VETERAN Australian-New Zealand actor Aaron Jeffery has revealed bombshell details of his dark childhood where he was passed around a “paedophile ring.”

The 47-year-old Wentworth star, who will play infamous gangster Chopper Read in the new Underbelly series, dropped the news of his twisted past in a shock interview with Who Magazine.

He said he had been part of a paedophile ring “for a couple of years” as a youth in Auckland which lead to him having a mental breakdown, but he did not shed any further details on the ordeal.

“In my mid-twenties I had a nervous breakdown,” the former McLeod’s Daughters actor told the magazine.

“That hard part of my childhood came back to me — when I was in a paedophile ring for a couple of years — and I had to deal with that.”

Jeffery said he quit acting after the nervous breakdown, studied theology and moved to a farm, where he spent a lot of time reflecting on his life.

“I used to pray, ‘I’m here until I find a story to tell’.

“And then it all happened.

“I got an agent on Monday, auditioned for McLeod’s on Thursday, got the job on Friday and was in Adelaide ready to start filming two weeks later.”

The Logie award winner has come a long way, with a string of TV appearances, awards and a long-term relationship with his partner, McLeod’s Daughters co-star Zoe Naylor.

The pair have two children together, Sophia, five, and Beau, one.

And it’s only looking up from here for Jeffery, who is bringing Australia’s most notorious underworld figure to life in Underbelly Files: Chopper, airing soon on Nine.