Danny Dyer, who played Queen Vic landlord Mick Carter for nearly a decade, met his childhood sweetheart Joanne Mas when he was just 14. They had been together for 20 years when Joanne, 48, asked the EastEnders star to marry her and the couple tied the knot in September 2016 in a small ceremony in Hampshire.
“To be standing here with the girl I grew up with – looking so beautiful in her wedding dress – that is a lovely thing,” the 48-year-old actor told Hello magazine. “Jo is my best girl – the love of my life. Without her, I would be nothing.”
Before Danny, 47, became a household name, most recently winning plaudits for his portrayal of self-made millionaire Freddie Jones in Rivals, financial advisor Joanne was the main breadwinner. Speaking about her wedding, she said: “I have dreamed about this day my whole life and I just wanted it to be perfect.”
The couple share three children together, the eldest being Love Island star Dani Dyer, 28, followed by daughter Sunnie, 18, and son Arty, 11. They are also doting grandparents to Dani’s three children.
But Danny and Joanne have been through tough times too, and back in 2000 he was kicked out of the house due to his wild behaviour. “Yes, she did kick me out because I was a pr***,” he told new show The Assembly, which will see celebrities grilled by journalists. “And she deserved better.”
He continued: “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.”
In 2017, just a year after the couple tied the knot, things got so bad that the former EastEnders star left the family home and was seen removing all his belongings from the property in bags and boxes, with the help of EastEnders co-star Kellie Bright. It’s said he moved into a £1,700 a month bachelor pad following his marriage woes.
It was suggested Danny had left the family house out after his marriage to Jo fell under “serious pressure”. At the time, the pair were said to have been spending more and more time apart – but after taking a short break from EastEnders due to personal issues, he moved back in.
Prior to his wedding to Joanne, it was claimed that Danny had had an affair with late Girls Aloud star Sarah Harding on the set of 2012 movie, Run For Your Wife. 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. The star did previously admit to cheating, saying: “I thought the grass was greener – but the grass was horrible and I don’t ever want to go there again.”
“It f****d my head up when I became really famous,” he told the How To Fail podcast. “I didn’t quite know what to do with it and I suppose she stood by me for a lot of s**t and had to be very patient with me.
“And, of course, I do believe in the marriage vows and sickness and health and for better for worse. So it’s hard to stay in a relationship for that long with the press attention and with me being a p***k for many years, because I was, I hold my hands up, I lost the plot for many years.”
Happily, the pair are now stronger than ever. “I didn’t quite know who I was and I suppose she had to suffer all that on a national level. I love her with all my heart,” Danny admitted. “You know, she challenges me every day. She’s kept me very grounded. I’ll tell you that now.”
The star has further admitted that his wife “controls everything now”, after he sought help through therapy. And despite his bad boy behaviour and the on-off nature of their relationship over the years, Danny insists Joanne is the only woman for him and that they will be “together forever”.
“We’ve been together since we were 14 so we have spent our whole life together,” he said. “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.”
The Assembly, Saturday and Sunday, 10pm, ITV1 and ITVX
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