The Love Hate Relationship Between Shane MacGowan And His Teeth

For all the troubles Shane MacGowan has faced over the years, with his fans witnessing him in a less than futile state at various times, you have to be quite envious of him at this time of year.

Many people consider The Pogues and Kirsty McColl's 'Fairytale of New York' the best Christmas song, which is a brilliant accolade to have. Therefore, come the end of the month, a big fat PRS cheque will land on Shane's door mat.

The 59-year-old has had a well publicised love-hate relationship with a variety of substances, but perhaps his most prevalent relationship is with his teeth.

Thanks to many years of getting really stuck into drugs and alcohol, his teeth have one by one left his mouth. The frontman's appearance, due to the fact that his teeth didn't see a mouth as a nice place to live, wasn't great.

But after a long, long, long... long time, he decided to sort them out last year.

He appeared on a Sky Arts documentary as he underwent constructive surgery on his gnashers, claiming that childhood fears of the dentist contributed to him not sorting out his pearly whites earlier.

A couple of weeks ago the Brit showed his face at a fundraiser for homeless charity Focus Irl, sadly bound to a wheelchair, but showing off his smile - something that would have caused kids to hide behind their mums a few years ago.

Credit: PA

Back in 2009 his last tooth fled the nest, meaning there was no other option but to get dentures. His girlfriend Victoria Mary Clarke got hers done first, and he followed suit, basing them on Michael Fassbender's teeth, apparently.

To be fair that is a great set of teeth. Credit: PA

"Victoria had hers done last year and I thought they were great, so I decided to go with the same dentist, Darragh," he told the Irish Sun. "It was a bit swollen for the first few days but I'm feeling good now. I'm getting used to them now."

It took six months and a total of six operations to resurrect Shane's smile, which is less time than you'd expect, to be honest.

Here he is getting them done.

He does cut a fresher figure these days, so let's hope these teeth are here to stay.

Featured image credit: PA

Topics: Teeth

Mark McGowan

Mark is a journalist at LADbible, who joined in 2015 after a year as a freelance writer. In the past he blogged for independent football fan channel Redmen TV, after graduating from Staffordshire University with degrees in journalism and English literature. He has worked on campaigns such as UOKM8? and IIOC.