Artist Sebastian Horsley ‘went on heroin bender’

The self-publicist, artist and libertine Sebastian Horsley, who was found dead in his London home yesterday, is understood to have suffered a suspected heroin overdose. Horsley, perhaps best known for undergoing a non-fatal crucifixion in the Phillipines in the name of art, was just 47.

Horsley’s girlfriend found his body in his Soho flat yesterday morning. Friends said Horsley, a former addict who had been clean for some months, had gone on a heroin bender after the funeral of a close friend, Michael Wojas.

Wojas was the proprietor of the Colony Room Club, whose habitues once included Francis Bacon and Peter O’Toole and, more recently, Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst. Horsley was also a regular, and is said to have been distraught at Wojas’s death.

Horsley was one of the best-known Soho faces. Dandy in the Underworld, a play based on a cult memoir he wrote with that title, opened at the Soho theatre two days ago. Last night’s performance was cancelled as a mark of respect, but organisers said the show would go on.

According to the Daily Mail, the play may also have affected Horsley’s emotional state on Wednesday night. After the first performance, he said: “I'd rather be crucified again than sit through that. I knew I was obnoxious but I never knew how much.”

Horsley’s memoir started with his difficult childhood as the son of wheelchair-bound alcoholic millionaire chairman of Northern Foods, Nicholas Horsley. After a short-lived marriage, Horsley Jr made a fortune on the stock market and then re-launched himself as an artist.

Dandy in the Underworld describes, with unflinching honesty, Horsley’s predilections for alcohol, drugs and prostitutes. “I have invested 90 per cent of my money in prostitutes, the rest on Class A drugs, the remains I squandered,” he once said, paraphrasing George Best.

In 2002, Horsley committed the stunt he may be best remembered for, travelling to the Phillippines to be ‘crucified’ as preparation for making a painting of Christ on the cross. Horsley’s hands were nailed to a wooden cross without anaesthetic, causing him to faint.

A foot-rest later gave way and the flesh in Horsley’s hands was torn as he fell. As he later recalled with characteristic humour: "I have been punished by a God I don't believe in and he has thrown me off the cross for impersonating his son, for being an atheist, and for being a disaster. I have made a complete fool of myself."

The police have not confirmed that Horsley overdosed, but said that his death was not being treated as suspicious. ·