Aimee Lou Wood’s Father Discusses Impact of Addiction on Her Childhood: Cocaine Binges and Mental Health Struggles

The father of White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood has spoken about his drug and alcohol addiction which destroyed his daughter’s childhood.

Mike Wood, 66, admitted he caused ‘a lot of mayhem’ when Aimee-Lou and her sister Emily were young and said his drinking and cocaine binges nearly killed him on a number of occasions.

Sharing his story on a new podcast he is hosting with EastEnders actress Karen Henthorn, Mike opened up on how he was a ‘pretty s*** role model’ for his daughters and would often leave them at home with their mother while he went out partying with footballers and TV and soap stars.

But he revealed how his drinking and drug habit caused him to return from nights out with a battered face and missing teeth after numerous brawls and once landed him in a psychiatric ward after he nearly threw himself off a hotel ledge fearing he was HIV positive from sleeping around.

Mike lived with Aimee-Lou and Emily, who is a make-up artist and Instagram influencer, until 2001 when he was thrown out of the family home in Stockport, Manchester by his then-wife Alison.

Aimee-Lou, 31, the face of Marks & Spencer’s Christmas advertising campaign, has spoken before of how her turbulent relationship with her father and how the disconnect she felt – along with the bulimia and body dysmorphia she battled in childhood – pushed her into acting.

Speaking on the debut episode of his podcast, Woody Unscripted, of which the Daily Mail has been given an exclusive preview, Mike and Karen talk with former Republic Ireland player and manager Mick McCarthy who is Mike’s best friend of 41 years and Aimee-Lou’s godfather.

In a brutally honest confession, Mike – now clean – admitted he regretted the effect his toxic lifestyle had on his daughters and said it had formed the basis of the new BBC sitcom Film Club Aimee-Lou has written and stars in about a girl with mental health issues living with a single mother.

He said: ‘What I love about both my girls is that they’re both actually so honest about their emotional challenges and anxieties, I’m not talking out of school because obviously they’ve posted it on Instagram and in various interviews that they’ve both done and I think that gives people hope, you know.

‘Aimee and Emily are both neuro-diverse and this thing called Film Club, it’s about a girl and she’s got agoraphobia and she’s brought up by her mother, two daughters and a single mum and it’s quite similar to their upbringing. I’m sure there’s a few similarities… well, I know there is… but it’s really good that they can embrace it and they’re not embarrassed about it and they share it.

‘Listen, during their first few years I was a pretty s*** role model and I’m not going to lie, a very, very poor role model. I’ve made many amends and apologies over the years and I am sorry for the stuff that happened but as I went through my recovery, which is over 20 years ago now, maybe the fact I’ve had lots of therapy has maybe encouraged them to be open about their stuff, I hope that’s the case, but they’re both amazing and I just adore them.’

Mike revealed that he ‘drank too much for a long time’ and not long after meeting Mick in 1984 at a beauty contest, he nearly died from a fractured skull following a ‘stupid brawl in a stately home’.

He told how Mick asked him to accompany him when he was playing for Ireland at the World Cup in Italy in 1990 to chaperone his wife Fiona while he was with the squad.

It followed a period during which Mike, a secondhand car dealer, had split up with his first wife, was drinking heavily and his business was about to go bust.

He said: ‘I’d destroyed myself for six months going out every night, drinking, partying, I spent all my money, lost a business and was in a bit of state.

‘I ended up taking a friend to the World Cup and far from chaperoning Fiona round, Fiona had to look after me in the end because I watched the first three games and then went into a full-on nervous breakdown over there.

‘It was a haze. I drank my way through the first few days and then I think the realisation of everything hit. I’d been paranoid that I’d been six months single, out all the time, being very promiscuous and I genuinely thought I was HIV positive and I was going to die of AIDS.

‘There was so much other stuff going on, I’d had a nice little business that I knew was going to end because I had no money, spending it all on partying, gambling, the whole shebang and I knew it and I was just in this denial, this delusion.

‘It was like I wasn’t in the real world, you’d think I’d be having a great time as a football fan, imagine how privileged I was to be there but at one hotel, I can’t remember which one it was, but I’d had enough.

‘I went up onto the sixth floor – and I’ve got vertigo – and I went out on the ledge and I thought I wonder where to chuck myself. And I don’t know to this day why I didn’t do it, but I remember looking down and it was quite busy underneath and I remember thinking that I might fall on someone and kill somebody. Or was it because my mum and dad would be upset? I’m not sure but I remember that was the most desperate time in my life.’

Mike flew back to Manchester and was later admitted to a psychiatric hospital, which he likened to the Jack Nicholson movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

He said: ‘I met a chap who told me he was Henry VIII, and believed it, then this lady asked me if I’d go to the bank and draw a million pounds out and give it to Children in Need. And these people really believed their own stories.’

Mike recalled a conversation with a patient who was admitted to the ward after slashing his wrists and said: ‘Remember where I am, I’m in a national health psychiatric hospital with Henry VIII and the richest woman in England and various other people, I asked what happened to him and he told me, he said, “What happened to you?”

‘So then I say, “Well, have you heard of Mick McCarthy”, and he went, “Oh, Captain Fantastic” – because that’s what they called Mick at the World Cup – and I said, “Now, I’m Mick’s best mate and I was chaperoning his wife around the world…” Can you imagine? At this stage I haven’t a clue that he must be thinking, “What f***ing drugs are you on?”‘

By his own admission his drug of choice – cocaine – made his ‘a***hole behaviour’ go up a notch and he told the podcast how Mick used to act as his big brother and drag him away from angry confrontations in pubs and nightclubs.

Remembering an incident when Aimee-Lou was just a toddler and her mother was heavily pregnant with Emily, he said he had gone to a pub in Manchester to drown his sorrows when Manchester City were relegated from the Premier League.

He said: ‘There was a time in the Jolly Sailor, City had just got relegated against Liverpool, we’d been to the match, Mick had come to the game with us, I was a bit miffed.

‘I think it would have been about 1996 – Alison was not far off giving birth (to Emily) and I’m cabareting in the Jolly Sailor and I do the condom-on-the-head trick where you blow up and you’ve got like a helmet of a spaceman – one of my little jokes – and the landlord popped it with his cigarette. So then that’s me, I’m going into the zone now and then the arm comes round the shoulder, “Woody…we’re off”.

‘And there wasn’t many people I’d listen to through my life but Mick was one of them – he was almost like my big brother. If other mates had done it I’d have gone “f*** off” but I allowed Mick to drag me out. We walk out the pub door, a car’s driving past. The driver screeches to a halt and says, “It’s Mick… Mick McCarthy”. Mick goes, “It certainly is”, and he said, “You don’t fancy giving us two a lift home do you?”. And we jumped in the car.’ 

Mike eventually sought rehab to fight his addictions when he was at ‘death’s door’ and credits Clare Kennedy, an expert on alcoholism recovery and the wife of Coronation Street star Kevin Kennedy, who played Curly Watts, with saving his life.

He said: ‘Clare Kennedy was amazing, she used to see me in such a state.

‘I remember walking into a Man City home game once and I’d had a scrap with about six travellers. I thought I was untouchable because I knew a load of wronguns and head doormen in all these nightclubs so I used to behave like a complete ****hole.

‘I’d gone into another level of ****hole behaviour when I was putting that stuff up my nose as well as the drink and it was pretty grim. She saw me at Man City and I was in this exec lounge area. I’d had my teeth kicked out, my lip was stitched up there, my nose was over here, I’d had a right good kicking and she walked up to me – bless her – and said, “Have you not had enough yet love?”. And I went, “I don’t think so, I think I’m alright”, and then somehow I found myself (going) to a meeting with Clare the night after.’

Mick spoke about his own experiences with Mike on the podcast who he said was ‘so kind, so generous and so great to be a mate with’.

He said he never once saw Mike snort cocaine and said if he had ever seen him take drugs that would be the end of their friendship.

Mick said: ‘We’d play golf, I’d always enjoy his company.

‘I could always leave when he decided to be outrageous and it was not my bag, which I did on a few occasions when I’d leave him where he was and let him crack on.

‘Later on when he was somewhere down the line I’d drag him out of places when he’s had that one too many and somebody says, “Would you mind leaving?”, and he says, “What?”, and the monster comes out, the honey monster comes out, and I’m like, “Woah”, arm around him – I’ve had that a few times – “out, come on we’re gone”. 

‘I remember you telling me about the drugs. I never saw him do them… because that would’ve been me and him done.

‘I’d sometimes see the difference and I just thought you were bevvied. But it was only when you coughed it to me when you were coming clean that you’d been taking drugs.

‘You showed me a photograph of how you were prior to going in (to rehab) and you were on death’s door.’

Aimee-Lou was the stand-out star in The White Lotus, released earlier this year, having made her break-through in 2019 when she landed her role in Netflix’s racy comedy Sex Education.

After her parents’ divorce, she and her sister lived with their mother and stepfather who paid for her to attend a private secondary school, where she was able to explore her love of acting by studying drama.

In an interview with The Guardian two years ago, Aimee-Lou said her hardships were responsible for pushing her into the industry, having previously confessed that ‘people like me get into acting because it helps them in some way. It helps you express yourself, or gives you a shield from “bad things”.’

Recalling her relationship with her father, she told the newspaper: ‘He was a party animal on the scene in Manchester so he would hang out with celebrities and Manchester City football players; he had a massive ego, so that gave him validation.

‘Because of him, my mum had to carry a lot on her shoulders. She tried to protect us, and took responsibility for it, in a way.

‘I guess therapy has helped me to unpick a lot. I’m learning through therapy that some people have a really steady line in life and then… poof, trauma. While others are working through a constant flow of s***.’

Mike has been sober for the last 22 years and has reconciled with Aimee-Lou and has regular contact with her and Emily, who has 160,000 followers on Instagram.

He added on the podcast: ‘I caused a lot of mayhem, I had four divorces, all that other s***, it wasn’t great at all. That’s an understatement.

‘I reckon that everybody in my life, virtually everybody, I probably had a bad influence on at some stage, I certainly had a bad influence on my children with my behaviour so If I can be a good influence on as many people for the rest of my life that I was bad influence on in my other life then maybe I’ve had a success.’