Former teen heartthrob Chesney Hawkes made millions from his hit song The One And Only but blew it all, and is now issuing a warning to others.
The musician, 52, has hit headlines as he’s rumoured to be entering Celebrity Big Brother this year after a rumoured line-up ‘leaked’, including the likes of Jojo Siwa, Mickey Rourke, Jack P Shepherd, and Trisha Goddard.
He is arguably best known for earworm single The One And Only released in 1991, which became an international hit after appearing in the film Buddy’s Song.
The movie starred Chesney as the titular character, and Roger Daltrey as his father.
While the track still makes semi-regular appearances on radio or chart shows, Chesney himself is far more out of the limelight than he was at the height of his fame.
He has since revealed he blew the fortune he made from his hit song and film — a whopping £8,200,000.
The musician recently appeared on the podcast My Dirty Laundry, where he admitted as soon as he ‘made it’ he was ‘blowing everything,’ from buying a state-of-the-art studio to treating his whole family to lavish gifts.
‘I would be thrown into the hurricane and I’d be gone. And then I’m off to Sweden and then I’m off to New York. I never knew where I was waking up for that first year,’ he said. ‘It was mental. It was really crazy.’
He recalled being so ‘burnt out’ from his hectic schedule that he once fainted in the middle of an interview from ‘utter exhaustion,’ and admits he sees himself in modern-day acts and worries about them.
Referencing Adele being forced to cancel a string of shows due to illness, he said he could ‘see it happening’ with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles.
He is believed to be worth around £8million again after pivoting his career to songwriting for other artists, the Mail Online reports. he has also sold the rights to the song that made him famous.
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His appearance on CBB is sure to bolster his earnings, but the musician has remained tight-lipped on his reality TV stint.
Appearing on BBC Breakfast this morning, he batted off questions about his turn in the iconic Big Brother House.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ when asked about the show by hosts Nina Warhurst and Charlie Stayt.
‘I don’t know where you got that from.’
When asked by Nina if he had any preparations for entering the house, he replied he would ‘probably sleeping if he was to do that.’
Far from being a one-hit wonder, Hawked followed his chart-topping single with I’m a Man Not a Boy, which peaked at 27 in the UK.
He has also released What’s Wrong with This Picture?, Stay Away Baby Jane, and Another Fine Mess which also all landed in the top 100.
His alleged CBB appearance wouldn’t be his first TV show, with Hawkes winning a bronze medal on The Games in 2005.
He has also starred in Let’s Dance for Comic Relief, Sing If You Can, and Hit Me Baby One More Time.
The star has now been settled for decades, having been married to model Krissy for 29 years, who he shares grown-up children with.
In 2023 the couple had a terrifying moment where they believed the plane they were on was about to crash, and Chesney spoke about ending a ‘sobbing’ voicemail to their children in case it was goodbye.
They were travelling from Greece to Barcelona when, without warning, oxygen masks dropped from above – and the plane began dropping.
He recalled the terrifying experience in an interview with The Sun. admitting he ‘thought we were going down.’
‘The pilot came over the loudspeaker and said, “Emergency descent — brace.”’
Air hostesses were frantically trying to get masks on their face, one ‘in a foetal position on the floor,’ and the plane was ‘rattling’ and began an extremely steep descent, as people around them became ‘hysterical.’
He and Krissy, 48, both believed it could be the end, and sent a voicemail on the family WhatsApp group to their three young children, ‘both crying [as] we told the kids how proud we were of them and how much we loved them.
Suddenly, the descent slowed – after dropping 20,000 feet in six minutes – and the plane was diverted to Naples in Italy.
The highly shaken couple were luckily able to delete the voicemail before their kids Casey, Jesse and Indi listened to it.
And before too long their spirits were lifted again as they arrived on land, with Chesney even grabbing the pilot for a grinning photo and calling him ‘captain fantastic.’
A version of this article was published on April 9, 2024.
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