Danny Dyer candidly admits wife Joanne 'deserved better' as he opens up about split and his drug-fuelled three-day benders

Daily Mail​

26-04-2025

Danny Dyer has admitted his wife Joanna Mas 'deserved better' as he opened up about their split and his drug-fuelled three-day benders in the 'most open and honest' interview of his life.
The actor, 47, gets a grilling in ITV 's new show The Assembly, which sees a celebrity face questions from a group of autistic, neurodivergent and learning disabled people, forcing them to cast aside their media training, with no topic off limits.
Each episode of the series sees a follows a different celebrity, with Match Of The Day presenter Gary Lineker, 64, Doctor Who star David Tennant, 54, and ex-Little Mix singer Jade Thirlwall, 32, also in the hot seat.
In a new clip from Saturday's upcoming episode, one woman asked Danny about his split from Joanne.
She said: 'When Jo kicked you out she emptied your shared joint bank account, do you still have a shared bank account now?'
A stunned Danny joked that he was about to give her a hug until she hit him with the stinging question.
The actor, 47, gets a grilling in ITV 's new show The Assembly, which sees a celebrity face questions from a group of autistic, neurodivergent and learning disabled people, forcing them to cast aside their media training, with no topic off limits
He then openly admitted to being kicked out, as he confessed: 'I was a p***k and she deserved better.
'Sometimes I'd go out, get off my head, take drugs; I wouldn't come home for three days.
'She had every right to throw me out. She controls everything now.'
Danny and Joanne got together in 1992, and have three children - Love Island's Dani, 27, daughter Sunnie, 17, and son Arty, six.
Their on-off relationship was marred with cheating allegations in the past, although they eventually got back together for good and married in 2016 after Joanne proposed a year before.
Back in 2000, Danny's wild behaviour culminated in Jo catching him cheating on her, causing her to kick him out and clear their bank account.
In an interview with The Times in 2023, Danny recalled the moment he got caught cheating on Jo, and insisted he 'doesn't blame her' for changing her phone number, clearing their account, and stopping him from seeing his eldest daughter Dani.
He confessed: 'I didn't blame her. It was a mad period. I do now realise what's important to me are my family. They are everything.
'I tried to fill it with the drink and drugs and doing stupid things. I was a lost soul. I had a 'f*** it' button and I would destroy relationships before I could be left'.
Last year, he admitted that Jo has stood by him 'through a lot of s**t', adding that she didn't sign up to a life of fame.
Speaking on Elizabeth Day's podcast How To Fail, he said: 'Well, I've been with the same woman since I was 13. It's a journey. It's so rare, that.
'Because if you think about who you was at 13 and who you are now, to grow with somebody at the same time, at the same rate, and then you throw fame in the mix, and what happened with me, which she never wanted, and she came along for this ride with me, both from the same council estate.
'She didn't really sign up for that, and then, on her course, it f****d my head up when I became really famous, and I didn't quite know what to do with it and I suppose she stood by me for a lot of s**t and had to be very patient with me.
'And of course I do believe in the marriage vows and sickness and health and for better for worse.
'So it's hard to stay in a relationship for that long with the press attention and with me being a pr**k for many years, because I was, I hold my hands up, I lost the plot for many years.'
He continued: 'I didn't quite know who I was and I suppose she had to suffer all that on a national level.
'I love her with all my heart. You know, she challenges me every day. She's kept me very grounded. I'll tell you that now.
'She came to watch me in a play once and I came off stage and she went, yeah, just don't get carried away with yourself. I thought that's what I need to hear.'
In his Assembly questioning, Danny also got candid about how he copes with his anxiety, explaining that meditation and therapy is what has helped him become a better person.
He said: 'I needed to learn what was wrong with me because I was acting, I was earning money - I had everything going for me, but I still wasn't happy. I learned that it was every strong male role model I had either left me or died.'
He admitted that the coping strategies he developed when he was younger did more harm than good, saying: 'Whenever I got close to somebody who I loved and I looked up to I'd press the 'f*** it' button before they could die.
'I thought 'I'll beat you to it' which is a weird way of thinking. I needed to learn some tools, so [therapy] was good for me.'