FALLEN television star Michael Barrymore has told how he came close to killing himself after a man was found dead in his swimming pool.

The comedian claimed he reached rock bottom after Stuart Lubbock's body was discovered in the grounds of Barrymore's Essex mansion in March 2001.

He said: "Although I have been a couple of times to the jumping-off point, I didn't kill myself. If I had, it would have completed the story."

Barrymore added: "I never shy away from the fact that I'm an alcoholic and that I have had my problems, but I've never murdered anybody."