NINETIES pop star Ben Watt hit the big time in both the 80s and 90s as one half of Everything But The Girl.
But although he is still heavily involved in music, Ben has turned his back on the bright lights of fame and the dizzy heights of showbiz.
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Ben, who is married to his Everything But The Girl (EBTG) co-star Tracey Thorn, now runs own deep house and techno record label.
He also spends his time heading up an environmental pressure group Cool Oak, which fights to make positive change at the Brent Reservoir (Welsh Harp).
Ben and his fellow activists campaign for cleaner water, restoration of marshland and better flood resilience.
The musician told his local newspaper the Brent & Kilburn Times: “Unlike other London reservoirs, it is not a concrete pool. It is an ancient shallow flooded valley with natural blurred edges, with fragile rare plants, a huge variety of visiting birds, not to mention a long social history.
“We need to be inspired by a place like this, not dump mattresses in it, or fill it with toxic water and sediment.”
Ben met his now-wife and co-star Tracey at Hull University in 1981 and they shared a love of music.
They both signed – separately – to the same independent record company, before later joining forces and forming a duo.
Everything But The Girl was born and they went on to achieve four top 10 singles and 12 top 40 singles in the UK charts.
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They also achieved eight gold and two platinum album BPI certifications, too.
Fans will best remember the 1988 cover of I Don’t Want to Talk About It, which landed at No 3 in 1988, and the iconic track Missing, placing in the same top spot in 1995.
Missing also earned Ben and Tracey a Brit Awards nomination for Best British Single and rocketed to No 2 in the Billboard Top 100 in the US.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes during his heyday, Ben was battling some serious health issues.
In 1992, he was diagnosed and hospitalised with an extremely rare auto immune condition called osinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA).
The NHS states that it is a form of vasculitis, which causes inflammation within blood vessels.
Ben went on to write about his diagnosis and living with the condition in his memoir Patient – The True Story of a Rare Illness.
The book was listed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Sunday Times Book Of The Year and a Village Voice Literary Supplement Favourite Book of the Year.
In 2014, Ben also penned a second memoir called Romany and Tom.
The book is about his parents’ lives and marriage.
Ben and Tracey married in 2009 after 21 years together and they have three children.
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