Jared Harris had stomach pumped after drinking paraffin

Perth Now

09-07-2025

Jared Harris had his stomach pumped after accidentally drinking paraffin.
The Mad Men star, 63, has revealed he underwent emergency treatment as a child after one of his brothers convinced him to drink a bottle of cider, which turned out to be paraffin and the health scare meant he missed the TV broadcast of the moment astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon in 1969.
Jared told Radio Times magazine: "The Apollo programme was such a big thing when I was young. Unfortunately I missed the Moon landing because my older brother had discovered a bottle of cider and persuaded eight-year-old me to drink some.
"Only it wasn't cider, it was paraffin! So we were having our stomachs pumped when Neil Armstrong was walking on the Moon."
In the interview, Jared went on to talk about his experience of fame, admitting he's pleased that he can walk around without being "bothered" but life in the spotlight can often be quote bizarre.
He explained: "I can walk down the street and not be bothered. My take on fame is that it's a hall of mirrors, like at a funfair, and it distorts the way people look at you and how you see the world. It's extremely difficult to deal with."
Jared also admitted one of his life's biggest regrets is that he never shared the screen or the stage with his actor father Richard Harris, who died in 2003.
He said: "It's one of the regrets of my life that didn't happen. There were a couple of times that we tried to.
"There was one point when we were trying to put together a production of [Eugene O'Neill play] Long Day's Journey into Night, but it didn't happen.
" I was always impressed by the detail in his performances. I was constantly discovering something new in the thought process of what he was trying to get across. I think it would have been amazing."
The late acting legend was a notorious hellraiser and his drinking prowess was the talk of Hollywood, but Jared previously insisted the screen star always toned it down in front of his three sons following his divorce from their mother Elizabeth Rees-Williams.
Jared told the Big Issue magazine: 'Growing up, my two brothers and I were the one constant, because my parents were divorced. So we would move from one to the other over the holidays.
'My father loved kids. He loved the anarchy of children. He was incredibly indulgent as a parent. My mother was much stricter with us. He was very accepting and very open minded and incredibly generous."