Russell Tovey regrets not having therapy after being stabbed in head as teenager

The 37-year-old actor spoke to the Evening Standard about having counselling in the wake of his brief split from rugby player Steve Brockman last year,when he opened up about the traumatic attack.

‘I looked like a little kid, and these two were like blokes, just two horrible people,’ the Years and Years actor said.

‘But now I look back and think: what must your childhood have been like that you felt it was okay to do that?’

The attack had taken place on a train near his Essex hometown, with the two attackers punching Russell repeatedly in the face and slashing him above the ear with a knife.

‘It effed me up for about three, four years. I still have a thing, though not as much now, that if I’m walking along and feel nervous, I lose my step, lose my ability to walk properly,’ Russell said.

The beloved British actor has previously spoken about the random act of violence in The Observer, describing how two strangers followed him up the train before launching the attack.

‘One [of the attackers] said to the other: “Are you going to cut him or am I?”’ he recalled.

‘[I was] pouring blood everywhere… I didn’t know where it was coming from, I thought they’d cut my throat. Another passenger was giving me sugar out of a sachet.’

However, despite being treated in hospital for his wounds, Russell recently admitted that he never went to the police over the attack.

‘I didn’t press charges, I didn’t do anything,’ he told Jessie Ware’s Table Manners podcast in November. ‘I thought, what’s going to happen, what are they going to get? Nothing.

‘They’ll see me again and they’ll f***ing kill me. That’s what screwed me up.’

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