Tonight on the W Channel, Craig Charles is the guest of John Bishop in the show John Bishop: In Conversation. And from the preview of the show (via the Manchester Evening News) it seems as if Craig is going to talk about his time on Coronation Street when he was caught taking crack cocaine.
But instead of sacking him, he reveals how Corrie helped him and sent him to rehab.
Craig says: "I was dead lucky that I had a wife, Jackie, who I adore and adores me, I had kids who know what I’m really like, and I had a reason to get better. I had a job that I loved and I had enough people who knew what I was like to say, ‘Let’s care, let’s care for him, let’s care about him, let’s get him well, rather than let’s sack him.
"When my mum died I got into drugs. When my dad died, I did again. It was just a case of... I was like stuck in this little flat in Manchester missing my family, working like 14 hours a day, then travelling vast amounts of motorways all the time. It was just a way of coping.”
Charles said he now pursued 'positive addictions... like I work a lot. I love funk and soul (music). I get obsessive about it'.
The Red Dwarf star became tearful as he talked about learning, while he was stuck in the I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! jungle, that his brother had died, aged just 52.
“We’d not been speaking... we’d fallen out. We’d had a family disagreement,” he told comedian John Bishop, on TV channel W.
“He texted me. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone I was going in (the jungle), and he texted me a couple of times before I went in saying‘Craig, it’s Dean, just wanna chat’ - and I’ve kind of ignored him.
“I thought look, I can’t really deal with this right now. What I’ll do is, I’ll go in the jungle, come back out and we’ll all be together by Christmas. And that never happened.”
John Bishop In Conversation With Craig Charles is on W on Thursday at 9pm.
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Wow, I didn’t know any of that, I’m happy he’s well now, and I hope he comes back to Corrie!
ReplyDeleteI have always been impressed by how supportive Corrie has been in latter years, not just with Craig Charles, but Jimmi Harkishin, Simon Gregson & others. Unlike the early days with cast members like Jennifer Moss. Which is why I was surprised when the fellow playing Tommy Duckworth (whose name escapes me at the moment), was fired on the spot for making a questionable video before he even joined the cast. Seemed a bit harsh, but maybe they were looking for an excuse to get rid of him anyway.
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