Pop Scars

Born in Manchester in 1977, Anthony Kavanagh's rise to fame was stratospheric, scoring a record deal at the age of just sixteen and winning the much-coveted Smash Hits Male Artist of the Year Award in 1997, all the while appearing on countless magazine covers, performing on Top of the Pops and gigging alongside the Spice Girls. The stuff that dreams are made of. But Anthony - or Kavana as he had been christened - was also trying to keep his sexuality a secret while navigating his way through an industry where image was everything; where his success depended on him having to be exactly who he wasn't. What followed was a dark and dangerous spiral into addiction, an illness that would doggedly hound and baffle him for years to come. Popscars chronicles the highs, the lows, the lies, the debauchery, the hitting rock bottom and then finding out that rock bottom has a basement. Thirty years on, Anthony is ready to tell his jaw-dropping story. Pop Scars is a book about stardom, fame, addiction, grief and - ultimately - survival and sobriety.