Colin Farrell says son James helped him get sober

Colin Farrell has revealed how his son’s health problems inspired him to give up alcohol and drugs.

And now the former Hollywood hellbent is using his celebrity to help families who have members with intellectual disabilities through his Colin Farrell Foundation. Farrell’s son, James, 21, with ex-girlfriend Kim Bordenave, has Angelman syndrome, a genetic disorder named after pediatrician Harry Angelman, who identified it in 1965.

This results in a happy personality but with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, with symptoms including seizures and difficulties with speech and movement.

Farrell – who at one point estimated he drank three bottles of Jack Daniels, 12 bottles of red wine and 60 pints of beer a week, as well as using various other substances – said James “was two years old when I got sober”.

In an exclusive interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday, the actor – currently trending on TV in the title role of acclaimed Batman spin-off The Penguin, in which he plays brutally disfigured mobster Oswald ‘Oz’ Cobb – said ‘part of fuel that I used to get rid of alcohol and drugs and everything else was knowing that he (James) had health problems’.

He said that when James was born in 2003 ‘we thought he was perfect… well he’s perfect, he’s a lovely young man, but we also thought he was physically and neurologically perfect’.

James was initially diagnosed as having cerebral palsy, but “by the time he was two he was already having seizures and I knew he had profound developmental delays,” Farrell said.

It was Farrell and Bordenave’s dismay at the lack of adequate facilities that inspired the star to establish her eponymous foundation.

‘It’s been a struggle for us to find suitable residential care for James, and I thought, ‘If I’m having these difficulties, what about all the other families out there who don’t have anywhere near the resources I have?’ I always knew I wanted to do something about it, but until now I’ve been self-centered and busy raising my kids.

He’s ready to leave home and have a bigger life than we can afford, having a sense of community that he feels connected to, going out every day, going to the supermarket, the beach, the museums, the movies… a connected life.’

Farrell, who will run the Dublin Marathon this weekend for the Debra Ireland charity, appeared on Late Late on Friday night with Emma Fogarty, Ireland’s longest surviving person battling epidermolysis bullosa ( EB).

The pair raised more than half a million euros for charity after their appearance.

The Hollywood star was joined by longtime friend Emma Fogarty, who this year celebrated her “miraculous” 40th birthday despite having the most serious type of genetic skin disease.

The Penguin star told how he is preparing for the Irish Life Dublin Marathon next Sunday to mark the milestone and she will join him in a wheelchair for the final 4km of each kilometer, representing a decade of his life.

The “Run to 40” challenge has raised over €500,000 for Debra, the national charity helping 300 people living in Ireland with EB, with €415,000 raised tonight alone.