Who is Ashley Walters? How star of Netflix hit Missing You overcame prison stint and near-fatal attack to form a chart-topping band and launch a BAFTA-winning acting career

Ashley Walters' fans were left delighted on New Year's Day as he made his grand return to TV after his hugely popular Top Boy series came to an end last year. 

The actor, 42, stars in Netflix series Missing You, an adaptation of Harlan Coben's popular mystery novel.

The latest series - released on Wednesday - stars Slow Horses actress Rosalind Eleazar, who plays Missing Persons detective Kat Donovan.

The five-part show follows Kat who is shocked to see her ex fiancé Josh (Ashley) on a dating app 11 years after he disappeared from her life without a trace.

Josh's reappearance forces her to dive back into the mystery surrounding her father's (Lenny Henry) murder and leads her to uncover long-buried secrets from her past.

With the last Harlan adaptation, Fool Me Once, becoming one of Netflix's biggest hits, it's expected that Missing You will also break records and help the cast achieve worldwide fame.

What was Ashley Walter's group?

Ashley was raised in Peckham, South East London by his mother Pamela while his father was in and out of prison.

While he kept his head down at school, achieving 10 GCSEs, he started to stray when he joined UK garage and hip hop group So Solid Crew using the nickname Asher D. 

They enjoyed commercial success with their chart topping 2001 single, 21 Seconds, the first of five consecutive top-20 hit singles for the group.

Yet the band were marred with controversy, with several of the members having brushes with the law while their gigs were rife with shootings, stabbings and a murder.

 Recalling his youth, Ashley said: 'We live in a place where if young people are not fully occupied, then what are they doing? They're hanging around, maybe getting themselves into trouble.

'It was only when I got to maybe 16, I changed, as a kid. In those years is when I went out and I got in trouble, and joined So Solid.

'I wasn't rebelling against my mum, but it was rebelling against all of those things that she'd built up for me and how safe she kept me... I didn't grow up rich, but I had no reason to sell drugs or to be out on the street.

'But I was walking with some real gangsters at the time, so it was easy for me to become a target.'

In 2001, So Solid Crew member Skat D broke a 15-year-old fan's jaw. He escaped a jail sentence but was fined £5,500 for hitting the teenager after she slapped him around the face.

The following year a teenage fan was beaten to death outside a venue in Luton after one of their gigs.

In 2003, founder member G-Man was charged and jailed for possession of a handgun, while Skat D was fined after admitting to breaking the jaw of a 15-year-old fan who rebuffed his sexual advances.

That same year teenagers Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis were shot dead in crossfire between rival gangs after the party. 

In the immediate aftermath, the Labour culture minister Kim Howells pointed the finger at “idiots like the So Solid Crew glorifying gun culture and violence”, while Home Secretary David Blunkett branded their lyrics “appalling”.

Why was Ashley Walters in prison? 

At one point it looked like Ashley was going to follow in his convicted father's footsteps when he was jailed in 2002 for carrying a loaded Brocock air pistol modified to fire live ammunition.

The Top Boy actor reflected on the incident in a candid chat for the BBC's Louis Theroux Interviews where he spoke about his run ins with the law.

Ashley recalled how he once had a gun pulled on him while he was carrying his son Shayon, who is now 23, after he made a comment about someone copying his lyrics on the radio.

Following the incident, father-of-eight Ashley spent £1,300 on a pistol in order to 'protect himself'.

However, afterwards when the actor was arrested when he lost his temper in a disagreement with a traffic warden and said: 'I'm going to shoot you.'

The TV star's then partner Natalie Williams and their children Shayon and China, now 21, saw him being handcuffed and taken away by police.

Recalling the incident, he said: 'I wasn't actually going to shoot. I weren't willing to risk my liberty over shooting a traffic warden. But I mean, I made my comments, I said what I said.

'It was horrific. My biggest regret is that my kids were there. It was a big part of my life,' he admits. 'I didn't ever want to go back to prison.'

What happened after Ashley Walters left prison?  

Speaking on Adwoa Aboah's The Gurl Talk podcast, he revealed that after leaving prison, he felt the world had 'moved on without him' and he struggled to cope with his mental health, becoming 'abusive' to those he loved.

He said: 'I felt like as a man, I didn't want to believe there was something wrong with me.

'I came out (of prison) and the things that were happening and the way I was acting, I kind of attributed them to me being upset, me being slightly angry, but in hindsight I realise I was suffering with depression.

'When I was released from prison, I didn't want to leave my house for the first three months. I stayed inside and at the time I just felt like I didn't face people.

'I didn't want to talk about what had happened and I just felt like I had a lot of catching up to do, because when you're in that scenario - your world stays the same and everybody else's world keeps on moving. You feel behind, you feel left out, you feel lonely. '

He went on to tell that he found himself 'segregating' himself from friends and family, and became 'flippant and angry'.

He said: 'I realised that I was segregating myself from people, staying in my house led to me eventually losing friends and kind of it's slightly being abusive to people that I loved and cared about.

'Being really flippant, angry so it was at that point I realised I needed to talk to someone.'

The star told of how he drank to cope with his feelings, and how his wife Danielle Isaie was able to help him recover.

When asked who it was that Ashley finally opened up to, he replied: 'I think it was my wife.

'I had a really bad month, I think, for me and not many people know this I'm going to speak frankly now, but to get through it, to get around it I drank.'

He went on to remember an evening where he drank so excessively, he completely blacked out, and was asked to leave the bus by the conductor after circulating the route while passed out, several times.

'Alcohol became a vice and something I leaned on, so I drank for a while and I was drinking excessively. One day I went out with some friends', he told.

'Cut to the next morning at 7 o'clock I was on a bus and the conductor woke me up and was like mate I can't let you go around anymore.

'I think I'd been robbed, my wallet my phone was gone and I didn't have my shoes and I didn't know how I got there or what had happened.

'I walked home and when I got back my mum had called her and we sat and she held me and she said "You need to get some help.".

When was Ashley Walters attacked? 

Ashley has revealed he was the victim of a near-fatal stabbing when he was a teenager. 

He made the confession in 2020 when speaking out about racial discourse in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.  

Taking to Instagram, Ashley told followers: 'My point of coming on here today is that no one can tell me I am complicit because I haven’t posted anything about the scenario for several reasons, but the main one is I have been fighting this f**king thing all my career.

'I’ve seen black people and big corporations posting stuff about your silence is a betrayal. Don’t ever tell me my silence is a f**king betrayal, where I’ve been left for dead on the street by white men. Stabbed and left for dead, and these people have never been brought to justice.

'I’ve f**king worked hard, put my life on the line for all these f**king men, out here while this s**t has been going on, and I ain’t said nothing. I’m talking now because I’ve had enough of this s**t.

'People are being killed out there and treated like s**t, and all people can complain about is who’s posting or who’s f**king not.

'You don’t know what I’ve been through for this thing. Half of you wouldn’t be working now if I hadn’t been out here doing my thing for the last however many years, being bullied and held back by white people in this game.

'Don’t ever question my loyalty for this this thing. These people are cold blooded killers and no one ain’t doing s**t, but I’ve been going through this for years, f**king years.

'Look at the scar on my neck where they left me for dead. I was 15-years old, like a little piece of s**t, and no one went to jail for that, and I’ve dealt with that forever.

'So the moral of my story is don’t ever tell me that because I don’t post I don’t have passion of feeling for anything, You people are really slow and stupid to be turning on each other at a time like this.'

What has Ashley Walters starred in? 

Ashley made his TV debut as a teenager, landing roles as Omar in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and as Andy in Grange Hill, at the age of 14.

His feature film debut came in in Saul Dibb's 2004 Bullet Boy, where he played an ex-con adjusting to normal life outside of prison. 

He was praised for his performance, being named Best Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards. 

Ashley achieved nationwide fame in the Noughties with his lead role as Dushane Hill in the British crime series Top Boy, which ran on Channel 4 for two seasons. 

After the show's shock cancellation he appeared in Sky series Bulletproof.  

In 2019, following interest from Canadian rapper Drake, Netflix decided to take on Top Boy, going on to produce series three, four and five with the original cast, with Ashley as an executive producer.

The fifth and final season concluded in September last year.   

Who is Ashley Walters’ wife? 

Ashley found love with Danielle Isaie a fellow actor who starred in Gavin And Stacey playing Sheridan Smith's friend Cherice. 

She has also starred in shows including The Legend of Dick and Dom, Chewing Gum, and Casualty. 

In 2023 ,Danielle starred alongside her husband in the final series of Top Boy, playing a character called Amanda for two episodes.

The couple met in 2011, just as his Top Boy career was taking off and tied the knot in June 22, 2013.

They share two children together - a daughter, Amiaya-Love Walters (born 2014), and a son, River Leslie Walters (born 2016) and Danielle has a child from a previous relationship. 

Ashley is also father to Shayon, 23, and Panerai, 19, and daughter China with his former partner Natalie Williams.

The Netflix star also has two young daughters Antonia and Ashleigh with another unnamed woman.