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Aaron's early life on mean streets

LOGIE-winning McLeod's Daughters hunk Aaron Jeffery has spoken for the first time about his painful childhood and his dangerous life on the streets of Sydney.

Jeffery, who plays Alex Ryan on the hit Nine show, revealed he was homeless when he first arrived in the city and lived off the soup kitchens and food vans that helped desperate people like him.

That was until he scored a job as a bouncer in Kings Cross, when he was given a gun ­ thankfully, without any bullets.

"If anyone tried to steal my car or stuff, I would have drawn my gun on them," Jeffery told teenmatters magazine.

"I drew my gun often, although it had no bullets in it.

"It was like living in a fantasy land.

"But if someone had pulled a gun on me, I would have been a goner."

Jeffrey also said the sexual abuse he suffered as a child caused him to suffer a mental breakdown, prompting him to go "walkabout" in 1998.

"I spent a lot of time thinking and I made a conscious decision to deal with the sexual abuse I had suffered when I was a little boy," Jeffrey told the magazine.

"I wanted it out of me.

"I wanted the darkness out of me.

"It's very much linked to the rage I always felt in my adolescence," Jeffrey said.

He said his wild youth came as a result of hiding his childhood pain.

"I blocked it out and didn't start having memories of it again until my mid-20s," he said.

November 03, 2005
The Daily Telegraph