Craig Charles' biggest scandals – drugs binge, Corrie suspension and co-star feud

Actor, comedian and presenter Craig Charles has lived a remarkable life in the limelight with a career that spans over thirty years.

Starring in much-loved BBC comedy series Red Dwarf in 1988, Craig quickly became a household name as one of the main stars of the show.

The actor and family man then went on to host BBC’s Robot Wars and later landed himself a role in ITV’s Coronation Street in 2005.

READ MORE: Corrie’s Craig Charles and family ‘lucky to be alive’ after Xmas house fire horror

But despite being known for his sweet loveable nature on screen, the actor also became known to dabble heavily in drugs and alcohol during his younger days.

And some of his antics took centre stage when the press discovered what he had been up to.

As the star reaches another milestone, Daily Star has taken a look at some of his biggest scandals.

Drugs and alcohol fuelled 20s

During the height of his fame Craig confessed that his heavy indulgence in drugs and alcohol in his twenties led him to hide big-money cheques for months before cashing them in.

However, the star also admitted that his addiction to partying spiralled out of control and often became unmanageable.

Talking to The Guardian, Craig said: “My head disappeared quite firmly up my a*** for many years.

“Then I’d be late for things or not show up at all. I didn’t put the work in, didn’t have the ethic, didn’t give things the full attention that they deserved.”

Coronation Street suspension

In 2006, Craig was suspended from ITV’s long-running soap Coronation Street after he was allegedly pictured in the Daily Mirror taking cocaine at the back seat of a cab.

At the time, the newspaper reported that he bought the £600 stash from a dealer near the BBC’s studios in Portland Place, shortly after finishing his music show.

According to reports, during the four-hour journey, it was believed Charles had taken 60 hits of crack cocaine, breaking off only to read pornographic magazines bought en route from two petrol stations.

After the news came to light, a spokeswoman for Coronation Street said Charles had met producer Steve Frost to discuss the press reports and was advised to take suspension.

The spokeswoman said: “No immediate decision has been taken on the length of the suspension as further inquiries need to be made.

“Craig has no comment to make to the press at this stage.”

The actor later addressed his drug use, referring to it as “one of the lowest points of my life”, admitting at the time he was struggling to cope with the death of his parents.

He said: “When me mum died I got into drugs; when me dad died, I did again, and 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 like that.

“So you know, it was just a way of coping like.

“I’m dead addictive. You know, you’ve got positive and you’ve got negative addictions, haven’t you? So like I am now addicted to like positive addictions, you know.”

Tragic brother fall-out

Actor Craig went had a turbulent relationship with his late brother Dean.

Speaking about his relationship with his brother with John Bishop on W, the actor spoke about what happened before his brother died.

He said: “We’d fallen out, you know, we’d had a family disagreement and we’d fallen out. We’d not been speaking.

“He texted me a couple of times before I went in (I’m A Celebrity) saying ‘Craig, it’s Dean, just wanna chat, blah, blah, blah’.

“And I’ve kind of ignored him. I thought ‘I can’t really deal with this right now. What I’ll do is, I’ll go in the jungle, do that, come back out and we’ll all be together by Christmas’. And, um … that never happened.”

TV clash

While appearing on ITV’s reality show Don’t Rock The Boat in 2020, Craig seemed to clash with Olympic gold-medallist Victoria Pendleton.

The five-part reality series which saw twelve celebrities attempt to row the entire length of Britain, proved to be an uneasy task.

Sharing how he really felt about Victoria who was on his team at the time, Craig admitted that he didn’t want to row alongside her and said she caused his feelings of hurt and unhappiness on the show.

He said: “I feel uncomfortable with rowing with some people in the team.

“I felt really awkward and unhappy – and it’s mainly down to you.”

But Victoria didn’t take the news well and after an exchange of words she ended up walking off in tears.

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk