Look at this man, check out his Gucci blazer, his Turnbull & Asser shirt, his tiny hips in his Nudie jeans, the discreet bling at his wrists, his quiff-tastic hair razored along the temples like some rock and roll preacher from the church of studied cool.

In his rascally, cleft-heeled shoes he moves easily among the wealthy clientele of Lilibet’s, a plush Mayfair restaurant which specialises in seafood exotica such as anchovy eclairs and baked shellfish rice.

Not that he eats many carbs, his girlfriend and his mother are always nagging him about that.

What he really adores are the oysters, served here in several ways, including roasted with seaweed butter or doused in shallot vinaigrette. One iteration even dresses the oysters with apple and gin.

‘Obviously,’ he says, snapping shut the menu, ‘I don’t have that one.’

Meet Daniel Galvin Jr MBE, celebrity hairdresser, organic shampoo creator, amateur boxer, marathon runner, friend of King Charles, international crimper to the royal House of Saud, dedicated philanthropist and recovering addict.

He has somehow managed to create a business empire while battling his addictions; first to drugs, then to alcohol.

Daniel Galvin Jr is the fourth generation of the London-based Galvin hairdressing dynasty

He pays tribute to his parents and to his girlfriend, opera singer and Full Circle therapist Victoria Joyce (pictured), and his therapist Madeleine Clark, among others 

The celebrity hairdresser with Millie Mackintosh in 2012. He has somehow managed to create a business empire while battling his addictions; first to drugs, then to alcohol, writes Jan Moir

Daniel, now 56, has never done things by halves.

In his 20s he was addicted to cocaine, developing a £1,000-a-week habit before he stopped in 1998 aged 29 after a six-month stint in a US rehab facility. Later he transferred his affections to champagne, often drinking three or four bottles a day when he was at rock bottom.

His tipple of choice was Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle, now £190 a bottle. ‘Very fine bubbles, I loved it,’ he recalls. ‘It still gets the juices going when I think about it now, but I can’t do it. I can’t enjoy just one glass because it doesn’t stop there. It never stops there.’

Oh, the ecstasy and agony of the serial addict; just as much of a tragedy and a torture whether you are drinking vintage champagne on your Cotswold estate – as Daniel once did – or knocking back supermarket vodka in a shed.

For much of his career as a god-level hairdresser, tending to stars such as Kylie Minogue, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and Johnny Depp, Daniel was a high-functioning, high-rolling alcoholic.

He travelled the world drinking even more champagne in first-class plane seats, kidding himself he didn’t have a problem. ‘I became so entitled. I became grand. I’d only turn left on the plane, I thought I deserved it,’ he says.

Yet his struggle is just as real as the junkie he met on the London Underground late the other night, a barefoot husk with a tin of drugs and a crack pipe. ‘I gave him £20 and wished him well. And thought there but for the grace of God go I,’ he says.

In his remarkable journey, Daniel has been to rehab at least five times on three continents over 30 years. He estimates it has cost more than £350,000 to get him sober but believes it to be money well spent. ‘It is priceless,’ he says. He wants to talk about his recovery to help others who, like him, have stumbled along the way.

‘Think of it as a lapse rather than a relapse,’ is his advice. ‘And don’t give up, whatever happens and whatever happened to put you back there.’

Some of the things that happened to him were astonishing. In the spring of 2016, he was stabbed and attacked by muggers outside his salon. His boxing training – he once fought as a cruiserweight – saved his life but thieves did get away with his beloved £35,000 Cartier watch.

He was prescribed Xanax to help with PTSD after the attack. Disastrous! Daniel hadn’t taken drugs, apart from the odd paracetamol, since stopping cocaine. ‘All of a sudden, I was back in Narnia.’

He was prescribed two a day but ended up taking six at a time, washing them down with champers. In 2021 he was attacked by his stepson at home following an argument. It left him needing 14 hours of head surgery.

Another lapse came when he was DJing at an apres-ski party in Colorado – which I am beginning to understand is a very Daniel thing to do. He was offered a glass of sake and in the snakes and ladders game of addiction soon slipped back down to the bottom rung. He believes an addict’s dependency – along with using, lapsing, drinking and drugging – is all tied up with ego. ‘You say to yourself, I am great, I’ve been through a lot, I deserve this.’

Daniel credits his current sobriety almost entirely to Cedars, a South African boutique chain of rehabilitation centres which uses an action-based spiritual programme. ‘You’re being treated not by medics but by former addicts themselves. It is the SAS of rehab. It is brutal… they break you down and then build you back up again.’

He has interesting things to say about certain celebrated private rehab facilities in the UK, a few he has attended over the years.

‘Some leave you doped up on more antidepressants than when you went in. You don’t really learn… you don’t break the cycle. And they cost a fortune,’ he adds. Cedars costs £4,000 a month whereas many UK clinics charge that a week.

Still, it took two trips to Cedars – for five months in 2024 and three last year – for him to finally get sober. He has now been clean for nearly a year and is loving his life. Not least because he has found God and prays every day.

He also attends weekly Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, has regular therapy sessions, boxes four times a week, runs every day and somehow manages to fit in a few clients here and there, too.

He pays tribute to his parents and to his girlfriend, opera singer and Full Circle therapist Victoria Joyce, and his therapist Madeleine Clark, among others.

‘I’d like to thank King Charles and Coutts bank, too,’ he says, but I must stop him there, because this is beginning to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech.

‘I’m quite privileged in that I had a life, I had a home, family, people who cared. Yet for a long time all I wanted to do was kill myself and I even got to the stage where I plotted out exactly how I was going to do it. But now I am grateful to it all because it has brought me to this place of happiness,’ he says.

Daniel is the fourth generation of the London-based Galvin hairdressing dynasty. His father, Daniel Galvin Sr OBE, is the famed colourist for Princess Diana and Madonna and who, at 82, still works in his Marylebone salon.

But when does addiction start, what is the pinch point when it falls apart?

He finds it hard to explain but mentions he has always suffered from feelings of inadequacy, was bullied at fee-paying Millfield School – beaten up by boys wielding pillowcases full of rugby boots – and developed body dysmorphia and a desperate fear of failing.

The vicious mugging, the stepson attack and then a tricky divorce all added to his overload.

Galvin was made an MBE in 2021. He is a long-standing ambassador for the King’s Trust and helped create the Highgrove Baby organic hair and skincare range

It took two trips to Cedars – for five months in 2024 and three last year – for him to finally get sober. He has now been clean for nearly a year and is loving his life

He’s not saying this is what turned him into an addict, but equally none of it helped, either.

And, to be honest, neither did being wealthy: money allows addiction to continue simply because the addict can afford it.

Although it is fair to say Daniel is not quite as rich as he was. He lost his country estate and his Range Rovers in the divorce and lives in a flat in Kensington. He wears a plastic sports watch and he turns right on planes.

He has two sons in their 20s, Rhett from his marriage and James from a brief relationship with former topless model Gaynor Goodman.

What can I say? Daniel is a man who lived life loud and has pushed through to this happy place. ‘This is how I feel today,’ he says. ‘I’m grateful for Xanax. I’m grateful to alcohol, I’m grateful I got attacked, I’m even grateful for my divorce. Why? Because if I hadn’t been through all of that, I wouldn’t have the beautiful things going on in my life now.’

He travels to Saudi Arabia often; even flying there last week. There might be a war on, but Saudi women still need their hair guy and Daniel Galvin Jr won’t let them down.

He specialises in organic hair care and has developed specialised ‘Arabian Coffee’ products designed to counteract red tones while offering UV protection and preventing colour fading in arid climates. I say, ‘Wow. That’s very clever’. ‘I am a genius at what I do,’ he nods.

Whaaat? Daniel, I thought you had inadequacy issues! ‘I don’t say I am a genius from an arrogant point of view,’ he explains. ‘It is more that I understand I have an innate talent.’

He is a mixture of knowingness and naivety, fragility and strength, his body as thin as a dandelion but with arms that are solid muscle. From his perch within the empire of the elite he wants to show the world the wounded can be healed and with God on your side and an oyster or two along the way, anything is possible.

He is well-known in this restaurant and Gemma the maitre d’ brings over his usual mocktail order, a tray with a bottle of sparkling mineral water and three little glass dishes containing ice, lemon and bunches of fresh mint.

He mixes them all together in two big glasses and gives them a swirl. ‘This is as exotic as it gets these days,’ he says, passing one over.

Here’s to you, Daniel, I say, as we clink glasses. For one must wish this recovering addict, reluctant genius, royal crimper and battling survivor all the very best.