Former All Blacks and NRL star Sonny Bill Williams has revealed his early struggles with celebrity status and the pitfalls that come with it.
In his new book Sonny Bill Williams: You Can't Stop The Sun From Shining, Williams admits his shyness made NRL stardom an uncomfortable fit for the teenage prodigy and almost led to his undoing.
"One time, I went on a bender that lasted from Friday night to Monday morning," he says. "The only reason I came home is I knew I had a surgery appointment at 11am.
"I don't remember anything about the operations, except waking up having my girlfriend crying next to the bed and the doc really gave it to me, telling me I had so many drugs in my system, I could have died."
Williams has become one of New Zealand's most famous athletes over a career that starting with rugby league, as an NRL and NZ Kiwis star, and transcended to rugby, helping the All Blacks to back-to-back World Cup victories, with heavyweight boxing and Olympic sevens thrown in for good measure.
He has told his story to Once Were Warriors author Alan Duff.
These days, Williams credits his Muslim beliefs as a calming influence on his life, but admits his religious beliefs finally sparked his departure from rugby league.
"I turned up to training one day and the coach said to me, 'You aren't turning Muslim, are you?'," he says. "I tried to laugh it off, but then the comments were made about my friends.
"No-one had paid attention to my private life before then. No-one cared, when I was drinking or partying hard, as long as I was always doing what they needed on the field and it didn't make the press.
"People were starting to talk about the fact that I was keeping company with Muslims, asking why I was hanging out with 'those kinds of people'.
"This just brought out the steel in me and raised my hackles. I needed to change for my own happiness, contentment and to find inner peace, rather than blocking out all that need in the noise of partying."
This realisation led his controversial departure from Canterbury Bulldogs to play rugby in France, before returning to New Zealand and the All Blacks.
"I was overwhelmed, but didn't even understand myself why I had lost my way do badly, so I had no idea how to explain it to the media, the faithful Bulldogs fans, and coaches and team support staff."
Williams' book will be sold from October 13.
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