My promise to behave

Tonight sees the glittering launch of Matthew Mellon's Harry's of London - a top-of-the-range men's shoe department at Harvey Nichols.

It will be the first time in several months that Matthew, the super rich, London-based entrepreneurial scion of one of America's wealthiest banking dynasties, has appeared in public at an A-list society bash.

With his multi-millionaire shoe tycoon wife Tamara firmly at his side, the pair, once described as London's "golden couple", will glide around the Fifth Floor Bar through a sea of paparazzi and party faces, surrounded by friends including Tim Jeffries, Hugh Grant, David Furnish and the young Goldsmith clan. But while their respective business careers have been flourishing, the Mellon marriage has been the source of speculation.

Tamara's summer fling with 22-year-old Oscar Humphries has been followed by Matthew's period of rehab from a major drug relapse and personal breakdown. Tonight marks his re-entry into high society. He is also celebrating the London launch of the company in which he has recently sold a controlling interest for £1.3 million (he still owns 40 per cent).

"My business is fine," he says, "I now need to spend time taking care of myself and the relationships that are important to me. I actually support those people who have sided with my wife. I don't have a problem with it. I deserved it. I have to accept the consequences of my actions."

He also wants to put an end to the fevered gossip in recent months about the state of his marriage to Tamara, the founder of the Jimmy Choo empire, whom he still calls "love".

"I have been to the depths of hell and back in the past few months," Mellon told me at his elegant flat in Eaton Place, Belgravia. "But I am very happy to say that Tamara and myself are not getting a divorce. Our marriage remains very much 'on'."

The couple are not living together at present. "I totally respect Tamara's space and her choices just at the moment. It wouldn't be fair to say we are back to normal as a happy couple because that wouldn't be true. But I am working on it".

Matthew says he is so determined never to relapse into his destructive behaviour again that when Tamara came out to see him recently as part of his recent recovery programme in Arizona, he took the unusual initiative of drawing up a private contract.

It would sign over a "significant" amount of money (Matthew inherited $25 million on his 21st birthday) if he went off the rails again. "I can tell you now, " Matthew says, "I am not going to relapse again in my marriage."

Today, he is a picture of vitality: his eyes clear and steely, his attention focused. He is back to being the old, confident, and charming, self-deprecating persona that his friends love.

Asked what his lowest point has been in the past few months, as his life spun into a downward spiral, Matthew replied calmly: "I had thoughts of suicide but I am far too much of a coward to ever follow through with it. What I have been through is the most painful process I have ever endured - the thought of losing my child, my wife, my business, everything that is important to me."

To get his life back on track again after the summer that turned into a nightmare, Matthew enlisted Arizonabased Dr Patrick Carnes, one of the world's leading authorities in helping victims of childhood trauma and sexual addiction.

"His team's take on me was very simple when I arrived for treatment. They said they had never met anybody who had a history as lengthy as mine who is alive today."

His childhood, though gilded,was troubled. He was brought up mainly on a yacht. His father - a classical musician and a manic depressive - committed suicide. His mother, a prominent American society figure, has been supportive.

In Arizona, Matthew was subjected to a "brutal" regime. "I was crying every day. Tears about what I had done. I was just coming out of the fog."

Done what to whom? "What I did was a horrible thing to put one's wife and child through, that is a guilt I'll have to carry around for the rest of my life," he said.

The source of this "guilt" and Matthew and Tamara's recent troubles began with a "relapse" of bingeing while he was on holiday in Ibiza last summer. He had been "pretty much" sober for seven years.

"I had some concerns about my business, and there were already some stresses on my relationship with Tamara, " said Matthew. "We both travel constantly and it puts a stress on any relationship. I didn't adapt well to being on a party island in the midst of these other pressures."

Matthew was invited out with another group of fast-living, A-list celebrity friends who were enjoying a cruise on a luxury super yacht. While out clubbing with them one night, the temptation to return to his drug-fuelled past was too much. "I crossed the ' invisible line'," explains Matthew.

"In every city and country in the world where I travel, I have a Fixer, either a man or woman, who organises everything for me and can get me anything I want. "My Fixer was there and I wanted cocaine. I asked her - it wasn't as if she was pushing it.

"I think that when things are going really well in my life, I tend to want to sabotage it, because I tend to think I am not worthy of it ... in my childhood I was given this message that I wasn't worthy of it."

The crisis really began at a house party in August, which Oscar Humphries, son of Barry (aka Dame Edna) attended.

Matthew disappeared from his own house party, was up for two days and nights and his behaviour was, as he admits, "excessive".

"Tamara found out. She confronted me and said, either you pull yourself together, or leave."

The crisis led to Tamara's affair with Oscar Humphries. Tamara and Humphries are now very much over. "Oscar has benefited from the coattails of the Mellons quite nicely," said one close friend of the family.

Their relationship first came to light in late September when Oscar, wrote a bizarre newspaper confession about his affair with his "40-year-old" girlfriend, who was also a super successful and beautiful business woman, married with three children.

Tamara is only 35 and has one child, so such a feeble attempt to disguise her identity soon had society tongues wagging.

It was in August that Matthew's friends began to get worried about him. He was required in New York for an important business meeting. The Saks department store chain wanted to start stocking Harry's shoes.

To ensure that Matthew stayed sober and drug-free for the meeting, Matthew's business partner, Max Gottschalk, flew out to Ibiza to chaperone him to New York.

The meeting went well, and a deal for several thousand orders of Harry's shoes was made. But the last time I saw Matthew in late September he had sounded troubled and a little paranoid.

The man I met that night was very far from being the athletic, fun loving, sober and committed AA friend I had known for over a decade.

He was not making a lot of sense, and was clearly upset about the state of his marriage. The drugs were not helping him think or act rationally. He was surrounded by late-night socialite party girl types .

As his behaviour increased the strains on his marriage, Matthew decided to "numb" himself from what he was doing by chartering a private plane to fly himself and a bunch of "fringe-celebrity" B-list friends - to Corfu for a week of intensive partying.

That was the final straw for Tamara. She gave him an ultimatum to clean up or get out. Then in late September, their three-year marriage became further strained when Humphries' article about his affair with a mysterious "older woman" appeared.

Mellon told me he didn't read it, although a friend did tell him about the gossip that circulating.

" I heard about this rumour," says Mellon. "And I thought, 'There is no way that my wife was having an affair with Oscar. No way is she going out with somebody half my age'. But I was in denial. It was true, and I only had myself to blame to what I did to our marriage."

A week later, when Tamara drove Matthew to Devon to check him into an addiction therapy centre, she confirmed that the stories were true.

" In the car we talked about recovery, and Tamara talked about how

concerned she was about the marriage. And she told me she wanted some time to figure things out."

Matthew flew over to America to check into Promises Clinic in Malibu. He lasted a few hours before checking out and calling friends in London to say that he was "misbehaving". One told him to get immediately in his limo to go and see Dr Carnes.

"I took a stretch limo from LA to Arizona, it took me over six hours and I was using coke most of the way, whilst talking to friends on my cell phone. When I finally arrived it was horrible.

"The lowest point was getting out of the car at 1am in the morning and knowing that I was going to be put in a "nursing station". After that, I knew there was no escape, I was going to have to face my demons," said Mellon.

Matthew realises now that his luxury lifestyle and millions allowed him to lose sight of what his real priorities were in life, as he approached 40. He is now "looking forward" to downsizing his life.

"I've got rid of the helicopter and the crazy private jet charters," he said with a grin. "I'm also getting rid of the Ferrari, the Porsche and stopping the order on my new Bentley sports car. I'll just pick up the phone and sell them all. I don't need them."

Last Wednesday morning Matthew had f lown into London from Los Angeles just in time "personally" to cook a Thanksgiving dinner of roast turkey for his wife and their twoyearold daughter Minty. The Mellons usually rely on a cook, but this year Matthew wanted to do it himself so he spent an expensive hour on Thursday afternoon filling up a fleet of trolleys in the Harrods Food Hall.

The dinner was at the luxury flat in South Kensington that Tamara has rented until they resolve various "issues" between them. But they are still very much together for their daughter, even if they are not yet living in the same house. Whether they get back together again as husband and wife is "God's timing", as Matthew describes it.

He has just bought a new house in the Hollywood Hills which he will be using as a "refuge" and personal recovery centre. He expects to go there about a fortnight every two months, in order to re-charge his "life batteries".

"I am renewing the spirit of Matthew Mellon and it is just a lot easier to find out who he is when you don't have a lot of extra crap in your life." The stars' self-help guru Deepak Chopra has been helping him deal with his recovery in California.

He makes no attempt to hide the fact that having inherited the Mellon name and fortune has been as much as curse as a blessing throughout his life. He has nearly died twice - once from alcohol at the age of 11 and once from an overdose 10 years ago. Yet Matthew has always managed to bounce back. The most recent dark episode has brought home to him how much is at stake if he does not keep his word. And this time I really believe he can do it.