Andy Carroll Reveals He Was Sexually Assaulted by ‘Celebrity Mate’ in 2021

Former England striker Andy Carroll has revealed he was sexually assaulted by a “celebrity mate” in 2021, with the man later found guilty and jailed for three years, in a new memoir that lays out one of the hardest chapters of his life.

The 37 year old, who won three caps for England between 2010 and 2012, writes about the attack in his book called Owning It. He says it happened a few years back after a Newcastle United match, when a well known friend of his then partner invited himself over to watch a boxing match on TV.

Carroll says the man took over mixing drinks in the kitchen that night, and he started to feel strange. "I start to feel lightheaded and think has he slipped me something," he writes. He told the man it was time to leave and offered to call a taxi, but the man said he would just sleep in the spare room instead.

Carroll says he woke up to find the man assaulting him in bed. He writes that he hit the man, dragged him out to the driveway, and called the police. "I smack him as hard as I can and he hits the deck," he says in the book.

According to Carroll, the man was arrested at the scene after telling officers Carroll had attacked him for no reason. Carroll had to go to the police station too. The case went to trial and took two years to conclude. The man denied the claims but was eventually convicted of sexual offences, sentenced to three years in prison, put on the Sex Offender Register, and barred from the village where Carroll lived at the time.

Carroll calls the trial "humiliating and embarrassing and absolutely horrendous." He says he got almost no support while it dragged on, since only his partner and her family knew what had happened. When police finally rang to tell him about the guilty verdict, he says he broke down. "I started uncontrollably crying," he writes.

He says the assault has stayed with him ever since. "The trauma of what happened to me hasn't gone away," he writes, adding that it used to creep into his thoughts daily and made it hard to concentrate on football.

Carroll nearly left the story out of the book altogether. He says he talked it over at length with his girlfriend, hairstylist Lou Teasdale, 42, before deciding to go ahead, and admits he avoided his publisher for so long they probably thought he had gotten cold feet. "If me talking about it helps just one person then good, it will have been worth it," he writes.

The book also touches on Carroll's relationship with Teasdale and his struggles balancing football with a normal social life, including nights out, festivals, and drinking, which he contrasts with the disciplined lifestyle of players like Harry Kane. He also reflects on football's strip club culture, saying he now sees it as "incredibly disrespectful," though he did not think that way when he was younger.

Carroll, who now plays for National League South side Dagenham and Redbridge as well as working as assistant manager there, is separately facing a criminal case unrelated to the book. He has pleaded not guilty to breaching a non molestation order, after being accused of repeatedly phoning his ex wife, former TOWIE star Billi Mucklow, 37. That case is due to go to trial in January.

Carroll and Mucklow were together for 11 years and share three children. They got engaged in 2014, married in 2022, and confirmed their split in September 2024 after separating quietly earlier that year.