Jeff Brazier has revealed that he “tried going to the police” in an attempt to save his son Freddy from his addiction battle.
The television presenter, 47, opened up about the struggle of trying to keep his son safe on the On The Mend with Matt Willis podcast.
"To see your son suffer in that way and not be able to appeal to his better nature to stop that addiction cycle....I couldn't do anything to stop it,” he told the Busted member on Monday, October 19.
Freddy Brazier
PA
He revealed that the hardest part would be when the 22-year-old would suffer from psychosis after smoking marijuana.
“That's when his behaviour is not his own. And that's when he's just walking the streets. And you don't know what could happen to him.
“I've had to go looking for him on countless occasions and trying to bring him to safety, only for him to then flee the minute that you turn your back because he needs to be near the things that he perceives himself to need.”
He said he had tried blocking the door and even went to the police to try and help his son, though he admitted that: “I couldn’t do anything to stop it”.
Jeff had Freddy (right) and his older son Bobby, 23, (left) with Big Brother star Jade Goody (centre), who died in 2009 from cervical cancer (Yui Mok/PA)
PA Archive
The 47-year-old also opened up on his youngest son, whom he shares with the late Jade Goody, was also sectioned for his conduct, however it still wasn’t “enough for his behaviour to change”.
Jeff said he is still resolved to helping his son through his struggles no matter what, and believes that is what Goody would be doing too if she were still here.
The 22-year-old appeared with father Jeff on series two of the hit BBC show, which saw them travel over 7,800 miles from Belém, in Brazil to Frutillar, Chile.
LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 11: Jeff Brazier attends the 2025 BAFTA Television Awards with P&O Cruises at The Royal Festival Hall on May 11, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images)
Getty
Freddy said the filming of the show came at a “bad time” for him mentally, as it coincided with Mother’s Day when he wanted to be alone.
He ended up escaping from his hotel room in Brazil and heading down to the beach, where he bought some marijuana out of his strict BBC budget and smoked it on the shore with two strangers.
“I was very selfish. And looking back and, reflecting as I’m speaking, I was very selfish to do so because that could have cost us the show.”
He added: “But I feel like I needed that joint, honest to God, I felt like I needed that joint, otherwise I was getting kicked off the show anyways because I wasn’t in the greatest headspace and I didn’t want to be filmed on Mother’s Day.”
The 22-year-old has been open with his struggles with substance abuse, revealing elsewhere in the interview that he was sectioned as a teenager after going into “drug-induced psychosis” from smoking marijuana.