Stop smoking? All the doctors who’ve told me to quit are dead says Hockney
HE is one of the art world’s most recognisable figures thanks to his distinctive glasses, flat cap... and penchant for a cigarette.
And at 82, David Hockney isn’t planning to kick the habit any time soon – as every doctor who has advised him to quit nicotine has died before him.
The outspoken British artist, who has a home in Los Angeles and a farmhouse in Normandy, said that his days of chain-smoking are far from over.
‘I’ve had three doctors in the past 40 or so years. They all told me to give up smoking and now they’re all dead,’ he told The Sunday Times Magazine.
Despite the fact that doctors linked his minor stroke in 2012 and heart attack some three decades ago to the habit, Hockney is adamant that cigarettes did not cause his health problems.
‘The doctors said it was due to smoking, but I think it was stress. I had an angioplasty, carried on and I was fine,’ he said. Hockney, from Yorkshire, started smoking aged ten and gets through a pack of cigarettes a day.
He said he has quit the habit just once in his life, at the behest of former boyfriend Peter Schlesinger, but took it up again when they split up.
He previously said he never lights up when actually painting – and even avoids places where he can’t smoke.
Hockney is also a supporter of the legalisation of cannabis in California, which he has admitted to smoking in the evenings to relax. ‘I always assumed they kept marijuana illegal because of the power of the alcohol lobby. That’s their competition,’ he said.
‘But the alcohol lobby has become less powerful, and of course there are lots of people now in their 70s or 80s who have smoked marijuana for 40 or 50 years. And they know it’s harmless.’
The artist added that he has no regrets and ‘can honestly say that, for the last 60 years, every day I’ve done what I want to do’.