Danny Dyer has admitted he was ‘off his nut’ on prescription drugs during his time starring on EastEnders.

Before joining the BBC soap, Danny was best known for appearing in films including Human Traffic, Mean Machine and The Football Factory.

In 2013 he was cast as Mick Carter in EastEnders, a role he held until his character was killed off in 2022.

A few years on, the 47-year-old actor has taken aim at the show whilst also detailing the personal struggles he faced during filming.

During a charity night at the Wimbledon Football Club in South West London on Friday night, Danny didn’t hold back.

‘I was off my nut for a lot of that job. I was squinting a lot for a couple of years, a lot of Valium and Diazepam,’ he told the audience when reflecting on his time on the soap.

‘You have 30 pages a day you’ve got to learn. There’s no f***ing about. You organically make the scene work, you rehearse nothing. It f***s your nut up. I ended up in rehab twice,’ he added, as reported by The Sun.

Danny also revealed he was banned from drinking alcohol in the Queen Vic and crew members even put antiseptic in the beer barrels to prevent him from doing so.

‘When I first arrived on set I was slipping around the side and having a few lagers and they found out, so they started to put TCP into the beer. I wasn’t off my nut. I had a drink every now and again,’ he shared.

The actor then criticised the show’s ‘dark’ storylines before claiming he couldn’t even find the time to attend events such as funeral’s while working on EastEnders.

‘You earn good money, but you ain’t got time to go to a cashpoint. You have no life. The amount of birthdays I missed. If someone dies in your family they won’t even let you go to the funeral. It’s such a machine. There’s not much duty of care. That’s the truth. On EastEnders there is no messing about and you’ve got to do it. It’s the hardest part of our job.’

He also made digs at some of the storylines – calling Mick’s romance with Janine ‘mental’ and blasted the decision to kill off Lola (played by Danielle Harold) last year, which he called a ‘waste’.

Danny, who was believed to have been paid about £250,000 per year when he appeared on the soap, went on to say he thought A-list actors would ‘crumble’ if they worked on the show.’

In a statement to Metro, a spokesperson for EastEnders said: ‘We would never discuss an individual’s private matters however, we do not recognise these claims.

‘EastEnders has extremely robust and well established procedures in place to safeguard the welfare of everyone who works on the show.’

Following Danny’s comments, a source told the same publication that people who work on EastEnders would be ‘baffled’ by his claims and said it was an ‘odd move’ from the actor after he’s previously said several times he’d like to return to the long-running series, which has been airing since 1985.

On the upcoming episode of BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Danny also revealed he only took the role of Mick because he ‘had no money’.

‘I had bailiffs [coming round], no-one would hire me and the more I’m doing these club appearances, the more drugs I’m taking, and drink, so I’m in this weird spiral,’ he told the programme.

Last month Danny spoke about once being kicked out by his wife Jo, whom he first started dating in 1992.

During an episode of The Assembly, he was grilled about his wife taking control of his bank accounts.

‘She controls everything now. She did kick me out because I was a p****. And she deserved better,’ he revealed.

‘Sometimes I would go out and get off my head, take drugs, and I wouldn’t come home for three days. I had issues – I never wanted the party to end. She had every right to throw me out.’