James Packer tells: my pain, panic and paranoia

Despite being sober, James Packer says a series of ‘very scary’ episodes forced him to resign from all his public commitments.

James Packer, left, with actor Warren Beatty.

James Packer has revealed a series of panic attacks and feelings of depression and paranoia led him to resign suddenly from all public commitments earlier this year and for the first time publicly acknowledge his battle with mental health.

Speaking about his revelation that rocked the business world, the billionaire said he had not consumed a drink during 2018 after years of battling alcohol addiction, which made him desperately worried when he was suddenly hit by bouts of panic and paranoia in mid-March.

“I have been sober during 2018. In March this year, I was experiencing major panic attacks and felt extremely depressed and paranoid. It was scary, very scary — ­especially as I was sober and thought I had been improving.

“It is very hard to come to any other conclusion than my problems and condition were not getting better; it felt like they were getting worse.

“I was desperately worried,’’ Mr Packer says in a new biography of his life, The Price of Fortune: The Untold Story of Being James Packer, which will be published on Oct­ober 22. “That is why I got off the Crown board (his casino company Crown Resorts) and why I said what I said publicly. I feel fine now. There are a lot of moments where I regret getting off the Crown board, ­because I think I am fine.

“But I have crossed that bridge and I know I can’t keep jumping on and off the board. Maybe I still have one more run left in me.”

After his resignation from Crown, Mr Packer also stepped down from the boards of 26 companies that operate within his Consolidated Press Holdings private company group, although he remains a director of the ­Bahamas-domiciled Consolidated Press International Holdings Limited, the ultimate owner of CPH. In The Price of Fortune, Mr Packer also reveals the depth of the friendship he developed with Hollywood actor Warren Beatty as he battled his alcohol addiction when he rented the star’s guesthouse, part of the latter’s vast ­estate on Beverly Hills’ storied Mulholland Drive.

They met when Mr Packer’s Hollywood movie production company RatPac Entertainment helped bankroll Beatty’s first screen-acting role in 15 years for the romantic comedy-drama Rules Don’t Apply in 2014.

RatPac, a partnership with Hollywood producer Brett Ratner, financed the film in a joint venture with New Regency Productions, owned by Israeli businessman and Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan.

“Warren is a very kind man living a huge life. He was generous enough to let me live in his guesthouse for almost three years,” Mr Packer said. “This is said with zero disrespect (to my father). Mum met and absolutely adored Warren. And Dad and Warren would have loved each other. I ended up calling Warren ‘Dad’.”

Beatty, who drove Mr Packer to visit psychiatrists in Los Angeles as the latter’s world fell apart during October 2016 after he broke off his engagement to pop singer Mariah Carey and 19 Crown staff were ­arrested in China for alleged gambling crimes, said his friend was now in a period of self-reflection.

“I don’t pry, but I think he’s in a process of self-analysis that we ­certainly don’t see in certain public figures … who are carrying infinitely greater responsibilities. This process is continual. I think we all need to continue to be re-examining,” said Beatty, long a proponent of the benefits of psychotherapy. “I think it is very open for him to come out publicly that he is ­attempting to evaluate the health of what he is going through.”

He and Mr Packer have lunch together every few months at the Beverly Hills Hotel’s famed Polo Lounge, a favourite with generations of Hollywood stars. “Warren has continued to be a friend, even when it was less ­fashionable to be my friend,” Mr Packer said. “And for that I am truly ­grateful.”

Mr Packer has made Los Angeles his base to spend more time with his children after paying about $80 million for the former home of Hollywood actor Danny DeVito in Beverly Hills. At the end of June, Mr Packer decided he would buy a property in Los Angeles, which for the past five years has been home to his second wife, Erica Packer, and their children, Indigo, Jackson and Emmanuelle.

In recent years, the break-up with Carey, the bitter division of his father’s estate with his sister, being drawn into a political ­corruption investigation by the ­Israeli authorities, his exit from RatPac and the Crown China ­arrests have combined to leave Mr Packer battling the third mental breakdown of his life. While he suffered similar breakdowns after losing hundreds of millions of dollars on the One.Tel disaster in 2001 and ­billions during the global financial crisis, this time Mr Packer said he had lost ­something far more important than money.

“Macau is so heartbreaking ­because I lost my reputation, and serious people treat me differently, both because of the charges that were levied against our staff in China and because we sold out of Macau,” he said. “This time, I have lost my reputation globally.

“I am not sure how easy it is to get it back a fourth time.”

The Price of Fortune: The Untold Story of Being James Packer, by Damon Kitney (HarperCollins, $45), out October 22.