Emmerdale’s Lisa Riley forced herself to stop drinking after risky moment with Strictly pro
Lisa Riley reveals how her social drinking spiralled into a serious problem after her mother's death – and tells how 'a big night out' nearly led to a serious accident with her Strictly partner
Lisa recalled that she came close to causing dance partner Robin a serious injury (Image: PA)
Former Emmerdale star Lisa Riley has spoken out frankly about her problems with alcohol – revealing how her drinking habits nearly caused a disaster on Strictly. Speaking on the Bee Sober podcast, Lisa told how she’d always enjoyed a drink, but her alcohol intake became a problem around the time that her mum died.
Lisa explained that she and her mum had been particularly close: “We were inseparable. For me, being a kid aged seven at drama school, she was my totem pole. She kept my tent up. If I made a mistake, she forgave me. If I was an idiot, she forgave me. And she made everything better. And then all of a sudden, this rug was pulled from under me.”
Lisa told how she had nursed her mum in her final weeks, and, as she was taking more and more responsibility for her mum’s care, before organising her funeral, the stress made her start drinking much more: “I found it really, really, really hard. And so I’d have a glass of wine… And and then all of a sudden, the glass was becoming a bottle…”
Lisa gave up booze nine years ago ( Image: PA)
Shortly before her mum’s death, Lisa got the news that she was going to be on the tenth season of Strictly Come Dancing: “I was so lucky to be to be partnered with my beloved Robin. And he was so patient with me, not only was he dealing with me, to teach me how to dance, he was dealing with my grief.”
But part of Lisa’s coping mechanism involved immersing herself in a party lifestyle: “We would practise and then we go back to the hotel, where I was living in London, and every night at dinner it was drink. And more drink, and more drink.
“And I get up and we practice the next day, and then we would go live to the nation on Saturday night and we go to the BBC bar afterwards, and the drink was flowing. My friends would come back down from the north to support me in the audience, and we go back to the hotel and I would be obliterated.”
After coming fifth on Strictly 2012, Lisa went on to appear on the 2013 live tour as well as backstage show Strictly Confidential ( Image: PA)
Lisa admits that she threw herself into Strictly, and into all-night partying, as a “plaster” to mask her pain. And that sticking-plaster was so seductive because it was effective: “We went on tour with Strictly, and I was with all my bezzies. And we were living a rockstar life, you know, touring the country in the Strictly van. It was just amazing.
“Then there was one week, near the end of the tour, and we’d had a really big night with the band and everyone on the show. And then we had a matinee and I nearly dropped Robin, because I wasn’t focused.”
Lisa recalls feeling mortified, because Robin, who sadly died earlier this year, was already carrying a back injury at the time, and as a professional dancer couldn’t afford to get injured: “It was then that I thought, OK, the partying’s getting too out of hand.”
Lisa describes Robin as her ‘gay best freind’ ( Image: BBC/Guy Levy)
It was in the August of that year, Lisa challenged herself to get through that Christmas without having a drink. And she says she hasn’t touched a drop since.
Although she doesn’t believe she was an alcoholic, Lisa accepts that she was a problem drinker.
She visited an Alcoholics Anonymous group in the US, because she says she was afraid of being recognised in the UK, but says it wasn’t for her. “It was like a sitcom”, she says.
