Mark Wright threatened to end his friendship with James ‘Arg’ Argent amid his drug addiction.
The 33-year-old TV star hated seeing his showbiz pal destroying himself with his cocaine addiction, and when Arg refused to go to rehab, Mark decided it was time to give him some "tough love".
Mark revealed: "He got to the rehab centre, he called me from their phone and said ‘I’m leaving, what have you done? Why have you done this?’
"So I called up the guy from there and said, ‘What can I do? I’ve taken every step I can, I’ve got him to the rehab, he’s not staying there. How can I physically make him do this?’
"And he just said to me, ‘Sometimes you just have to let them hit rock bottom and they have to know they need help. Because if an addict doesn’t want the help you can’t do nothing about it’.
"But then I was like what if he dies? And the answer the guy said to me literally was, it’s the risk you’re willing, the risk you have to take."
The former ‘TOWIE’ star took the risk and told the 32-year-old reality star he couldn’t help him unless he agreed to go to rehab.
Mark told ‘Loose Women’: "I texted him and said, ‘You’re not getting my help any more, I’m done. I’m through with this, you’re not affecting my life any more’ … obviously I didn’t mean that, but I had to scare him.
"Then on Boxing Day he texted me and said ‘I’m ready, I’ve hit rock bottom, I need to go to rehab.’ So I got on the phone to a rehab centre I’d researched in Thailand and I booked it for him the next day – and he got on the plane and he went."