Emmerdale's Lisa Riley forced to make awkward ITV call after drunken hotel room antics

Emmerdale's Lisa Riley has opened up about her past struggles with alcohol, revealing that her boozy escapades once caused a stir with the ITV show's executives. The 48 year old actress, who has become synonymous with the role of Mandy Dingle over the past 30 years, has since turned her life around by embracing sobriety.

Despite portraying the often tumultuous life of her character on Emmerdale, Lisa has been striving for tranquillity off-screen, having given up alcohol completely. During an appearance on the Bee Sober podcast, she disclosed that she has maintained nine years of sobriety following a period where she battled with alcohol dependency after her mother passed away.

Lisa admitted to habitually consuming a bottle of wine by herself and depending on alcohol to get through social events. However, it was a specific episode that brought her into conflict with the Emmerdale higher-ups, involving a fib about how she sustained a wrist injury.

The incident unfolded subsequent to an ITV charity telethon, as Lisa recounted on the podcast. ITV organised three such telethons in 1988, 1990, and 1992, which successfully raised substantial funds for various UK charities.

Hailing from Bury, Lisa reminisced: "So do you remember when ITV did the Telethon? It was like their version of Children in Need, but ITV? Yeah. So I was hosting the Manchester side."

She continued, recalling the celebratory atmosphere: "And it was so much fun. And as you can imagine, the champagne was flowing like blooming water. Anyway, so it all finished. Everyone was, you know, obviously, we'd raised millions, brilliant charities."

"And I was in continuity for Emmerdale. Now, for anyone who's listening and doesn't know what continuity means, we film completely out of order. So within one day, I will probably get changed six times. There will be six different episodes, but the same sets, right? So I'm heavily in continuity for Emmerdale, filmed either side of each episode."

"And idiot here, obviously full of champagne and very, you know, happy with life, decides to jump from hotel bed, from bed to bed, doing fame jumps from bed to bed. Only I fell on one of the jumps and I broke my wrist, right? Well, I didn't know I broke my wrist because I was so full of champagne, didn't really hurt that much."

She added: "I've literally put it under a bit of cold water, woke up and then bear in mind, on this particular day, I'm supposed to be starting filming at 4pm, back up in Leeds. Well, look at my wrist, it's completely blue and purple. And I'm like, oh, it's fine. And every time I was like, I'd be like, no, okay, I'll be fine."

"Anyway, put my clothes on, got dressed. And I got in the car and this woman in the lobby, she was like, she recognized me. She said, 'Miss Riley, I don't mean to be rude. I don't mean to be intrusive, but I think you've really damaged your wrist'. And I was like, oh no, I'll be fine. I'll be fine."

"And she said, 'please go and get an x-ray'."

Lisa recounted the incident when she had to inform her Emmerdale chiefs about her emergency trip to A&E, where it was confirmed that her wrist was broken in two places. Speaking of the dreaded phone call to her boss, Lisa recalled: "So I rang the exec producer and I'm absolutely cacking it thinking, what am I going to do? Because I'm in continuity."

The challenge didn't stop there; upon her return to set, she found out that the wardrobe team scrambled for a creative fix to conceal her injury.

Narrating the amusing workaround, she said: "They got me this huge chocolate brown cardigan, tucked it in the cast in hope of no one noticing. Well, I don't know if you remember, but years ago, David Letterman had his own chat show, you know, late night show in London, and he invited me on, and he decided to out what I'd done on television. Well, of course, I'd lied to my boss about how I'd done it."

Lisa cheekily concluded with a reflection on the sly antics of her youth, saying: "And I was like, 'thank you so much'. And that was one of those moments in life when I thought, wow, I did get away with quite a lot back in the day, being too raucous and too full of champagne, yeah."