“Coronation Street star Charlie Lawson has bragged of his boozy nights out with Katie Price as he gave an insight into his formerly wild lifestyle.”, — write: www.dailymail.co.uk
The soap actor, 65, who played Jim McDonald, claimed that he and the glamour model, 46, would take ‘anything we could get our hands on’.
Sharing an insight into his partying days in his autobiography That’s Life, Charlie revealed he has previously tried cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, LSD, speed and cannabis.
Charlie also revealed that at the height of his drink and drugs abuse he was drinking more than a bottle of whiskey in one night.
Of his friendship with Katie Price, he writes: ‘I had always got on well with her, although we had more often than not been three sheets to the wind, at 3am, under the influence of anything that we had got our hands on!
‘I have always had a soft spot for Pricey. I’ve always felt that she has been let down by friends and boyfriends alike.’
While Charlie admitted he was introduced to ‘most drugs’, he said he had a preference for cocaine and speed which left him ‘bouncing off the walls’.
Charlie previously issued a public apology to his daughter Laura as he admitted he used to put ‘drink, drugs and partying’ before her.
He confessed he was ‘pretty hopeless’ as a father while his only child was at boarding school in an 2019 interview on Eamonn Mallie’s Face to Face.
The Northern Irish actor candidly touched on his life as a father to former police officer Laura.
He said: ‘I was pretty hopeless as a dad. [Boarding school] made me useless with kids. I wasn’t interested at all.
‘My grandchildren adore me and for some reason I am good with them. But for my own daughter I can offer nothing but sincerest heartfelt apologies about the way I behaved because I was so selfish.’
Charles, who has been with his partner Debbie more than 15 years, previously revealed he left his family as he was ‘unhappy’ in his first marriage, with Laura being only seven at the time of her parents’ split.
The My Mother and Other Strangers star added: ‘I left home because I was having a good time.
‘I cared more about drink and drugs and having fun than I did with my family which is a disgusting thing to have to admit but unfortunately that is the truth. I am trying to make amends for it now.’
In October, Charlie revealed a ‘violent ex’ almost drove him to suicide after ‘years of physical abuse’.
Speaking to The Sun, the actor said he was a terrified victim while he was playing wife-beater Jim on screen.
He still has a scar from one attack and was ‘depressed because of what I was going through and had been prescribed pills’ whilst with wife Lesley Bond.
Lesley, who was a make-up artist on Corrie, married Charlie in 1999 and died at the age of 55 in 2010.
Their wedding day at the Lucknam Park, Wilts, was marred by violence, the Northern Irish actor claimed.
He recalls: ‘We met another couple who were getting married there at the same time.
‘Lesley later accused me of flirting with the bride and slapped me so hard that I nearly fell over.
‘A few weeks later at home she flew into a rage and attacked me with an empty bottle. I loved her to pieces but she was very, very ill, bless her.’
Charlie met Lesley on set in early 1994, when he was 35, having been married to someone else for 12 years.
Their relationship led him to leaving his first wife Suzie, who he shared his daughter Laura with.
The first domestic abuse incident came when Lesley slapped Charlie after he was outside chatting ‘innocently to a neighbour while putting the bins out’ because she was convinced he was having an affair.
He said that Lesley had been ‘seriously addicted’ to the prescription drug Valium, which made her ‘paranoid’.
He also revealed that she punched him in the side of his neck whilst he was driving, causing him to nearly crash.
The visible scar on his body is from a scissor attack, he says, which led him to consider taking his own life.
He said: ‘I knew life could not go on like this. Leaving her would break my heart but if I wasn’t here everything would be solved. She could move on with her life and there would be no more pain.’
Thankfully, Charlie rang his close friend Eva Pope – who had played barmaid Tanya Pooley in the soap.
Following their conversation, he packed his bag and left the house while Lesley slept after Eva told him to ‘Get your a**e over here right now’.
But Charlie did return to their house and was attacked again, leading him to ‘push her to the floor’.
Charlie had played Jim on Coronation Street from 1989 to 2000 and has regularly returned for stints ever since.
The character was an ex-squaddie who abused wife Liz (Beverley Callard) and their sons Steve and Andy, played by Simon Gregson and Nick Cochrane.
Offset, Charlie was known to enjoy the night life of Manchester along with partner-in-crime Phil Middlemiss, who played bookmaker Des Barnes.
They were regularly seen at Manchester club La Gitane, where they would drink with Manchester United footballers and singer Lisa Stansfield.
Charlie admitted the pair would be there ‘until breakfast time’ and head straight into Granada [Studios] for filming.
Charlie is currently married to his third wife Debbie, 60. They were together when he found out Lesley had died of hypothermia in her home in Oxford.
He was asked to identify Lesley’s body and was later given her ashes, which he says he scattered ‘on her favourite beach up in the Highlands’.
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