In a heartbreaking interview with the Overlap, the Everton attacker has spoken openly about his difficulties in recent years.
Alli was heralded as a generational talent during his early days at Tottenham but his career has not turned out the way many predicted.
The England star emerged as one of the country’s best young talents despite a troubled childhood that saw him taken into foster care.
And speaking candidly to Gary Neville, Alli has disclosed he spent a recent spell in a rehab facility and shared details from his traumatic childhood, including the revelation that he was molested a child by a friend of his mother’s.
Discussing his addiction, he said: ‘I got addicted to sleeping tablets, it’s a problem not only I have. It’s going around more than people realise in football.
‘Now is probably the right time to tell people. It’s tough to talk about it as it’s quite recent and something I’ve hid for a long time and I’m scared to talk about.
‘When I came back from Turkey (following a loan spell at Besiktas) I came back and found out I needed an operation.
I was in a bad place mentally. I decided to go to a modern rehab facility that deals with addiction and mental health and trauma. I felt it was time for me.
‘You can’t be told to go there, you have to make the decision yourself.
‘I was in a bad cycle. I was relying on things that were doing me harm. I was waking up every day, winning the fight going into training every day smiling – willing to show I was happy.
‘Inside I was losing the battle and it was time to change. When I was told I needed surgery I could feel the feelings I had when the cycle began.
‘So I went there for six weeks. Everton were amazing and supported I will be grateful to them for ever. For them to be so honest and understanding I couldn’t ask for anything more during a time I was making the biggest decision of my life – doing something I was scared to do. I’m happy I’ve done it.
‘There is a stigma around it and it something people don’t want to do. Going into rehab is scary but I could never have imagined how much I would get from it.
‘I was in a bad place. A lot happened to me when I was younger that I couldn’t understand and I was doing stupid things that I blame myself for.
‘Going there and learning about it, it was never really under my control.
‘Understanding learning it has helped. I let go of some bad feelings I was holding which was slowing me down.’
Alli shared harrowing details of his traumatic childhood, including an incident that saw him molested by a friend of his biological mother’s.
‘(My childhood is) something I haven’t really spoken about that much, to be honest. I mean, I think there were a few incidents that could give you kind of a brief understanding,’ Alli continued.
‘So, at six, I was molested by my mum’s friend, who was at the house a lot. My mum was an alcoholic, and that happened at six. I was sent to Africa to learn discipline, and then I was sent back.
‘At seven, I started smoking, eight I started dealing drugs. An older person told me that they wouldn’t stop a kid on a bike, so I rode around with my football, and then underneath I’d have the drugs, that was eight. Eleven, I was hung off a bridge by a guy from the next estate, a man.
‘Twelve, I was adopted – and from then, it was like – I was adopted by an amazing family like I said, I couldn’t have asked for better people to do what they’d done for me. If God created people, it was them.
‘They were amazing, and they’ve helped me a lot, and that was another thing, you know – when I started living with them, it was hard for me to really open up to them, because I felt within myself, it was easy to get rid of me again. I tried to be the best kid I could be for them. I stayed with them from 12, and then started playing first-team, professionally, at 16. It all sort of took off from there.’
After that I just felt so betrayed and let down. And hurt that I just couldn’t keep the relationship with my mum. And my dad, I don’t want a relationship with him either.’
Instead, Alli found solace not only in the close relationship he has with his adopted family, but in football, and in particular, his relationship with then-Tottenham coach Pochettino.
‘Mauricio Pochettino was the best manager and I couldn’t have asked for a better manager at the time. I was in him and his team, you know, not just him. There was Jesus (Perez), Miguel (d’Agostino) and Tony (Jimenez). They are amazing people and they’re so understanding, and it wasn’t like a footballer and a manager relationship. It was deeper than that, I felt.
‘He was just so understanding of the decisions I was making, and he was guiding – like, he cared about me as a person before the football, which is what I needed at that time. And I think that’s important for young players.
‘When you go somewhere it can be quite scary, I think. And I never had that fear of, you know, trying to prove myself in that sense, because I felt like he was giving me the platform to express myself the best I could and to be comfortable. I mean, players always used to say, ‘I want to be like that’ [fearless]. I wasn’t fearless. I was just brave. But I think being brave, you feel the fear still, but you still do it. And I think that’s something that he allowed me to do.
‘So yeah, I think [Pochettino] helped a lot in that period of my career, which is why it was tough for me when he left. Because, you know, then you [get] new managers, and it was hard for me to let anyone in at that point and to be open. And I felt like everything was just so fake.’
Under Jose Mourinho, Alli’s struggles for form multiplied. The former Chelsea boss infamously described Alli as ‘lazy’ in Spurs’ Amazon documentary, but the player shared that a later apology for the incident was made by Mourinho, only to fail to make it into the final cut.
He called me lazy – that was the day after recovery day. A week later, he apologised to me for calling me lazy because he’d seen me actually train and play. But that wasn’t in the documentary, and no one spoke up about that because it was only me and him.
Alli was heralded as a generational talent during his early days at Tottenham but his career has not turned out the way many predicted.
The England star emerged as one of the country’s best young talents despite a troubled childhood that saw him taken into foster care.
And speaking candidly to Gary Neville, Alli has disclosed he spent a recent spell in a rehab facility and shared details from his traumatic childhood, including the revelation that he was molested a child by a friend of his mother’s.
Discussing his addiction, he said: ‘I got addicted to sleeping tablets, it’s a problem not only I have. It’s going around more than people realise in football.
‘So, at six, I was molested by my mum’s friend, who was at the house a lot. My mum was an alcoholic, and that happened at six. I was sent to Africa to learn discipline, and then I was sent back.
‘At seven, I started smoking, eight I started dealing drugs. An older person told me that they wouldn’t stop a kid on a bike, so I rode around with my football, and then underneath I’d have the drugs, that was eight. Eleven, I was hung off a bridge by a guy from the next estate, a man.
‘Twelve, I was adopted – and from then, it was like – I was adopted by an amazing family like I said, I couldn’t have asked for better people to do what they’d done for me. If God created people, it was them.
‘They were amazing, and they’ve helped me a lot, and that was another thing, you know – when I started living with them, it was hard for me to really open up to them, because I felt within myself, it was easy to get rid of me again. I tried to be the best kid I could be for them. I stayed with them from 12, and then started playing first-team, professionally, at 16. It all sort of took off from there.’
In rehab, Alli shared, he was taught to consider his childhood in a different light.
