Ashley Walters: Prison changed my mindset! How to reinvent yourself
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.6 • 15.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2025
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How have you come back from your rock bottom? Ashley Walters has reinvented himself over and over again, through music, acting, directing, parenthood, prison, and addiction.
In this chat with Fearne, Ashley talks through the mindset that allows him to take accountability for his actions instead of falling into victimhood, and why failure shouldn’t be viewed as an end point.
He explains why you should want to be the “dumbest person in the room”, and why if you feel you want to run away from a challenge, it’s exactly the challenge you should take on.
Fearne and Ashley tackle the big topics that have come out of Netflix show Adolescence, including online misogyny and male violence. Plus, Ashley reveals what his six year old daughter said to him that broke his heart and made him stop drinking...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that helps pick you up when you feel it's all falling apart. |
| 0:08.7 | Today, I'm chatting to Ashley Walters. |
| 0:11.5 | When they shut that prison door on me, I was like, wow. |
| 0:15.9 | How did I end up here? |
| 0:17.5 | You know, in your mind, you're like, I didn't see this for myself. I'm a good person. |
| 0:22.9 | I'm not meant to be in this situation, but actually, where I was outside of prison, I wasn't meant |
| 0:30.2 | to be. And I wasn't willing to step away from loyalty, from some toxic sort of masculinity |
| 0:37.1 | that was going on because I wasn't strong enough |
| 0:39.9 | and I was fearful of what the other side would be like. |
| 0:44.0 | Oh God, do you know what? Every week, right, I go to do this little introduction and I think, |
| 0:48.1 | what have I been up to? And I genuinely can't remember anything interesting that has happened to me |
| 0:53.6 | or anything that might be |
| 0:55.0 | relevant to you. But you know what I'm going to say? It's been one those weeks where it's been |
| 0:59.1 | a juggle. It has just been chasing my tail feeling like I'm not on top of anything at all, |
| 1:05.9 | whether it's work, staff, I'm trying to write a new book at the moment. Preping for these podcasts. Just general stuff |
| 1:12.6 | with the kids. Who's got blimming tennis? Who's got cricket? Who needs a swimming hat? It's just, |
| 1:19.3 | it's chaos. What are we doing, guys? How are we meant to do all of this? I don't know about you, |
| 1:23.9 | but I am still heavily relying on pen and paper and just having a list on my kitchen |
| 1:29.0 | counter, which is sort of fast becoming some sort of Shakespearean scroll that is eight |
| 1:33.7 | meters long. I mean, I'm overwhelmed, all right? That's my thing I'm leaving you with today. I'm |
| 1:40.1 | overwhelmed. And I don't have any of the answers or coping mechanisms. |
| 1:45.0 | But one thing I would suggest is if you are feeling overwhelmed, give yourself a break. |
... |
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