TV presenter and drinks influencer Aidy Smith has revealed how his career as a child actor was derailed after he was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome aged seven. The Three Drinkers star developed an eye roll and head flick, followed by an involuntary 'whooping' noise, which led to bullying and ridicule while he was growing up. "I remember it like it was yesterday. At the time, I didn’t have a clue what was going on – I knew my body was doing things I wasn’t asking it to do and to be quite honest, it was terrifying,” he admits. “I honestly thought something was really wrong with me.”

The former child actor turned celebrity ‘mixologist’ revealed how he was dropped from his role on children’s show, The Big Bag, as a result of his Tourette’s and, at one point, the jeering and loneliness he suffered made him consider taking his life. “The second my Tourette’s began I was dropped by the show and my acting school. Everything I had dreamed of came crashing down, it was devastating,” says the 34-year-old, who grew up in Bradford.

“That’s not where it ended though, parents no longer invited me to parties because I was ‘different’. Teachers took my tics to be bad behaviour and would humiliate me in front of the class and other children would pick on me because I was an easy target. Let’s face it, when you have Tourette’s, you stand out. Then there was the school careers teacher who laughed in my face when I said I wanted to go to university and the university placement teacher who told me my dreams of going to America for a year should be forgotten because I had a disability and would never get a placement out there.”

Today Aidy’s Three Drinkers show on Amazon Prime, co-hosted with Helena Nicklin and a revolving cast of guest presenters including Colin Hampden-White, is one of the world’s best-known TV shows to mix travelogue, doof and drink. But it has been a long struggle. “Kids made fun of me because I made funny movements and sounds. My friendship group decreased dramatically overnight because parents didn’t want their children associating with someone like me,” Aidy says.

“From the age of seven to leaving school were honestly some of the most harrowing and loneliest years of my life, a large part of this is because my tics were at their worst during this period, but also the world’s outlook on me didn’t help.” He continues: “I was always made to feel a burden, like I would never fit in and that I never had a chance. I became one of the 48% of people with Tourette Syndrome that consider taking their lives and I almost let the negativity win. Fortunately, I didn’t.

“This is why I fight so hard now to make as many people as possible aware of what Tourette Syndrome is. The more awareness there is, the more understanding and kindness there will be.” Figures from The Tourette Association of America’s latest impact survey found 70% of people with the condition are bullied and he hit out at household names who fuel this by making jokes out of people with Tourette’s.

“There are comedians like Ricky Gervais who think it’s okay to use Tourette’s syndrome as a joke and public figures like Gary Lineker that create tweets about having ‘dad joke Tourette’s’,” he says. “And we’ve not even touched on movie portrayals of Tourette’s such as ‘Matchstick men’ and ‘Alien’ where characters are portrayed to have Tourette’s for no reason at all.”

As an adult, Aidy, who is gay, was initially shunned by TV companies who thought having him on television was too much of a risk but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and, today, is thought to be the world’s only TV presenter with Tourette’s.

“On leaving university I fought hard to try and get back on TV but, due to social stigmas of Tourette’s and swearing, many companies didn’t want to touch me for fear that their editing budget would be eaten up and I’d be more effort than it was worth. The thing is though, only 10% of people with Tourette’s actually have coprolelia, the swearing side of Tourette’s, and had they known this, things may have been different. I knew at this point that I needed to forge my own path.”

He subsequently created the award-winning series.

“No commissioners came to me, I made my own TV show through sheer hard work,” he insists. “The Three Drinkers sits on Amazon Prime and is a series that blends travel, culture, and the joy of a good drink – with plenty of laughs along the way. As someone proudly neurodivergent, I’m passionate about smashing stereotypes. This show isn’t about drinks – it’s about connection, culture, and celebrating the wonderfully diverse world we live in.

“The beauty of it is that I don’t actually need to manage my Tourette’s on screen. As I’ve said before, when someone with TS pours their focus into something they truly love, the tics often take a back seat. And for me? That something is being in front of the camera.

“Now, after the cameras stop rolling, that’s a different story, once the excitement kicks in and the adrenaline settles, the tics come right back—and usually with a bang! But in those moments on screen, when I’m doing what I love most, there’s this incredible stillness. It’s like home.”

Aidy, who now lives in London, is the Global Ambassador for both the Tourette Association of America and Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Scheme and sits on the Inclusivity Board for Soho House Group, He is also a patron for the ADHD Foundation and Neurodiversity Charity and work closely as an Inclusivity Advocate for MIPCOM and he also has a neurodivergence-focused platform, @DisLabeled, on Instagram and TikTok.

This Easter, the celebrity mixologist is taking on a new challenge and embracing a new trend, savoury cocktails, which are going viral on social media platforms on behalf of iconic cheese brand 1912 which has been hand made by expert cheese masters at the Long Clawson Dairy in Leicestershire. He’s created a cocktail using 1912 Stilton and Mozart Chocolate Liqueur called the Strawberry Velvet.

Aidy added: “I’ve always loved a challenge and when the opportunity came about to create a savoury inspired cocktail for Easter, I knew immediately what I wanted to shake up. Blue cheese meets creamy white chocolate easter egg with an indulgent strawberry twist – and so the ‘Strawberry Velvet’ was born.

“A lot of people may be wondering how on earth you create a cocktail with blue cheese but it’s actually a lot easier than you’d think. The secret lies within a method called ‘fat-washing’ which is really simple; melt some 1912 Stilton blue cheese with some butter and once it’s cooled pour it into a sealed container with rum.

“After around eight hours at room temperature, you pop it in the freezer for 24 hours. The fat will rise to the top of the container, so you simply scoop it off before fine straining the liquid through a 400-count sieve and there you have it. Pour it back into your bottle and you’ve got yourself a blue cheese infused rum.”