John Cleese took LSD at 65 to see ‘what it was all about’

John Cleese, the now-85-year-old comedy legend, was “surprisingly ignorant” and was never “interested” in drugs as a younger man. But in 2005, he decided to try the potent hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), which “can alter a person’s perception of reality and vividly distort the senses”. He took the drug under supervision, and was left in amazement at the effects.

He told the Times’ Weekend magazine: “I just wanted to know what it was all about“. “The man was one of the world experts on it, so I felt perfectly safe..