Woody Harrelson Interview Reveals Regretting Having A Foursome, Drinking, Weed And Troubled Past

Woody Harrelson has 91 acting credits under his belt. The versatile Hollywood actor also had three women under his belt one drunken night and his wife found out. Not a good look. The “War for the Planet of the Apes” star gave an extremely candid interview with The Hollywood Reporter where he told some amazing stories from his past.

Back in 2002, Woody had “one of the worst nights of my life” when he had a foursome after a drunken bar night in London. Two women approached the “Cheers” actor with a proposal to “take a walk on the wild side.” The 55-year-old agreed and entered a car and a third woman entered the vehicle.

“We went to my place, and one of the girls was a razzi [paparazzi] or worked for them, worked for the rags. And she got a photographer to come out. That one girl manipulated the other two,” he said. “I was bummed when they all left together ’cause I knew it was going to happen [an article]. News of the World, it was. I never read it ’cause I didn’t want to read it.”

Harrelson knew he was fucked because he participated in the group sex while he was married to Laura Louie, who he has three children with. Harrelson thought his marriage was over, but his wife was way more understanding than most.

“Laura — this really gives you a sense of the depth of her compassion — what she said to me after finding out was, ‘That must be really hard for you, to have this shit exposed.’ She just said that,” Harrelson remembered. “Now that doesn’t mean she wasn’t upset. How did I apologize? You know, just your standard Texan grovel. But she forgave me, and we’re still together.”

Only days after his well-documented foursome was splashed on newspapers around the world, Harrelson got into a feud with a taxi cab driver after an ashtray dislodged and he couldn’t fix it. “And then the next thing you know, he wouldn’t let me out, but I got the door open. Then the guy stopped,” Harrelson said. “He was on the phone — I didn’t know if he was calling his mates or the cops, but I didn’t want to meet either one of those groups. It turned out it was the cops. I got out, and the guy came after me, and he’s on the phone the whole time. And then the cops came, and I was running from the cops. I went to jail.”

He revealed his troubled childhood that caused him to have anger issues. He said his mother was a secretary to lawyers, and a very religious lady, but also a loner. She was the valedictorian and best athlete in high school. She “went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and she was coming back and met my dad on the plane and got married 10 days later.” Woody said his dad was a “charming fellow and a gambler,” as well as a con artist and a great storyteller. His dad also was incarcerated for life for murder.

The actor who is in the upcoming Han Solo movie said he was arrested several times but the first time the “police were really brutal.” When he was 20 or 21 he was caught jaywalking and the cops asked to see his ID. He said, “I don’t have my ID,” but he actually did. The cop then asked him, “Have you been out to some of these bars? Then you had to have an ID to get in.” Woody replied, “Oh, good point,” and presented his identification. The police officer then said, “Don’t lie to me again, punk!” Then smashed him against the wall a couple of times.

The Hollywood Reporter provides the details of what happened next:

I knocked his hands off, pushed him away and started running. And that was the beginning of a real dire episode. He put out an officer-in-distress signal, and soon I’m just surrounded by blue, and they had me down on the ground, knee in my throat. It was so brutal, the way they were handling me. A bunch of students gathered around and were complaining to the cops, and the cops were vicious to them, too. Then they threw me in a paddy wagon, and I’m handcuffed behind my back, and I asked one of the cops, “Why are you treating me like this?” And he slammed my head against the van. They stopped to pick up this other poor bastard peeing on the sidewalk, and when they opened those back doors, I just shot out of there.

I’m handcuffed, and I’m wearing boots, and I’m running. But I was a runner — I did track and stuff. I was running as fast as I could across the parking lot. And I can hear them all shouting and running after me, and there is a car going across this parking lot. I hit the car, did a complete flip, landed on the back of my head, kept rolling, and then they were on me and they maced the fuck out of me. And when they mace you, you’re done, that’s the end of the story. So yeah, I went to jail, they rough you up a little more, and before it was over, they had six counts against me. My mom came and got me the next day. That was brutal.

That was a real eye-opener — and an eye-closer at the same time because it really fucked my eyes. I had to wear sunglasses for a long time. [My skin] became all scaly and red and swollen and really nasty. I looked like some kind of weird reptile. And that was my first experience with the long arm of the law, and it had a big impact on me ’cause I really had rose-colored glasses on [in terms of] what I thought the world was. And at that time, I was still entertaining the notion of becoming a cop — either a cop or FBI or Secret Service. I stopped wanting to be a cop, for sure. But by then I was probably more interested in being an actor.

He revealed why he stopped smoking weed 14 months ago. “I had some weird reaction, which I looked up later, and it was adrenal exhaustion.” Harrelson still enjoys to tip one back though. “I still drink, but I try just to drink on weekends. I mostly just drink wine now.” But added, “My problem is, I’ll drink, and then I’ll drink too much.” The Hollywood actor said, “I’m a happy drunk, but sometimes I drink to the point where I’m not really thinking very clearly. And one of the bad things about celebrity — there’s a lot of positives, but one of the bad things is everybody wants to have a shot with you. It’s dangerous to go into a regular bar because I can end up doing a lot of shots, depending on the charity of the [other people].”

You can read the entire intriguing interview over at THR.