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My friend Matthew Mellon: the tragic truth about the billionaire playboy

Matthew Mellon died this week, aged 54 - CAMERA PRESS
Matthew Mellon died this week, aged 54 - CAMERA PRESS

Elizabeth Hurley heard the news of Matthew Mellon’s death on Monday night, when she was woken by a phone call from Henry Dent-Brocklehurst. Blinking into the dark, she was told the tragic news that her dear friend had died, aged 54, in a rehabilitation centre in Cancun, Mexico where he was being treated for an addiction to painkillers.

Many of us who knew Matthew had been dreading such a 'middle-of-the-night' call for years. He would joke to us that he had been to so many rehabs that he could write a Zagat guide to the world's best treatment centres. It wasn’t a surprise to any of us that his final days were spent in one.

I recall going to see him at The Priory in Roehampton, in around 2003. He told me he was “feeling great” after handing in a 40-page ‘autobiography’ to the doctor. “If anybody got hold of that document, they wouldn't be able to believe some of the things that have happened to me. It’s a miracle I’m still alive,” he said.

Since I first met him in the early Nineties - ironically, when he was newly sober - Matthew was always falling off the wagon. And he never did anything in small measures. One of the worst blips came when he decided to "numb" himself from the deterioration of his marriage to shoe designer Tamara by chartering a private plane to Corfu for a week of intense partying.

When he was in one of those moods, he would ring friends with little regard for what time it was. I once got a call from him around midnight; he wanted me to come over to a very smart flat that he had rented off Grosvenor Square. I recall him casually opening £1,000 bottles of Chateau Petrus and quipping he was going to “knock on the door of the owner of the flat above and see if he could buy it from him - tonight.”

Tamara And Matthew Melon  - Credit: Dave Benett/HULTON ARCHIVE
Tamara And Matthew Melon Credit: Dave Benett/HULTON ARCHIVE

Part of understanding Matthew was knowing that so much of his identity was tied up with his family name and living up the legacy of his ancestors. Much has been made of his role as a billionaire playboy - a darkly handsome but deeply flawed character whose life was straight out of a Jay McInerney novel. But the key point about him was that, despite being the beneficiary of a $25 million trust fund on his 21st birthday, he always had an uncomfortable relationship with his money and what was expected of him.

A descendant of Thomas Alexander Mellon, the founder of the bank of New York, his name was something of a poisoned chalice for him. I remember Matthew describing in elaborate detail how his great-great-great-grandfather had emigrated to America in 1818, without any money, and lived in a log cabin at 'Poverty Point’, not far from Pittsburg and where, aged 10, he used to dream of one day owning the luxurious Negley Mansion. Matthew liked this story, as Negley was the home of Thomas’s future wife, whom he relentlessly courted until she gave way.

Much of Matthew's life was spent struggling to live up to this legacy; that of the self-made Scottish-Irish entrepreneur, renowned for his frugality, iron self-will and work ethic.

His father Karl, was haunted by similar demons - both appeared to have what psychiatrists at the Priory called 'borderline personality syndrome'. He committed suicide when Matthew was 19.

It meant that Matthew was a much more complex and vulnerable character than the super-brat playboy figure that has emerged in recent days. He had an extraordinary candour and generosity of spirit, which although at times went 'over the top', made him unique. He was also incredibly funny, sharp (when not 'high') self-deprecating, and kind. Women loved him.

Henry and Lili Dent-Brocklehurst at Sudeley Castle Gloucestershire - Credit: Andrew Crowley/Andrew Crowley
Henry and Lili Dent-Brocklehurst at Sudeley Castle Gloucestershire Credit: Andrew Crowley/Andrew Crowley

“'Matthew was a good friend for over 25 years” says Elizabeth Hurley. “I was pregnant at the same time as his then-wife Tamara and, knowing I was single, he turned up one day and took me to a baby shop and made me choose all the equipment I needed, as I hadn’t organised anything. I’ve never forgotten that.”

Like Elizabeth, I first met Matthew in LA, when he was living with his friend Henry Dent-Brocklehurst, co-owner of Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire. Although an American, he preferred to hang out with ‘the Viles’ - a sociable group of ex-pat Brits whose lifestyle had similarities to the hedonistic Happy Valley set of Thirties Kenya.

Their mock Tudor manor house in the Hollywood Hills - just down the road from me - had castellated walls and a swimming pool moat. Matthew would spend much of the day floating around in inflatable plastic crocodile, with his phone clamped to his head calling 'models', arranging parties or doing 'deals'. Despite his infamously brief attention span, and disdain for the finer points of contractual details, Matthew had a surprisingly good instinct for business, if not always the administrative execution.

I can remember having long conversations with him in December 2003 - around the time he launched rubber-soled shoe company, Harry's of London, which had a concession at Harvey Nichols. It was especially important, as this was first time in several months he had been seen out in public with his wife Tamara, following speculation their marriage was over.

The pair were once described as London’s ‘golden couple’, but Tamara had reportedly had a fling in Ibiza with 22-year-old Oscar Humphries after Matthew disappeared on a three day binge. As Tamara described it in her autobiography, the final straw was when her dishevelled husband returned to their villa at dawn, swigging a vodka bottle, after several days 'missing' in Ibiza party action.

Matthew with his second wife Nicola Hanley in 2015 - Credit: Chance Yeh /Getty Images North America 
Matthew with his second wife Nicola Hanley in 2015 Credit: Chance Yeh /Getty Images North America

“In every city and country in the world, I have a fixer, either a man or woman, who organises everything for me and can get me anything I want,” Matthew explained. “My fixer was there in Ibiza and I wanted cocaine. I think that when things are going really well in my life, I tend to want to sabotage it, because I tend to think I am not worthy of it ... in my childhood I was given this message that I wasn't worthy of it.”

Which is why the Harry's launch was so crucial. It was to mark his re-entry into London high society as an successful entrepreneur in his own right. He was also celebrating the fact that, despite his antics - he had somehow sold the controlling 60 per cent interest for £1.3 million.

“I have been to the depths of hell and back in the past few months” he told me, as we chatted in his Eaton Place flat afterwards. “'I now need to spend time taking care of myself and the relationships that are important to me. I actually support those people who have sided with my wife. I don't have a problem with it. I deserved it. I have to accept the consequences of my actions.”

Celebrities who went to rehab
Celebrities who went to rehab

This was typical Matthew: self-excoriating and searingly honest in his judgement of himself. He rarely pretended to be anybody other than the flawed man he knew himself to be - and was refreshingly candid, too. He looked at me with his clear, sparkling blue eyes and said: “I can tell you now William. I am not going to relapse again in my marriage.”

At the time, his friends dearly hoped his eyes would remain clear - Matthew had an unusual knack of reinventing himself and bouncing back. His marriage to Tamara, with whom he had a daughter, did eventually end in a messy court case in 2003, but he subsequently married designer Nicole Hanley with whom he had a son and a daughter.

Of late, he seemed to have thrived in other ways. How Matthew managed to turn a $2 million investment in 'cryptocurrency' into a reported $ 1 billion - though a digital currency company called Ripple Labs - remains a mystery to many who loved him.

Whether he really made a billion, only the executors of his Will know. But the outward success of his investment saw him listed on the Forbes cryptocurrency rich list; an important vindication.

Alas, this renewed confidence was not to be repeated in his personal life. His second marriage collapsed and he failed to escape the long shadow of drug addiction. He tried, he always tried. But this last time he checked into rehab, another re-invention was not to be.