Former Coronation Street star Craig Charles opens up about battle with crack cocaine
Get soaps updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Craig Charles has praised the producers of Coronation Street for standing by him as he struggled to deal with an addiction to crack cocaine.
The 51-year-old actor went through a difficult spell in 2006 when he was cautioned by police for possessing the Class A drug.
Appearing on Jon Bishop’s TV show In Conversation With, Craig opened up about his struggles.
And he took time to acknowledge that Corrie producers threw him a life line when they suspended him from the show instead of sacking him outright.
(Image: Daily Mirror)
(Image: UKTV)
“I had a job that I loved and I had enough people who knew what I was like to say, ‘let’s care about him, let’s get him well, rather than let’s sack him’,” he explained.
Explaining the reasoning behind his turn to hard drugs, Craig - who is best known by many as a star of iconic Sci Fi comedy Red Dwarf - said it was a response to difficult personal loss.
“When my mum died I got into drugs,” he explained.
(Image: ITV)
"When my dad died, I did again, and it was just a case of… I was 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 like that,” he continued.
"So, you know, it was just a way of coping,” he added.
Following his suspension on Corrie in June 2006 he returned to the soap in January 2007.
He played Lloyd Mullaney in the ITV soap and left in 2015.