Rupert Everett's Wild and Hedonistic Lifestyle: A Look Back

Rupert Everett has built a reputation for his wild, hedonistic lifestyle, which saw him experiment with heroin and sex work. The actor, now 67, shot to fame in 1984, starring in Another Country before becoming a household name in the comedy My Best Friend's Wedding in 1997.

But alongside his impressive acting credits, he has built a reputation for his wild, hedonistic lifestyle, which saw him experiment with heroin and sex work, as well as having an affair with the late Paula Yates while she was married to Bob Geldof.

Now 67, the actor, who stars in the new season of Rivals, has finally turned his back on his wild younger years, claiming he is 'less selfish'.

From Privileged Education to Sex Work

Rupert left his privileged education at 16 and was a movie star by the time he reached 22. The son of an army major, he dropped out of his posh Catholic boarding school and hotfooted it to London where he got high and had lots of sexual adventures.

Rupert enrolled in a drama school in London and to help support his means, he sold sex to make cash before before his behaviour got him expelled for insubordination.

The actor said he 'sort of fell into' sex work when he was approached outside a London tube station. At 18, his parents were worried for their son's future.

The Feud with Colin Firth

Rupert's big break came at 22 when he played Colin Firth's character's lover in Another Country in 1984 - before the pair engaged in a two decade-long feud.

His big break came at 22 when he played Colin Firth's character's lover in Another Country. rupert was then Hollywood's next big thing, bagging roles in classic films like Dance With a Stranger and playing Julia Roberts' gay best friend in My Best Friend's Wedding.

When he returned to London, he starred in a production of Noel Coward's play The Vortex, which is about drug abuse in Britain after the First World War. When a couple wrote to complain about his performance, he replied by sending them a cutting of his pubic hair in the post.

He then had a famous 20-year-feud with his Another Country co-star Colin Firth, who Rupert called boring. In return, Colin described the actor as a 'monster' and it wasn't until they worked together on The Importance of Being Earnest in 2002 that they reconciled.

Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins

Arguably worse than his feud with Colin was his tell-all memoirs, where nobody was let off the hook.

The public didn't realise quite how badly behaved he had been until he published his memoirs Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins in 2006, and Vanished Years in 2012.

He said that Alistair Campbell had 'a big knobbly nose that was made for aggression or at least cunnilingus' and Alan Sugar had 'that blunt insolence peculiar to all barrow-boy billionaires'.

In his first memoir, he wrote about finding out that his then boyfriend had been diagnosed with HIV and just walking away because he couldn't cope.

Rupert recalled how people would treat him during the AIDs pandemic, revealing gay people's plates were taken away to wash separately .