[ad_1]
Marco Pierre White‘s troubled son has been released from prison vowing never to touch drugs again after spending more than £1 million on rehab – and today he reveals he has converted to Islam to help him stay clean.
Marco Pierre White Jr, 28, was this week released after a year in jail for a spree of shoplifting, possessing a knife, possessing heroin – and racially abusing a supermarket security guard.
But the Celebrity Big Brother star says he is being supported by his celebrity chef father after becoming a Muslim as he battles to ‘stay clean’ and reform years of drug abuse which began at the age of just 13. And he now plans to become a chef like his famous father.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, heavily tattooed Pierre White Jr confessed: ‘More than £1million has wasted because of my addictions. But Islam has helped me get through everything’
He said: ‘I have been in rehab 17 times and being in prison has made me realise that enough is enough.
Marco Pierre White’s son revealed in an exclusive interview with MailOnline that he had converted to Islam during his time in jail and is now determined to turn his life around
White Jr, pictured leaving HMP Bristol this week, was jailed for a year for shoplifting, racially abusing a supermarket security guard, possession of a knife and heroin possession
Pictured after his release from jail, the heavily tattooed former Celebrity Big Brother star admitted that time locked up in a cell had given him the opportunity to reflect on his mistakes
White Jr told MailOnline that his rehab to get off drugs has cost his famous father more than £1million and that he now wanted to stay clean for the sake of his young daughter, Arabella
‘I have been in rehab all over America and in the UK and the only thing that has cured me is being banged up in a cell for 23 hours a day.
‘I have realised how lucky I am and have been. I have seen all walks of life in prison and some people don’t have a chance in life. I have had every opportunity and I have thrown them all away.
‘I could have done anything I wanted to, but instead I did heroin and ended up in prison. I have been an idiot.’
Despite sipping a beer – Islam forbids alcohol – he revealed he now prays to Allah five times a day.
He said: ‘In prison I saw the lads going to pray. I would listen to them talking about the Islamic community and the Koran and I thought a lot of it made sense. I had a flick through the Koran and my interest grew.
‘When I prayed to Allah I asked for my sins to be forgiven and for him to make me strong and protect me. I asked for my family to be safe – and everything has come true.
‘This is crazy how everything works out for me. I do believe it has a lot to do with my prayers and my religion.’
Blaming his crime spree on his drug use, he admitted that without prison and his loving father’s intervention, he would have died or spent the rest of his days as an addict and in jail.
Marco was locked up in two prisons, HMP Bristol and Channings Wood in Ogwell, Devon and during his time he was beaten up by a gang of black inmates who found out he was among them for a race hate crime.
He lost three teeth in one punch-up and was eventually moved to a single cell for his own safety.
Over the past years, the former CBB contestant has been in trouble with the police as his life spiralled out of control. He was pictured being arrested in 2020
Despite being offered drugs, including the notorious Spice, in prison, Pierre White Jr says he stayed clean during his time inside
White Jr (right) is the younger son of celebrity chef Marco Pierre White (left). The reality star says his famous father has been his rock during his latest prison spell
One of the charges he pleaded guilty to that landed him in prison related to racially abusing a supermarket security guard. And in 2019 he was said to have used the n-word to a police officer who was arresting him for being drunk.
But he insisted: ‘I am not a racist and I didn’t use any racist words against the security guard who I got arrested over. I was heavily into drugs, but I would not be racist against anyone. I only pleaded guilty to it because I was fed up and had been on remand for six months and wanted it over with.’
Pulling up his t-shirt to reveal a six-line tattoo across his chest which is a quote from murdered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, he says: ‘He is one of my heroes. How can I be racist when his words and what he stood for goes with me wherever I go?’
The recovering drug addict has a three-year-old daughter Arabella Rose with his ex-partner and he said missing a year of her life while inside has also made him determined never to fall into drug use again.
He said : ‘When I was in prison, I’d speak to Arabella every day on the telephone and I always told her I was at work. I didn’t allow her to visit me as I didn’t want her to see her daddy in jail.
‘She would ask me ‘Daddy, when are you coming home, please come home’ and it would break me. I was in pieces every day crying my eyes out. I told her ‘Daddy will never leave you again.’
‘But when I got out last week her face lit up when she saw me. She hugged me so tightly and wouldn’t let me go.
‘She closed her eyes and said, ‘Daddy I don’t want you going again’. She really is the love of my life. I can’t let her suffer any more.
‘I wrote to my daughter and her mother every day to tell them how much I loved them.
‘I was doing the time, but so were they. They were doing the sentence as much as me. It was worse for them.’
The crimes that finally put him behind bars were the culmination of several years of having brushes with the law, but each time being given his freedom.
His public profile increased after her appeared on the 2016 edition of Celebrity Big Brother – but was evicted after just one week.
Such was his haphazard behaviour while high and his desperation for drugs, he said he sold a Rolex Daytona worth £27,000 for one gram of cocaine worth just £100 to a pusher in Kensington who called herself ‘Jackie Brown’ after the character in the Quentin Tarantino in the film of the same name.
He said he also traded a £19,000 Hublot watch which he had received for his 16th birthday for an ounce of cocaine.
But during his prison term, he also turned his demons and frustration on himself.
He showed off scars and cuts to his left arm where he had self-harmed and revealed he had been put on suicide watch as the harsh realities of his shattered life sunk in.
‘It is crazy that you can be in there for a small petty crime with people who are murderers, rapists and paedophiles. It is terrifying.
Despite being jailed for racially abusing a security guard White Jr (pictured outside Hendon Magistrates’ Court) insisted that he was not a racist
The celebrity chef’s son pictured doing community service. He was seen clipping hedges and picking up rubbish along the side of the motorway
‘When I first went in, I was off methadone and couldn’t sleep and people were screaming and shouting all night. It was a madhouse.
‘If you had your TV too loud, the next day the guy next to you was going to bang you in the face for keeping him up.
‘I was in a terrible situation, something I could never have imagined. I lived in Chelsea and had been spoiled.
‘I never had to ask for anything twice when I was younger. My father was always busy and would give me anything to make me happy.
‘My dad got me an apartment when I was 13 or 14 on Addison Road and Holland Park Avenue in Kensington. I lived on my own with a minder who did things like the shopping and looked after me. I had private education and home tutoring.
‘Before I went to prison I was leading quite a bubbled life. I was brought up in Chelsea, so seeing people in there you do realise for the first time a lot of people don’t have a lot.
‘I lived in the Beverley Wiltshire hotel in Beverly Hills for three years – and spent three years ‘partying’ in Ibiza.
‘I wanted to meet women and just party, I was out of control as a teenager and had too much money too young.
The CBB star lost three teeth in a fight and was stabbed in the neck after other inmates discovered his of race-hate conviction
‘And I didn’t exactly conduct myself properly when I first walked into the prison. I was showing off and the clothes I was wearing were too nice. It didn’t help my case.
‘I sold my Versace dressing gown and my designer shoes and clothes for tabs [cigarettes]. But at the same time I think I was targeted because who I was.
‘It was a story for them, they could go round saying ‘I battered him that guy off the telly with his famous dad etc’.
‘Now I was sharing a small cell with a murderer, him on the top bunk aged 55 and me below him and aged 27.
‘There was no privacy. There was an open toilet in the middle of the cell where you had to watch your cellmate and he had to watch you.
‘There was always screaming and shouting in the early hours from other cells and it was difficult to sleep. My anxiety even now is still at a high as I have only been out for a few days.
‘You couldn’t trust no one [sic]. I had about six fights in Bristol prison and yeah I started some of them. Yet I am not a violent man and had never had a fight before.
‘There was a prisoner who basically ran the block, and he told them never to touch me again or they’d be dis-respecting him and I was okay from then on.
‘But I had to get into fights, got stabbed in the neck and had three teeth knocked out which I will get sorted with some dental work now that I am out.’
He said having been raised on fine food by his celebrity chef father, he hardly ate the prison food particularly when he transferred to the Devon jail.
‘The sex abusers and paedophiles worked in the kitchen because it was safer for them. They didn’t have to walk through the main wing to work and could go straight from their cells.
‘But because they felt threatened the whole time it was widely said that the way they got their own back was to spit in the food.
‘So I ate noodle ramen the whole time which came pre packed and sealed. These meals were known as the ‘paranoid packs’ and you would also get a bag of crisps, coffee sachets and some biscuits.’
He said he was determined to stay off drugs despite being offered Spice [synthetic cannabis] and various pills inside prison.
‘When I was in court, I was just happy for it all to be over. I had been in rehab for a year for my addictions and it hadn’t worked.
‘As I went to jail, I knew that was it. Even though you can get stuff in there, I had enough of it all really.
‘I was offered drugs, phones and other stuff like Spice and tobacco. I didn’t buy any of it. I wasn’t interested.
‘I had just had my daughter and that was a big wake up call. Enough was enough.’
White Jr welcomed baby girl Arabella with his girlfriend, who does not share details about her life, after announcing the pregnancy on Instagram
White Jr says that he is determined to be the best possible father he can be for Arabella Rose
Once he had been sentenced to prison, he was given £20 a week by officials which could be spent on cigarettes, phone calls or other essentials.
But on remand, he said, his father sent him £200 a week and he would spend £50 a day on phone calls but he said he spoke to his estranged mother, Mati Conejero, only once while in jail.
He said his father has shown nothing but love for him and before his incarceration he freely forked out to try and save his son from his drugs hell.
‘I have been in rehab in Malibu where it was £80,000 a month and in The Priory it was £27,000 a week.
‘I was also in one in Kent, in Kensington and Utah. I was away for months at a time, but my addiction to heroin was far too strong.’
He said despite his father’s firm belief in him overcoming his addictions, he asked him not to visit him in jail.
He explained: ‘It was the same as with my daughter – I didn’t want my dad seeing me in prison. I have put him through a lot. He would have come, don’t get me wrong. He asked to come to prison to see me and he also asked to pick me up when I came out.
‘I didn’t want to put him in that position. In prison everyone knew who he was.’
‘From day one he has been the biggest supporter. He has never left me even though I have been hard work and put him through a lot.
‘Going to prison made me realise what I have put him through.
‘Since becoming a father as well, I know how much stress I put on my own father. If my kids ever did that to me, I don’t think I’d still be as supportive as my dad has been to me.’
In letters, he said, his father told him that loved and was proud of him. ‘Stay strong, please be safe. Look after yourself. Don’t worry we will get through this. You can come back to me and I will look after you’ he wrote.
Marco added: ‘If I hadn’t gone to prison, I think that would have been the end of the relationship between me and my dad. I want to stay sober and for him to be proud of me
‘I wouldn’t my dad to see me coming out of prison and to remember that all his son ever was, was a junkie.
‘His are big shoes to fill. ‘I think I am judged before people even meet me, they feel my dad is a great success and I am nothing compared to him. People see me as rich little f****r.
‘I think I deserved this punishment. The ways I acted was disgusting and the crimes I committed were unreal. I completely forgot who I was when I was on heroin.
‘I think this is my last chance to prove to him that I do want to do well. I don’t want to f****d around anymore.’
And he revealed he now plans to follow his father’s career path: ‘I am going to work in the family business as a chef. I can cope. My dad has taught me well when he could.
‘I was cooking the meanest curries in prison using the kettle as pots.
‘My dad says to me ‘If you put your mind to it, you can be better than me’ and that I am a wasted talent. He has always said that to me since I was a young boy. He would send me to the kitchens and loved what I would come up with and say ‘See . . . a waste of talent’.
‘I worked at Wheelers of St James with my dad six hours a day making pastries and I learned a lot from him.
‘My dad is amazing. He is the type of guy who if he finds out like one of his chefs is struggling, he is the type of bloke who will do anything to help anyone.’
His brother Luciano Pierre White owns several restaurants and his sister Mirabelle is managing a Michelin star restaurant in Oxford
‘I just wish drugs hadn’t taken over my life. But right now routine is the most important thing for me. I need the gym, my prayers, and my daughter.
Marco’s struggles with crime began four days after his reality show exit from Celebrity Big Brother when he appeared in a magistrate’s court to answer a drug driving charge when he was stopped in a BMW X5 and found to have 200mcg of cocaine in his system. .
White Jr, pictured in 2017, says in jail he sold his Versace dressing gown and designer shoes and clothes for cigarettes. He says he was targeted inside because who he is
Bristol Crown Court heard Marco Pierre White Junior had a privileged start in life and was from a good family after he pleaded guilty to 14 offences in August 2022
Marco Pierre White (centre right) leaves the Royal Courts of Justice in London in 2019 accompanied by his children Marco White Jr (left) and Luciano White (right)
In 2018, he announced he was attending AA meetings and at his trial which saw him sent to jail, he said he was then in rehab for alcohol addiction and before the incident in November had been sober ‘for a year and a half’.
In January 2019, he was convicted and fined after calling police officers ‘f*****s’ and ‘n******s’ while they tried to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly in a train station.
In June 2019, he was ordered to pay more than £1,000 for running out on a £27 restaurant bill after his debit card was declined.
The following month, it was reported he had to be dragged ‘kicking and screaming’ to a police station after being arrested for allegedly smashing windows during a row with his father in Wiltshire.
In July 2019, he appeared in court accused of making off from a cafe without paying the bill after his payment card was declined, loudly proclaiming who his father was.
Marco senior was the youngest ever cook to attain the coveted three Michelin stars and is credited as being a major influence on other leading British chefs, including Gordon Ramsay.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk