Danny Dyer has opened up about the time yobs forced him out of his home because of his role in EastEnders, drawing parallels with his character in the new Disney+ series Rivals. The
former Queen Vic landlord, aged 47, plays an entrepreneur loathed by the posh folk of Rutshire, a fictional Cotswolds town from Jilly Cooper’s novels.
Reflecting on his own experiences, Danny shared: “When I moved in people were milling around saying, ‘What are you doing moving around here? ‘ questioning me, thinking I was a multi-
millionaire, (but) I wasn’t.”
He recounted the hostility he faced after buying a four-bedroom house in Essex with wife Jo and their kids. “It was a big step up for us, a four-bedroom house. But I’d wake up some days and there’d be eggs thrown at my house which was weird, people resented me for moving in around there. If you’re going to chuck eggs at people’s houses you’d wait for their reaction – they’d throw the eggs and then f*** off home.”
Danny continued, “I’d wake up, look at the side of the house, they’d be shell everywhere. What’s the point in that? Then it started to get a bit more naughty and they started chucking vodka bottles and s***.”
Famous for his hard man persona, Danny found himself on the wrong side of some real life thugs, adding: “I don’t know what the f*** I’d done but it was my character in EastEnders they didn’t like. It must have been. We moved to where we live now, which is lovely.”
On the Off Menu podcast, Danny also mentioned being targeted by trolls when his ancestral connection to Henry VIII’s adviser Thomas Cromwell was revealed on Who Do You Think You Are?.
Danny discovered he’s descended from royalty and fancies playing Cromwell, despite expecting flak. He exclaimed: “I couldn’t give a f*** about King Edward III.”
And added, “I must play Thomas Cromwell, I’d be devastated if I don’t – just a kid out of Putney who rose through the ranks, f***** off to Florence, learned loads of languages, became a lawyer, came back, became Henry’s best mate.”
