James Hooper: The crash, alcoholism, getting the sack, and the new job
In the latest episode of Chiming In, Steve “Chimes” Gillis’ sits down with James Hooper in a brutally honest account of Hooper’s battle with alcoholism, the ute crash that ended his media career and his determined steps toward redemption.
The night everything fell apart
Hooper doesn’t mince words from the start, explaining he’d been “in the sin bin and rightly so.” On July 31, 2025, blackout drunk and five times over the legal limit, he ploughed his ute into three parked cars, fled the scene (caught on CCTV by a neighbour) and eventually returned to slur to police, “Boys, you got me, I’m blind.” He has no memory of driving, just hazy cop-shop snippets, and woke up the next morning in his son’s room thinking it was a nightmare—until peering out the window confirmed his ute was gone. “I’d tipped [myself] upside down and set my career and life on fire,” he says. Sacked from Fox Sports (within hours), NRL 360 and Triple M’s Sunday Sin Bin almost instantly, he insists they had “no option”—$75k in uninsured damage piled on enormous debt, but crucially, “someone could have died... I deserve to be sacked.”
A lifetime with the bottle
“I’m an alcoholic every day of the week,” Hooper declares, noting a family history of alcholism—dad, a journo who died an alcoholic after bolting at age nine. Raised on grog culture, he started at 14, progressing from weekend binges to daily drinking after buying a house 100m from a pub—“that very quickly then became my lounge room.” He admits morning drinks at home, stashing bottles from his wife and kids, and tuning out mates who tried to intervene. Earlier red flags—like going MIA in Vegas, missing Raiders training access and police charges for property damage—all circle back to alcohol. “I’d flown close to the sun too many times previously on the grog.”
Facing the family wreckage
The family fallout hit hard. He sat his wife and kids (13 and 12) down; his daughter was “very upset,” his son stoic at first but shaken by bedtime. Bracing for his wife to “empty the chest of drawers onto the front lawn,” she instead clipped him: “You’re a bloody idiot,” then pivoted to, “You got to get some help... you’re going to get through this.” She “saved” him, Hooper says, earning “10 Olympic gold medals.” Guilt and shame lingered for months; he shunned media work, feeling he’d “lost the right to earn a living” there. Social media erupted (he ditched it years ago—“one of the best decisions”) with his phone “lit up like a Christmas tree,” but street encounters skewed supportive: “Most people... put an arm around someone if they’re struggling.” NRL support poured in—even from “enemies”—capped by Johnny Lewis telling him, “I’d like to be putting a set of robes on your son... keep that mentality, you’ll be okay.”
The hard yards back
At rock bottom, Hooper eyed three paths: pub pity-party, fetal-position “mental health” excuses (he clarifies he’s not knocking genuine cases) or the Aussie fighter’s reset—“dust myself off... put the mouthguard in.” His lawyer linked him to Jan Earl, addiction specialist and “Shandor’s mum,” who he credits with saving his life. When his gut screamed for a nerve-settling drink, she “put the size 15 straight up the salmon”: 90 AA meetings in 90 days, no misses, plus weekly Street Buffet service in Woolloomooloo feeding the homeless. He treads lightly on AA details per its anonymity (“what you see here, who you see here, let it stay here”), but praises “fantastic people” whose lives transformed and its global reach. Early days were tough and sleepless but he locked in a brutal routine: 4:30am buses to Mona Vale for boxing, therapy, then graft. Court brought a six-month driving ban, fines, 18-month good behaviour bond and a magistrate’s stark warning of jail ahead if unchanged.
Trucks, shovels and second chances
Post-court, he marched into John Bull Removals & Storage: “I just got through court... lost my licence... crashed into three cars... can’t drive your trucks, but I’ll work hard.” 15 minutes later the boss called and asked Hooper to, “Start at 7 tomorrow.” Today, no daily drinking—“I understand the pitfalls... better than most”; doctors would ban booze forever, and media won’t touch a “piss wreck.” For now, Hoops' focus is on another solid week in the removals trade, and the launch of his new show on Fanatics TV, Rubgy Leauge Insider - launching this March!
