Getty subsequently developed an addiction to alcohol and other drugs, leading to an overdose and stroke in 1981 which left him severely disabled for the rest of his life.

[6] In July 1971, his stepmother died of an alleged heroin overdose in Rome[6] and his father moved back to the United Kingdom, partly to escape charges of drug possession which he was facing in Italy.

He had considerable artistic talent and reportedly earned a living making jewelry, selling his paintings and cartoons, and appearing in movies as an extra.

[7] The Italian adult magazine Playmen paid him $1,000 to appear naked in a spread and on the cover of its August 1973 issue, released a month after he was kidnapped.

[2] According to his girlfriend Martine Schmidt, he had toyed with the idea of getting himself kidnapped by petty criminals when the couple were struggling to make ends meet, but changed his mind when both of them began working as models for photographers.

[12] As time wore on, Paul's treatment by his captors grew worse; they took away his radio, killed a bird that he had taken as a pet, and began playing Russian roulette against his head.

His captors were alarmed at this sudden decline and gave him large doses of penicillin to treat the infection, which caused him to develop an allergy to the antibiotic and further affected his health.

[15] Getty's biographer John Pearson attributed his later alcoholism to the large amounts of brandy that he was plied with in the last few months of his captivity to keep him warm and numb his pain.

[15] After Paul's ear was sent, his grandfather agreed to pay no more than $2.2 million, the maximum amount that was tax deductible, and lent the remainder to his son, who was responsible for repaying the sum at four percent interest.

Getty acted in some European films, playing supporting parts in Raúl Ruiz's The Territory and in Wim Wenders's The State of Things.

[7] In 1981, he drank a Valium, methadone, and alcohol cocktail which caused liver failure and a stroke, leaving him quadriplegic, partially blind, and unable to speak.