Freddie Starr - Later Career

Later Career

In 1994 Freddie Starr was again the subject of tabloid newspaper attention in Britain. Thousands of pounds worth of jewellery went missing from Starr's home where a man named Robin Coxhead worked as a gardener and Coxhead was suspected of stealing it. When questioned by the police, Coxhead claimed to have given oral sex to Starr over a period of five years, and that the jewellery had been given to him as a reward. The case went to court and Coxhead was discredited when he was unable to state whether Starr's penis was circumcised or not. Coxhead was found guilty and sentenced to 15 months in prison in 1995.

Starr is a keen supporter of Everton and at the height of his television celebrity he appeared on ITVs coverage of the build up to the 1984 F A cup final, in which Everton defeated Elton John's Watford 2-0, when he appeared on the lawn outside the hotel where the Everton team were staying on the morning of the game and gave an impromptu comedy performance to the players who watched from the windows of their rooms.

Apart from the occasional guest appearance, Starr has not been seen on British television since the late 1990s. ITV's The Freddie Starr Show, broadcast between 1996 and 1998, was his last major work for the medium. His appearances on LWT's An Audience with Freddie Starr in 1996 and Another Audience with Freddie Starr in 1997 were critically acclaimed, although Starr admits in his autobiography that his television appearances often failed to capture the chaotic atmosphere of his live performances.

In 1994 he was the owner of Miinnehoma, the winning horse in the 1994 Grand National race. Starr was not present on the day because of television commitments elsewhere, but gave an unusual post race interview live on television to presenter Des Lynam via a mobile phone, with the television viewers able only to hear Lynam's responses to what Starr was saying.

In 1999, he presented the game show Beat the Crusher. In 2004 he appeared on television as one of the celebrities in the second series of the ITV1 reality show Celebrity Fit Club, where he was made team captain, but was demoted three weeks later for not taking the role seriously.

In January 2008, Starr and his wife Donna took part in Celebrity Wife Swap, exchanging with Samantha Fox and her partner Myra.

In March 2009, Starr appeared in Living with the Dead, a reality television show about people being haunted by ghosts. Freddie claimed his 1930s house was being haunted by an evil entity which he called George. During the show it appeared that he was possessed by this entity. It is later revealed that the entity's name is Roger. During the episode, Freddie says that since he was a boy he was always spiritual and firmly believed in ghosts.

Starr was due to tour in 2010, but the tour was cancelled when he suffered a major heart attack in April 2010, resulting in quadruple heart bypass surgery. The tour dates were rescheduled for 2011 after he recovered.

Starr participated in the 2011 series of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, but withdrew for health reasons.