Ben Cousins interview: Fallen Brownlow medallist finds joy in son’s footy dreams

Fallen AFL legend Ben Cousins is set to shed light on his dramatic struggles with substance abuse, revealing in a sobering new interview his eight-year-old son has expressed a desire to follow in his footsteps to an AFL career.

BEN Cousins’ eight-year-old son has taken a shine to football with heartwarming footage of Bobby Cousins watching his old man light up an AFL field featuring in a new documentary.

After Cousins’ third stint in prison his son also warned that he would have to “do something professional” before a reality TV show would accept him.

“I haven’t pushed (Bobby) into (footy) or whatever, but he’s got a bad case of it at the moment,” Cousins, 41, said.

Ben Cousins is opening up to Seven about his life's struggles. Picture: Seven

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“When I got out (of jail) last time I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here was on, so my boy he just loves f***ing spiders and lizards and snakes and everything.

“I said to him, ‘Would you like dad to go on that?’ He goes, ‘I’d love you to go on that, dad’.

“But he said, ‘I think you have to do something professional first.’

“F***ing not far from the truth.”

Bobby proudly said, “My daddy” as he lay in bed watching highlights on a laptop of Cousins in his heyday.

Cousins maintained that the death of Chris Mainwaring shocked him straight 13 years ago, despite the Brownlow Medallist’s life continuing to spiral out of control ever since.

Cousins was one of the last people to see Mainwaring alive before the sudden death of his former teammate from a suspected drug overdose.

Asked why the death didn’t shock him straight, Cousins replied: “Well it did, I think. Yeah, it did.”

Reporter Basil Zempilas followed up with: “But you used drugs again after his death …” in Channel 7’s documentary Ben Cousins: Coming Clean, which airs on Sunday.

Ben Cousins is opening up to Seven about his life's struggles. Picture: Seven

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Cousins, who has grown long hair that is tied back in a ponytail and is sporting a thick beard flush with grey hairs on his chin, then twitched uncomfortably in his chair.

Cousins said his advice to a young person who was offered drugs at a party would be: “To encourage them to think long and hard before they decide to go down that path”.

But Cousins couldn’t help but grin while tossing a Sherrin between his hands at a park.

“There’s something about a new football,” he said.

“The smell, the touch. My shoulders pick up and I get excited. It makes me happy, makes me smile. I love it.”

In an earlier excerpt, the fallen West Coast champion could not emphatically deny that he had used drugs five days into filming with Channel 7.

Originally published as Ben Cousins interview: Fallen Brownlow medallist finds joy in son’s footy dreams