NO LAUGHING MATTER
I was UK’s most hated man & wanted to die after £1K-a-week drug binges… my daughter’s birth is a blur says Dapper Laughs
At one of his lowest points, the comedian was living above his drug dealer
- Josh Saunders, Features Writer
- Published: 12:23, 17 Jul 2025
- Updated: 15:52, 17 Jul 2025
SLUMPED on his knees, sobbing uncontrollable in a Marbella hotel room, shock comic Dapper Laughs realised he had made the biggest mistake of his life.
Days earlier, his glamour model wife of three months stormed out and banned him from seeing their two kids over his skyrocketing cocaine usage and excessive boozing.
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At the time, he was splurging £1,000-a-week on the Class A drug, snorting up to four grams a session, and downing up to three bottles of wine or 10 pints and shots of tequila per night.
But instead of flying home after the explosive row in October 2022, which followed benders lasting days, the comedian – real name Daniel O’Reilly – partied on for five more days.
Now 1,000 days sober, the London-born funnyman says it was the “darkest moment of my life” in an unflinchingly honest interview with The Sun.
He reveals the deadly debauchery that was “destroying my family”, the “hell” of being ‘homeless’ and living on a blow-up bed and what led him to finally accept the blame for being cancelled over his controversial comedy routines.
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Daniel, now 41, tells us: “The night before we went to Spain, Shelley was begging me to stop drinking and using drugs, and said, ‘I don’t want to come to Marbella with you if you’re going to be a mess, can you stop now?’
“I promised I would but as soon as we landed I started. I was an addict. Later she told me, ‘You’re not welcome back at home and you can’t see the kids until you sort yourself out’.
“She flew home but I still stayed out there for four or five days partying as if nothing was wrong, like I didn’t have a care in the world, in denial and not thinking about what I had done.
“It only hit on the final day, I was in my hotel room on my knees, crying my eyes out, thinking ‘I can’t go home, do I stay and continue taking drugs? Do I take my own life?’”
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Daniel’s addiction had been steadily escalating for years – dating back to the height of his career in 2014, before he was cancelled over his risque jokes.
Under his alter-ego Dapper Laughs, who was based on “heightened, exaggerated versions” of his pals, he was the epitome of hedonistic, partying-obsessed “lad culture”.
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But his remarks, including saying that crying women were just “playing hard to get” and gags that trivialised rape and sexual assault, sparked nationwide furore.
In 2014, his ITV2 sketch show Dapper Laughs: On The Pull and multiple gigs across the UK were cancelled after a petition with 67,500 signatures, including those of Katherine Ryan and Jenny Eclair, calling to end his career.
“I was pushing it too far because it was causing so much controversy,” Daniel reflects. “The likes, the followers, the ego, the attention, it all became an addiction.
“The more noise I made, the more tickets I sold. It all happened so fast. I was in my early 20s and very immature, very inconsiderate. I offended a lot of people.”
Daniel became known as “the most hated man in the UK” and was described by one reviewer as having “torpedoed his own career”.
His very public fall from grace saw his bad habits escalate from “social use to a coping mechanism and addiction”.
“During that period I was extremely embarrassed, I wanted to escape myself and my life and alcohol became how I did it,” he says.
“I lost all my money, I couldn’t work, I ended up losing my house. I started drinking and using drugs on my own, then the worse I felt the more I did it.
I blamed the press. I blamed the industry. I blamed cancel culture and mob culture. I had to mature to realise all of this happened because of the way I behavedDaniel O’Reilly
“Then my father died in 2016 and I just couldn’t handle life anymore. I broke up with my missus and was living above my dealer.
“Once I was up all night sniffing gear and thought about taking my own life. That’s when I rang the Samaritans, and it still took me six years to get sober from that point.”
In between that time, Daniel appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018, in a failed bid to change public perceptions of him. Upon leaving the house, he proposed to Shelley on live TV.
Four years later in 2022, and after just three months of marriage, his wife dumped him on the trip to Marbella, to attend to premiere for the film The Last Heist.
“Shortly after our honeymoon I kept telling my wife and myself that I would cut down and not use drugs, not go out on benders,” he says.
“But the more stressed I got, the more I drank until it was uncontrollable. My wife had enough of the hangovers, me coming in at all hours and not showing up for our family.”
‘All-night binges’
Despite being father to daughters Roux and Neve, then three and six, he would disappear for days at a time and was boozing or using drugs up to three times a week.
“I spent a lot of time pretending to be successful and a good father online but I was out drinking and taking drugs when I should have been learning to be a parent,” Daniel says.
“I would explode and storm off to the pub or my wife and kids would get up in the morning and I would have been up all night doing cocaine.”
The dangerous debauchery led Daniel to “ruin family celebrations” and tainted beautiful moments like the births of his children and the couple’s wedding.
“With my wedding it was a bit of a blur at the end, which was a shame,” he says. “Drinking was a big part of the day and it saddens me seeing pictures that I don’t remember.
“Wetting the baby’s head were big ones and with both of my daughters’ births, I went out with my friends and they turned into two-day benders when my wife needed me the most.
“They are painful memories around such beautiful memories. I hold a lot of shame and guilt for that. It’s that pain that I sit with to keep sober today.”
‘Like hell’
When Daniel flew back to the UK from Marbella, he had been kicked out by Shelley and was forced to stay at his late grandparents’ home, which was empty and in the process of being sold.
It was there he would spend a week detoxing before going into rehab.
“It was like hell,” Daniel says. “There was only a cross on the wall to stare at. There was no TV, no furniture, nothing apart from an inflatable mattress my uncle brought around.
“I remember crying uncontrollably, the only thing I could think was ‘Let’s get fucked, let’s drink everything’ but I knew after Marbella it had to stop.
“I was terrified to leave the house, fearing I would wander into a pub or see someone. I was desperate to drink despite alcohol having destroyed everything.
“I managed to abstain through a really difficult time. Any addict will tell you being in your own mind is horrific. It was the first step to recovery before entering rehab.
I would explode and storm off to the pub or my wife and kids would get up in the morning and I would have been up all night doing cocaineDaniel
“But even then I still thought, ‘Maybe I can still blag this, get her back, sort myself out and maybe still drink’ now I realise that’s not possible.”
Daniel acknowledges he’s “always in recovery”, more than 1,000 days into his sobriety, and “still romantises” drinking and drug-taking at times.
No longer using his vices to block out his demons, he did a lot of soul searching and began to own the mistakes which led to him being cancelled.
Reflecting on how he used to behave and the jokes he used to tell, Daniel tells us: “I watch back my lad culture content and cringe.”
Daniel acknowledges he was “pushing it too far” and instead of taking accountability in the past, he looked to outsource it onto others.
He says: “I blamed the press. I blamed the industry. I blamed cancel culture and mob culture. I had to mature to realise all of this happened because of the way I behaved.
“I was perceived as an evil, hateful person at the time but hand on my heart there was never any malice in what I said. I was just a kn*b.
“I never meant for my content to be triggering or upsetting, especially to those who have been victim to rape or sexual harassment, and from the bottom of my heart I apologise.”
Rock bottom
Daniel’s far from alone in his struggles with men accounting for 75 per cent of all suicides in the UK, much of it down to the stigma around therapy and seeking help.
This crisis led him to found the charity M.A.T.E. – standing for Men And Their Emotions – which has more than 50,000 members in a support group online.
To raise money for it, Daniel is putting on Stand Up Comedy for M.A.T.E.’s + Men’s Mental Health, which also stars Lee Nelson, at the Indigo in London’s O2 Arena on July 18.
It will fund more ‘dry houses’, which are alcohol and substance free homes for recovering addicts, and help others to access counselling online.
“It’s like a free rehab,” Daniel says. “Because traditional rehab is too expensive for the average working class man and to support people’s mental health.”
He believes the UK is amid an alcohol addiction crisis partially because “it’s our culture to drink at every opportunity” but that comes at a cost.
I was terrified to leave the house, fearing I would wander into a pub or see someone. I was desperate to drink despite alcohol having destroyed everythingDaniel
“It was only once I hit two massive rock bottoms that I realised I was destroying my family and the very thing that was ‘helping me cope’ was causing that destruction,” he says.
Now with 1,000 days of sobriety under his belt, as of last week, he can’t quite believe how much his life has changed in that time.
He was reunited with Shelley, who eventually opened up about the “trauma” he had put her through, although it took over a year to fully regain her trust.
The couple have now had a third daughter and he has a fourth child on the way.
“I think it’s a blessing that the poster boy of cancel culture around misogyny was gifted with three beautiful daughters – and maybe a fourth on the way,” he says. “Is that not karma?”
He says that sobriety has made him “present and a better father” adding: “Before, in a week, I’d spend two or three days drinking and the rest of the time hungover and recovering.”
In 2024, he also embarked on his first tour in seven years, sold out 60 shows and is launching another 70-date tour soon, as well as writing a film and script.
“Those are just some of the things that have happened In 1,000 days, I couldn’t have done any of that if I wasn’t sober,” Daniel says.
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“It’s mad and if that isn’t proof that accountability and change is key, I don’t know what it is.”
