Say Hello To A Changed Man – Matthew Newton: I Want To Be "An Exemplary Citizen”

Say Hello To A Changed Man – Matthew Newton: I Want To Be "An Exemplary Citizen”

Australian actor Matthew Newton has carved out a rather unsavoury reputation as a bad boy after several separate assault charges. But, according to the 36-year-old, he’s a changed man.

"I was put in the back of the police car and I realised I was completely alone,” said Newton on an incident that saw him hit a hotel clerk in Miama last year. “I realised there were two choices: there was help, there was honestly opening myself up and asking for help, or there was nothing, there was the end," he explained, before taking full responsibility for his past errors in judgement; many of which were violent episodes. "It's never okay to hit someone," he said.

Newton, who’s ‘controversies’ section on Wikipedia is longer than his ‘acting’ section, will be looking to extend the latter now that, hopefully, his past his well and truly behind him. He was charged with the assault of his former girlfriend, Australian actress Brooke Satchwell, in 2007. In 2010, he allegedly assaulted his then-fiancee, actress Rachael Taylor, in the lobby of a hotel in Italy. He was also charged with the assault of a taxi driver in Sydney in 2011. A pretty impressive, yet unwanted record.

"I'm now doing everything in my human power to make sure that any events of the past don't occur again," says Newton, who is looking to get back into acting work. "I want, in the second half of my life, to be an exemplary citizen, a successful professional and one day a really good parent."