Pontefract's Galileo's Show Bar owner reveals mental health crisis that led to bar's closure

Danny Bullough’s drag queen club Galileo’s Show Bar, which opened in March 2024, closed after the death of his grandparents, Joan and John Bullough, led to chaos in his life.

The couple played a major role in his upbringing and, after losing them, Danny began drinking excessively and using drugs.

His business suffered and bills were left unpaid.

Now, more than two months without drink or drugs and following a period as an inpatient at a psychiatric hospital, Danny has told his story to the Express.

He is looking to help other people with mental health struggles, and has vowed to pay the people he owes and rebuild relationships that were damaged.

Danny’s grandfather died of a heart attack in 2017 while walking his dog, which he witnessed after heading out to find him when he was late home.

He said: “Something told me there was something wrong. I got out of my car and I could see him. A local lad tried to give him CPR, God bless him, but he’d already died.

"Then I had to tell my grandma what had happened. I think a part of her died with him.”

After Galileo’s opened last year it took off very quickly.

Just before Christmas his grandma suffered a fall that resulted in a serious injury.

Danny started struggling mentally and taking his “eye off the ball”, using drink and drugs to take him “out of his head”.

In the run up to Christmas his drink and cocaine use became more severe.

On Mad Friday, the last Friday before December 25, his grandma had a fall at home. Danny found her after breaking a window to get into the house.

He said: “I’ve never seen a scene like it. It was horrific, there was blood everywhere. It looked like she’d be butchered. I wouldn’t want anyone to see something like that.”

She died in January.

He said: “Up until Galileo’s I owed my life to my nan and grandad. They got me there. They gave me structure, love, and showed me right from wrong.”

Danny said over the next period of time he made poor financial decisions around the bar that would eventually lead to its closure.

"I shouldn’t have been running it at the time but when you’re self-employed it’s left on you. You can’t ring someone up and say ‘I’m not going to be in work for a few days’, he said.

"I had bills like staff and security but my head wasn’t in it. I wasn’t looking at it rationally. Paying some bills and not others. I was paying out in lump sums where I should have spread it out.

"I just lost it. I wasn’t engaged with work, I didn’t care about work, I didn’t care about my appearance. I didn’t have any care or thought about anyone, as selfish as that sounds, it’s just the way it was.

"It wasn’t fair what I was doing to my team, my friends, my family, and people who had invested in me. I wish to God I’d have got help sooner but I didn’t.”

Danny received death threats and homophobic abuse as a result of the money he owed.

He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and made several attempts at suicide.

Episodes in which he would see and hear things that weren’t there started to occur.

He was sectioned and spent several weeks in Wakefield’s Fieldhead Hospital but is now in recovery and drug-free.

He praised the crisis teams and hospital staff.

"The NHS has been absolutely amazing, it made me realise how much we rely on it. The crisis team in Leeds were phenomenal. They do amazing work.

"People criticise the wait times but we are still lucky to have this phenomenal organisation.

"While I was in hospital l I was rebuilding relationships – my best friend, who I fell out with, a lot of people I burnt bridges with. They could see it wasn’t really me before.

“It was a situation I’m not proud of. It was a hard lesson I had to learn.

"Now I’m out of hospital I know what I need to do to get things back on track.

"I know that there are people I owe money and the situation with my mental health isn’t their fault. I can't even imagine what their mental health would have been like because of it.

"My love, sympathy and thoughts go out to those people who suffered along with me. Because I was suffering, they were, and I am genuinely really sorry that that situation happened.

"I can’t do anything but put things right. All the small businesses and organisations I will make sure are paid off because I know they’ve been through hell as well."

His goal is to open the bar under the new name of Figaro’s in either Leeds or York alongside a team made up of his family.

The new bar is set to be a similar kind of showbar to Galileo’s.

Danny is hoping to get it up and running to be able to pay people back.

He encouraged anyone going through a similar crisis to get help sooner rather than later.

"I used to think the only way out is suicide and it isn’t. There’s so much support out there, crisis teams, the charity Mind, bereavement charities, Cocaine Anonymous, Andy’s Man Club for men is number one.

"And if you have friends and family lean on them as well because they’d much rather have you than not.

"There’s a reason you’re on this planet and the world is a better place with you in it even if you don’t feel it is.”