Danny Dyer quit EastEnders 'fearing he would die' after drug binges were turning him into 'f***ing lunatic'

Danny Dyer is known for being a typical cockney geezer from the east end of London who loves West Ham United and has a no-nonsense style of acting.

Dyer has played the role of Queen Victoria pub landlord Mick Carter in EastEnders after making his debut on the show in December 2013.

The 45-year-old is a father to Dani, 26, who made the actor a grandfather after giving birth to son Santiago in January 2021.

It is being reported that the breakdown in Danny’s relationship with Joanne Mas – mother of Dani and her siblings Sunnie, 15, and Arty, eight, has caused him plenty of strife.

Mark Kerrison / Alamy Stock Photo

The couple split in 2017 and led Dyer to a path of self-destruction, which fuelled a dependency on drugs and forced him to take a break from one of Britain’s most-loved soaps.

“I turned around to the bosses of EastEnders and I said, ‘Listen, I’ve gotta go somewhere. I’m going to die’,” he said on Jaime Winstone’s new podcast, Greatest Night Ever.

“They was like, ‘Oh, OK. Uh, right’. And so I sorted it myself and I paid for it myself."

Elsewhere, he added: “Fame never suited me. I was always f***ing gonna be going down the wrong path. So I lost the plot for many years and I was a f***ing lunatic.

"I became a sort of a cartoon character. I created it myself, don’t get me wrong [...] I got wrapped up in that and I sort of lost who I was, really.

“I was doing s**t loads of f***ing drugs. I was searching for something. There was a hole in me and I couldn’t work out what the f**k it was.”

His wife Jo popped the question on Valentine’s Day in 2015 and were married in September 2016, when he moved into house close to the family home.

Mark Kerrison / Alamy Stock Photo

“I knew I had to f***ing sort myself out because I’d been – sorry about me language – I’d been a c*** up to this point in the sense of what I was doing, what I was doing away from her, some of the situations I would find myself in," he added.

“I look back and go, ‘f***ing hell man, I was weak’.

“I was wounded. I was vulnerable because I was, but of course I couldn’t play vulnerable because I’m playing Danny Dyer, whatever that is."

“Yeah. So I’m a bad boy, f***ing, you know, whatever. And I quite like playing it, but you know, the amount of f***ing Diazepam [an anti-anxiety drug] I was on at the time, I was just munching.”

Dyer now appears to have consigned his troubles to the past, and fans can now looking forward to seeing him star in a new Netflix quiz show and a travel programme alongside daughter Dani.