Coronation Street’s Jim McDonald actor Charlie Lawson details wild night’s out with Katie Price and claims they’d ‘take anything they could’

Coronation Street star Charlie Lawson has bragged about his boozy nights out with Katie Price as he gave an insight into his previously wild lifestyle.

The soap actor, 65, who played Jim McDonald, claimed he and the glamor model, 46, would ‘take whatever we could get our hands on’.

Charlie shared an insight into his holiday celebrations in his autobiography That’s Life, revealing that he has previously tried cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, LSD, speed and cannabis.

Charlie also revealed that at the height of his drinking and drug abuse, he drank more than a bottle of whiskey in one night.

Of his friendship with Katie Price, he writes: ‘I always got on well with her, although more often than not we were three sails to the wind at three o’clock in the morning, under the influence of everything we got our hands on!

‘I’ve always had a soft spot for Pricey. I always felt like she was abandoned by both friends and boyfriends.”

Although Charlie admitted he was introduced to ‘most drugs’, he said he had a preference for cocaine and speed, which made him ‘bounce off the walls’.

Charlie previously publicly apologized to his daughter Laura after admitting he fed her ‘booze, drugs and partying’.

He confessed he was “pretty hopeless” as a father while his only child was away at boarding school in a 2019 interview on Eamonn Mallie’s Face to Face.

The Northern Irish actor spoke candidly about his life as the father of former police officer Laura.

He said: ‘I was quite hopeless as a father. [Boarding school] made me useless with children. I wasn’t interested at all.

‘My grandchildren love me and for some reason I get along well with them. But for my own daughter, I can only sincerely apologize for the way I behaved because I was so selfish.”

Charles, who has been with his partner Debbie for more than 15 years, previously revealed he left his family because he was ‘unhappy’ in his first marriage, with Laura being just seven when her parents split.

The My Mother and Other Strangers star added: “I left home because I was having a good time.

‘I cared more about drinking, drugs and having a good time than my family, which is disgusting to admit, but unfortunately that’s the truth. I’m trying to make it right now.’

In October, Charlie revealed that an “abusive ex” nearly drove him to suicide after “years of physical abuse.”

Speak with The sun, the actor said he was a terrified victim while playing wife beater Jim on screen.

He still has a scar from an attack and was ‘depressed because of what I was going through and given pills for’ while with his wife Lesley Bond.

Lesley, a make-up artist on Corrie, married Charlie in 1999 and died in 2010 aged 55.

Their wedding day in Lucknam Park, Wilts, was marred by violence, the Northern Irish actor claimed.

He recalls, “We met another couple there who were getting married at the same time.

‘Lesley later accused me of flirting with the bride and hit me so hard I almost fell over.

‘A few weeks later she flew into a rage at home and attacked me with an empty bottle. I loved her dearly, but she was very sick, bless her.”

Charlie met Lesley on set in early 1994, when he was 35 and had already been married to someone else for twelve years.

Their relationship led him to leave his first wife Suzie, with whom he shared his daughter Laura.

The first domestic violence incident occurred when Lesley punched Charlie after he was “innocently chatting to a neighbor outside while taking out the bins” because she was convinced he was having an affair.

He said Lesley was ‘severely addicted’ to the prescription drug Valium, which made her ‘paranoid’.

He also revealed that she hit him in the side of the neck while driving, causing him to almost crash.

The visible scar on his body is the result of a scissor attack, he says, which prompted him to commit suicide.

He said: ‘I knew life couldn’t go on like this. Leaving her would break my heart, but if I wasn’t there, everything would be solved. She could move on with her life and there would be no more pain.”

Luckily, Charlie called his good friend Eva Pope, who had played barmaid Tanya Pooley on the soap.

After their conversation, he packed his bag and left the house while Lesley slept after Eva told him to ‘come over here now’.

But Charlie did return to their home and was attacked again, causing him to ‘push her to the ground’.

Charlie played Jim in Coronation Street from 1989 to 2000 and has returned for regular stints since.

The character was an ex-squad who abused wife Liz (Beverley Callard) and their sons Steve and Andy, played by Simon Gregson and Nick Cochrane.

Offset, Charlie was known to enjoy Manchester’s nightlife alongside partner-in-crime Phil Middlemiss, who played bookmaker Des Barnes.

They were regularly seen at Manchester club La Gitane, drinking with Manchester United footballers and singer Lisa Stansfield.

Charlie admitted that the pair would be there ‘until breakfast time’ and would head straight to Granada [Studios] for filming.

Charlie is currently married to his third wife Debbie, 60. They were together when he found out Lesley had died of hypothermia at her home in Oxford.

He was asked to identify Lesley’s body and was later given her ashes, which he said he had scattered ‘on her favorite beach in the Highlands’.

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