Danny Dyer opens up about his strained relationship with his dad in new show, The Assembly, in which a celebrity is asked a series of questions by a group of neurodivergent people

TV tough man, Danny Dyer, has opened up about his fractious relationship with his dad in a new TV show called The Assembly. The EastEnders star, 47, is grilled in the new show on ITV by a group of neurodivergent, autistic and disabled people – with no topic off limits.

Danny speaks candidly in the programme about his upbringing and his relationship with his dad, Anthony, who the actor reveals told his son he wasn’t allowed to hold his hand anymore in a heartbreaking admission. Claiming his dad “wasn’t a very good dad”, the Celebrity Haunted star says: “My dad just wasn’t a very good dad. He didn’t know how to do it.”

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Danny continues: “He told me when I wasn’t allowed to hold his hand anymore. I was trying to cross the road, and I went to hold his hand, and he went, ‘No, we don’t do that anymore’.”

The Football Factory star, who is dad to Dani, 28, and Sunni, 18, and Arty, 11 says he wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he didn’t have a relationship with his kids. However, he also admits he hasn’t always been the best dad over the years.

Opening up about his own experience with fatherhood, he says: “I don’t understand how men put their head on the pillow knowing that they have children out there that they just don’t have a relationship with – I couldn’t do it.

“I caused quite a lot of pain, to my children – the stuff I was getting up to, just being vacant, and not engaging, just not being available.

“I realised later on, wow, I am going to do everything in my power to be… it’s not about money – you could live in a cardboard box. You have to express yourself. It’s about love, and what children need.”

Elsewhere in the show, Danny says his dad had been living a double life with another woman, with whom he’d fathered two daughters.

Conceding he didn’t know how Anthony could have done it, he says: “My dad was living two lives, so he was sort of raising us and then I always remember on Christmas Day, he would disappear for a few hours, so what he was doing was going across London to his other family, and he had two daughters.

“Just think about that – crazy. How could you do that? When my mum found out my sister was nine months old or something, so it was a real moment of clarity. How the f**k did he do that by the way?”

Despite their differences over the years, Danny says that he is now back in touch with Anthony because he “deserved another shot”, concluding: “I am very close to my dad now because again, he deserved another shot, and if there is still no relationship, it’s their loss, because you are an incredible human-being,” he says speaking to an interviewer who reveals their own fractious relationship with their dad.

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