EastEnders’ Danny Dyer admits he ‘sat up all night smoking crack’ before on-stage horror
Danny Dyer has opened up about a troubling time in his life when he went to work in New York and ended up taking drugs all night and forgetting his lines on stage
Danny Dyer was left in tears after a nightmare drug ordeal.
The EastEnders star had been working in New York on a stage show when he decided to stay up all night “smoking crack”. And because of his drug binge, he completely forgot his lines on stage in a nightmare moment.
Speaking on How To Fail With Elizabeth Day, he remembered a time he “got very excited” by the prospect of work in the Big Apple. “Well, I took a lot of drugs out there.
“And this is the other thing I’d never dried. I take it very seriously, my work, and I love it, and I strive to be better every night.
“And I’d never got in a situation, I’d heard about people that had dried on stage, because it’s a massive thing and all that, and it never happened to me. Anyway, I thought that I could sit up all night, smoking crack, and then walk on stage, and of course you can’t f***ing do that, it’s a ridiculous idea.
“And I interjected. Like I’d done many, many nights before, like I’ve done this play so much, matinees, and I just didn’t have a clue what to say. And the worst thing was the other actors, who knew I’d been out, looking at me.
“I come behind their little bonkette thing and I interject and they all turn to me. So their faces are away from the audience and it was just their horror.”
He said that only made him feel worse as he wasn’t “just letting himself” down. He went on: “I’d never had that feeling before. I loved showing off. And then all of a sudden it’s like, so my lips started to go, ’cause I was going to cry.
“Cause I thought, obviously cause I hadn’t been in a bed. Felt really vulnerable.”
But someone shouted out his line and he “snapped” back into it – although had to go off stage before later reappearing. It was then he had a “major panic attack”, but he said he “just had to get on with it”.
“I thought, f***, you put yourself in this situation now get on with it,” he said. “And even when Keith Allen’s looking at you going, f*** you now, mate, you know, you’re in trouble.
“And then Harold came up to me after and he sort of gave me a cuddle and that made me worse, made me cry. And he went, if ever there’s an ensemble piece, it’s this Danny.
“And I was like, yeah, f*** me. I’m sorry. But it was a wake up call. And I’ve done many plays since that fears never left me since. I carried on, did the play, s*** myself every night.”
Danny said it was the death of his father which pushed him down a path of self-destruction. He ended up doing therapy in rehab where he realised he had “abandonment issues” after a number of strong male figures in his life died.
“I thought, well, I’m just going to f***ing press the f*** it button before they die on me or I’ll beat them to it. That’s what I learned in therapy and a lot of therapy and that, and that’s what I sort of, you know, it was abandonment issues for males.”
Danny struggled with drugs again more recently during a low time in his relationship with wife Joanne Mas in 2017. He previously admitted he feared he would die and took time out from EastEnders, where he played Mick Carter.
