Sad reason huge 90s Aussie comedian Steady Eddy disappeared

Steady Eddy was an Aussie TV fixture in the 90s, with his hilarious jokes about living with a disability. Now, he reveals what happened next.

Steady Eddy was one of the most recognisable Aussie comedians of the 1990s, making frequent appearances on shows like Hey, Hey It’s Saturday and Tonight Live with Steve Vizard.

The comedian, real name Christopher Widdows, adopted his stage name to acknowledge the cerebral palsy he lived with up front – and similarly, his stand-up routines were filled with hilarious, self-effacing jokes about the reality of living with a disability.

In a new interview with the Courier Mail, Widdows, now 56, reveals why such a familiar face on Aussie TV in the 90s seemed to fade from view.

Steady Eddy was a regular on Aussie TV shows in the 90s. Picture: YouTube.

Privately, Widdows was battling with drug and alcohol addiction, something he struggled with for most of his peak TV career. He told the Mail there are whole sections of his career he struggles to remember at all.

“Robin Williams said a quote that you know you’re famous when people give you a kilo of cocaine for free and that’s what was happening to me, not to that extent of course, but free drinks and free drugs,” says Widdows.

“There’s a period of time I don’t have any memories of.”

Widdows told the Courier Mail that he got clean after he hit “rock bottom” in 2004, and is now 21 years sober.

At the height of his success, he was privately battling drug and alcohol addiction.

At 56, he’s now 21 years clean. Picture: Josh Woning

But he said the years of drug and alcohol abuse had worsened some of the effects of his cerebral palsy, which is an umbrella term for a group of conditions that affect movement and posture.

“Cerebral Palsy and doing drugs and alcohol probably wasn’t the best idea,” he says.

“It’s put me in a wheelchair a lot sooner than I thought and it’s impacted my life a bit more because there are certain areas I need a little bit of extra help.”

Widdows said he’s now unable to do simple tasks for himself like going shopping or changing a light bulb.

He now lives a quiet life in the Queensland town of Gympie, and focuses his energies on regular gym sessions to keep up his health and mobility.

Despite these setbacks, Widdows has also this year embarked on something of a Steady Eddy comeback, traversing the country on a national comedy tour, Return of the Stedi.

Originally published as Sad reason huge 90s Aussie comedian Steady Eddy disappeared