WITH a drug-dealing dad and a knife-wielding mobster past, Darren Harriott could have ended up in jail – but he’s the one who gets the last laugh.
He credits comedy with saving him from a life of crime and now he will be one of the competing celebrities on the TV show Dancing On Ice.
To fulfill his dreams, he once worked as a bouncer to pay the bills, including at West London’s Hammersmith Apollo, where he would later return as a headliner.
Since then he’s appeared on numerous TV shows including Guessable, Outsiders and Don’t Hate The Playerz – but now he’s been training with his US pro skater partner Tippy Packard, 27, and laughs at the thought as his former gang members watch him spin. “in a sparkling outfit”.
Darren said: “Stand-up saved me because I was completely lost.”
In a candid interview with The Sun, the 34-year-old recounted his difficult upbringing in Oldbury, near Birmingham, the loss of his prisoner father to suicide aged 11 and the slippage as a poor teenager .
And the Brummie comedian, who will take to the ice in custom-made size 14 skates, says he feels lucky to have been able to stop following a very dark path.
strange call
He said: “At that time, when I was 14 or 15, I felt like I had nothing to lose. I could have easily stabbed someone for absolutely nothing.
“Every day, especially now that I live in London, I read the newspapers and see young teenagers being stabbed to death.
“It’s horrible, because I remember what it was like at that age.
“When you take a tough upbringing or family lives and poverty and add teenage ego, the jams and fights start all over again.
“Considering children with knives, the consequences can be devastating.”
Throughout Darren’s early childhood, his father, Patrick, was in prison and only made rare visits to see his mother Paulette and the children.
Darren says: “He was a drug dealer, an addict and a proud Rastafarian with dreadlocks on his back, immaculate silk shirts and flashy convertibles.
“The few times I saw him, he had loads of money in his pockets.
“If my dad was a smart drug dealer, he probably wouldn’t have been in jail so much, but he was very obvious.
“If you had asked my father what he did, he would have told you that he was a carpenter.
“You are not a carpenter driving a Saab convertible in 1995.”
On Christmas 1999, when Darren was 11 years old, he was at his grandmother’s house when he received a strange call from his father.
He recalls: “He started saying things like, ‘Take care of your mother, take care of your brother. Work hard, be sure to study”.
“I didn’t think about it at the time, but on reflection there was a lot of finality to what he was saying.”
Three months later, in March 2000, another call revealed that Patrick had committed suicide in his prison cell.
Darren added: ‘I was so sad for my mum because she had two boys aged 11 and 13 to raise on her own and she was only 33, younger than me now.
“She’s the complete opposite of my dad, she works hard, she’s never done drugs in her life, she plays by the rules and she used to work as a cleaner.”
Darren says he felt “completely lost” and then in high school he bonded with a group of classmates who all also had “dad issues”.
Taking inspiration from British garage and hip-hop collective So Solid Crew, they formed a grime music group called Terror Klan Killerz.
While Oldbury, where Darren lived, was relatively free of gang crime, his friends lived in the suburbs of Birmingham where warring factions, including infamous rivals the Burger Bar Boys and the Johnson Crew, fought fierce battles territorial.
For Darren and his pals, the best gangsters were heroes.
Darren said: ‘My friend’s mother was dating such a high profile gang member in Birmingham, he was like a movie star.
“I was a poor kid with the heel sticking out of his shoes and I look at this guy’s eye-catching clothes, his gold chain, his designer sneakers and he has everything I want. I wanted to be him.
I was so sad for mom when dad died. She had two boys aged 11 and 13 to raise. She’s the complete opposite of him – hardworking, never done drugs and plays by the rules
“But in 2003, on New Years Eve, Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare were killed in a drive-by shooting and it was horrific.
“He was one of four men involved and it was shocking.”
Over time, more and more people from other schools joined Darren’s gang, and suddenly his buddies got into gang culture more seriously.
He recalls, “They carried knives, which meant I had to get a knife.
“I had no problem with someone like that, but they’re my boys, so we take care of each other. It was the mentality.
“I knew carrying a knife was bad, but I was so lost, and never felt comfortable anywhere until I found these guys.”
Being slightly removed from the crime-ridden areas where his friends lived meant Darren stayed out of trouble.
He said: “Sometimes friends would say, ‘I pulled a knife on so and so’ and some of the gang would go out at night and rob people, steal bikes at knifepoint.
“I’ve always been lucky that I never used a knife, because if someone said something about my mom, called me fat – because I was fat – or started a fight with me, I would have pulled out a knife which is a horrible thought.
With the violence raging in Birmingham, there have been near misses.
Darren said: “One time a friend and I went to buy some ice cream and as we were going out some guys got off their bikes and pulled out some knives. One of them had a zombie knife.
“We didn’t know them, but apparently one of us looked like someone hurt someone’s cousin.
“One of them suddenly grabs a brick and hits my friend in the face, then they get on the bikes and drive off.
“I had to drag my friend home, with his white T-shirt covered in blood. The next day, at school, we all started carrying weapons again.
When Darren was already worried about the escalating violence, it was his own gang that turned against him on New Years Eve 2004 that finally drove him away.
He said: “We had an argument. I don’t remember what it was, but it was something insignificant and they beat me, knocked me out and sent me to the hospital.
The gang attack did me a favor because maybe we’re still hanging out. Some have been in prison, others have taken drugs, which I have never done. I hope they are well. We were basically good kids
“I’m lucky I wasn’t stabbed because they all had guns. Instead, they decided to knock me to the ground.
“I was embarrassed and ashamed, because when you’re in the gang you have an ego, but also really sad to have lost these people who were like my brothers.
“It was horrible to spend New Years Eve in a hospital bed, but it really changes you for the following year.
“My New Year’s resolution? Don’t come back next year.
Although his family wanted him to report the gang to the police, he refused for fear of being called a snitch.
But the beating proved a turning point and, after dropping out of school and going to college for a ‘fresh start’, Darren turned to acting to help with his health issues. mental spiral.
He explained, “I was really depressed.
“I needed something to get obsessed with and take my mind off things, then found comedy after going to an open mic night.
“I did my first gig at 18 and I still had that ghetto kid element, with a lot of anger.
“It’s like chasing after that, constantly trying to get that laugh and that helped me a lot.”
Darren traveled to comedy gigs across the country in carpools with older amateur comics, who “taught him so much.”
Then, in 2017, Darren was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
He was then the first black British man to be nominated for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019.
Since then, in addition to starring in a number of TV shows, he has his own Radio 4 series, Black Label.
But he has no malice against his former gang, explaining: “In the end, what they did saved me, because I could have still hung out with them and some of them went on and back in prison, some of them were on drugs, which I never did.
“There is no hatred for any of them.
“I sincerely hope they’re okay because I know deep down at the time we were all good kids.”
- Dancing On Ice starts January 15 on ITV and ITVX
