UK NEWS

DUCHOVNY CHECKS INTO CLINIC FOR SEX ADDICTION

TREATMENT: David Duchnovny

Saturday August 30,2008

By Elisa Roche, Showbusiness Editor

SEX has always played a big part in the screen career of X Files star David Duchovny.

And now he has checked himself into rehab to seek treatment – for sex addiction.

Duchovny, who has had two children with model wife Téa Leoni, made his condition public in a statement issued by his lawyer.

In an unfortunate case of life imitating art, he has recently been playing a ladies man in the hit US television show Californication.

He also played a sex addict in the 2005 movie Trust The Man. Duchovny, 48, said in his statement: “I have voluntarily entered a facility for the treatment of sex addiction.

“I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family.”

Previously he has always denied he was suffering from the compulsion. In an interview in 1997, before he wed Téa, he even joked about the condition.

“I’m single and I had a long-term girlfriend up until last November,” he revealed. “I have been seen with more than one woman in the last few months so I’m an easy target for those kind of rumours. I’m not a sex addict.”

He added: “It’s hurtful to my family and if I was involved with a woman in a monogamous relationship it would be hurtful to her.”

Sex addiction, also known as sexual compulsivity, is a disorder that causes people to “act in sexual ways unrecognisable to their real self”.

Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, 61, is also currently being treated for sex addiction as part of his rehabilitation programme for alcoholism.