James ‘Arg’ Argent has become the latest TOWIE star to get embroiled in a drug scandal after posing with a balloon full of laughing gas — or, to use the street parlance popular with youths, ‘hippy crack’.
Last month he tweeted (then hastily deleted, following what we’re guessing was some mightily urgent calls from his management) a picture of him and two friends posing in a nightclub with balloons in their mouths, which sort of indicates the balloons were full of nitrous oxide because why else would you have a balloon in a nightclub.
The nitrous oxide drug — available for as little as £1.50 a balloon in some clubs — is also known as laughing gas or ‘sweet air’ [EDITOR’S NOTE: Is it? Check with some young people] and gives users a short, intense feeling of euphoria and then just makes them laugh a lot. Professionally, it’s used to relieve the pain of childbirth and also to get your whippy cream out of the whippy cream canister, but inhaled from a balloon it can be lethal.
Arg’s drugs whoopsie is the latest in a line of TOWIE cast members being caught with illegal substances, after James Lock’s ketamine arrest earlier this year and Mario Falcone’s cocaine allegations. Even sweet, innocent Jess Wright was pictured last year posing with a balloon at a festival, and TOWIE bosses are keen to stamp out drug use among the cast.
“Arg is one of the only original cast members left and thinks he’s the biggest star and can get away with anything,” a source told The Sun. “Bosses want to send a message that nobody is bigger than the show. There are bimbos and himbos all over Essex queuing up to get on TOWIE — even Arg shouldn’t be too confident.
“The older stars might be more famous, but they’re also getting jaded and running out of storylines. Bringing shame on the show won’t help their case.”