is totally fine now,” Coogan asserted. “I spent last Thanksgiving with his family in Texas. We’re working together again this year. It never affected my friendship with him at all.”
When someone takes a self-destructive path in life, it can be easy to place blame on those in the periphery, targetting them as an influence, especially when someone of stature has an agenda to tarnish their name. In this case, it seems Love may have wanted to destroy Coogan’s career in the wake of their fling.
It’s hard to determine just how wild Coogan and Wilson’s nights together were and how much of a role they might have played in the latter’s mental decline in 2007. What we do know, however, is that Wilson doesn’t blame Coogan in the slightest; the pair are still good friends, and it’s been well documented that Wilson’s existential struggles and bouts of depression had begun long before he met the Alan Partridge actor.
Reflecting on his suicide attempt in a 2021 interview with Esquire, Wilson discussed a long-lived battle with depression, revealing that the idea of death “landed with me when I was about eleven.” Wilson also recalled a childhood conversation he’d had with his father about the daunting concept of death. “I remember exactly where in the house – saying, ‘I worry about dying,’ and seeing my dad turn away and catch himself. And I was surprised to see that reaction. But who knows, maybe that was part of why I said it,” Wilson pondered.
