Danny Dyer is a real family man with wife Joanne Mas nowadays, after meeting at school when they were just fourteen. But unfortunately for Joanne, that wasn’t always the case. The EastEnders star has admitted to a string of betrayals, and wasn’t able to ditch his party boy lifestyle even when their kids came along.
London-born Danny, 47, has been married to Joanne since 2016 – with the mum-of-three breaking tradition by being the one to propose. The couple shares Love Island star Dani Dyer, 28, alongside daughter Sunnie, 17, and son Arty, 11. Dani’s arrival came after four years of dating as teens, with Jo telling Danny he had to shape up or ship out at the time.
Danny has spoken about his own neglectful dad and didn’t want to make the same mistake, so decided to move into a flat with Joanne and their baby – but struggles with work and finances meant that the early years of their romance was plagued by arguments.
“We stuck it out for nearly three years, talking maybe twice a week, the rest of the time blanking each other,” he previously told the Irish Independent. “So, one day I’m doing a puzzle on the floor with my little girl and she looked up at me and said, ‘Daddy, no more shouting’. I realised I had to get out, even though I promised I never would.”
His film career took off thanks to 1999’s Human Traffic, and he briefly dated Billie Piper, although it was Jo who he was ultimately drawn back to. But when he allegedly cheated in 2000, Jo kicked him out, changed her phone number, emptied their bank account and refused to let him see their daughter.
“And I didn’t blame her,” he told The Times of being sent away from his little one. “It was a mad period. I do now realise what’s important to me are my family. They are everything.” Both moved on with other people, but when Danny started visiting Dani again, old passions fired up and he and Jo embarked on an ‘affair’.
Describing how they would ‘sneak around like schoolkids,’ Danny and Joanne decided to give it another go for Dani’s sake. They then went on to welcome their other two kids and tie the knot, but the actor has admitted that – despite appearances – he still didn’t change his ways despite being given a second chance.
In 2009 Danny admitted to cheating on Jo yet again, confessing: “I’ve done so many things I’ve regretted. I’ve royally f***** up with my missus. I got caught doing something I shouldn’t have. I hate myself for what I did and for being tempted by forbidden fruit.”
Crisis came again in 2014, when their union was rocked by not one, but two scandals. That January, the Mirror exclusively revealed the actor had allegedly been involved in a threesome at a hotel room in Blackpool. Cara Chamberlain and a female pal claimed they bedded the actor, who later gave them both “gifts” of his own T-shirts to remember the night.
A pal claimed at the time: “Cara is not proud of what happened that night – but at the same time she is not in denial about what went on. Danny on the other hand likes to give the impression he bats away girls, but it certainly wasn’t the case with her. He was even talking about Jo and his kids when he was with Cara. He said that they were still together, but it didn’t seem to bother him.”
In June 2014, the Mirror also revealed that a starstruck student took a picture of him naked. The actor, who played Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter in EastEnders, allegedly honed in on the young brunette at a club and they went back to her bedroom. The student said they swapped numbers after their night together and she hoped Danny would contact her again – but he never did.
In 2017, Danny moved out of the family home again amid claims he had a fling with late Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding on the set of 2012 movie, Run For Your Wife. If that weren’t enough, he was also accused of sending a string of texts and an X-rated snap of himself to a blonde woman on his stag do.
However, an insider claimed Danny was just ‘having fun’ with the texts, insisting: “He’s clearly moved on with his life since then and him and Jo have been getting on well.”
Having undergone therapy for male abandonment issues, the father-of-three previously told the Mirror that the past is well and truly in the past. The star proclaimed: “Young men, and I was guilty of it myself, you don’t quite know about loyalty and commitment and you just sort of go with whatever your head is telling you and it’s not the best decision to make. But you’ve got to learn that from a young age.”
Danny added: “Me and Jo are going to be together for ever. Abso-f******-lutely. Completely. We will probably renew our wedding vows. I want to see my Dani tie the knot first, whenever that will be. We’ve gone through a lot me and Jo. I take full responsibility for most of our ups-and-downs. Most of the downs, really.
“We’ve been together since we were 14 so we have spent our whole life together. We were parents at 18, we were still babies ourselves but then we were trying to parent from 18 onwards with Dani. So we have gone through a lot together.”
Danny has just spoken about his rocky past on the new ITV show The Assembly, and broke down in tears as he described how his relationship is now. “She controls everything now,” he admitted, adding: “Yes, she did kick me out because I was a pr***. And she deserved better. 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.”
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