Keith Mason packed a lot into his rugby league career and a lot into his life after the game too, but the transition wasn’t easy as he reveals in his forthcoming autobiography.

YOU probably know the Keith Mason story – or, at least, you think you do.

You know, the one about teen tearaway who left behind a life or crime to carve out a 14-year career in both Super League and the NRL, followed by acting, film-making, authoring two rugby-themed graphic novels, and even running for parliament?

Yeah, that story. But there is the other side you probably aren’t familiar with. The story of what happens when the boots are hung up for good and the floodlights are turned off one last time.

So, it’s the end of the 2013 season and Mason has left Castleford Tigers, becoming disillusioned with rugby league following a successful court case against Huddersfield Giants the previous year in which he was awarded a six-figure sum for unfair dismissal after being sacked over a social media post.

He is 31 years old. Offers to play on either at Castleford as well as Hull FC, Widnes Vikings and Bradford Bulls have been turned down, and moving into playing part-time in the Championship isn’t an option.

He has made his acting debut playing Mickey Rourke’s henchman in Skin Traffik, but is still staring into that great unknown all sportspeople face at the end of their careers.

“When I stepped away, I wasn’t quite ready for retirement,” Mason, whose autobiography Against All Odds is due for release in March, told Rugby League World. “But at that time, when I’d gone through the court case and everything, I’d just lost my love for the sport and it’s all I’d ever done.

“The hardest thing for me when I retired was I was lost. You hear a lot about sportspeople hitting rock bottom and I hit rock bottom – I was in a bad place.

“It’s no joke. You see people who self-destruct and they just become a shell of themselves, and for two years I can’t remember anything – it was just like a blur to me.”

Mason makes no secret of the fact he fell into alcohol and substance abuse, struggling with the sporting career he had worked so hard to forge from a Dewsbury Moor teenager who was rejected by Castleford, Bradford and Leeds Rhinos before finally being offered a chance at Wakefield Trinity coming to an end.

Eventually, two years of his life spiralling out of control led to the former Great Britain U21 and Wales international losing his house and living in the box room at his mum’s home.

Much like when he faced a sliding doors moment before dedicating himself to rugby league as a 14-year-old who had racked up over 45 court appearances and was, by his own admission, fortunate to avoid jail for his part in a house burglary, though, Mason found the clarity to turn his life around.

Getting back into a regimented routine akin to the life of a professional rugby player played a big role in that, starting with going to the gym regularly and getting back to eating healthily – not to mention cutting those bad influences out of his life.

Even now, just little things like making his bed at the start of each day help Mason stay on the straight and narrow, and he understands why some athletes from all sports struggle with adapting to life after their playing days are over due to that loss of a disciplined lifestyle.

“The thing that makes rugby players great is hard work,” Mason said. “It’s probably the fittest team sport in the world – you’ve got to be super-fit, you’ve got to be an all-round athlete, and I think what I did is I went away from all the things that made me good and made me a great athlete, which is discipline.

“There’s a saying ‘you show me your crowd and I’ll show you your future’, and at that time I was hanging around with people I really shouldn’t have been hanging around with, doing things I shouldn’t have been doing – I got sloppy and I was single.

“I think I went down a slippery slope and got really loose in my ways, and I was hurting as well.

“I’ve gone through that tough part, I’ll never go back there ever again…and this is what I preach and talk about.”

There are other things which have helped Mason too. Rediscovering his Christian faith has helped bring him peace, while at the time of speaking he was nearly 400 days sober after giving up alcohol in 2024.

He is determined to set a good example for his children as well, not least son Lukas who is embarking on a Super League career of his own after earning a place in Wigan Warriors’ first-team squad for 2026.

Wigan had been keeping tabs on Mason Jr since he was an 11-year-old playing for Rainford High School in St Helens, where his father and mother met during Keith’s time playing for the town’s team.

He then went on to captain Orrell St James at youth level, but moving to live with his dad in West Yorkshire aged 14 led to him joining Siddal, where he attracted the attention of Leeds as well.

Faced with the choice, Lukas decided his future lay in cherry and white rather than blue and amber, with his father driving him from Brighouse to Wigan twice a week for scholarship training as he worked to earn an academy contract.

Although Keith is a proud born-and-bred Yorkshireman, there is a family connection with the town too as his great-grandmother on his mum’s side was born and raised in Wigan prior to meeting her husband and crossing the Pennines.

As far as rugby goes though, Mason is happy to let his son find his own way rather than overload him with too much advice from a career which saw him experience the highs and the lows over nearly a decade-and-a-half on these shores and in Australia with Melbourne Storm.

“Obviously there are no guarantees and I just said to him ‘Look, Lukas, if you go to Wigan all I want for you is to be the hardest worker in that team…to put yourself in the best position to sign a professional contract with the academy’, and that’s exactly what he did,” Mason said.

“Where he is now, even though I was playing for Melbourne at 19, he’s technically probably more sound than I was at my age because he’s come through the Wigan system since he was 14.

“It’s his journey and he’s got to make his own decisions and mistakes, all I can do is be a mentor for him. When he feels like he has to ask his dad something, that’s when I’ll step in.

“He’s still learning, but he’s in good hands. He’s got some fantastic coaches at Wigan and I know he’s getting the best training possible.”

Much like his father, the younger Mason plies his trade in the pack and it will be a proud moment for the family when he finally takes to the field in a Wigan shirt after impressing on loan at London Broncos in the Championship last year.

Whether he will one day follow his father into such a varied off-field career is for far in the future, but then again few rugby league players have followed such a path.

Mason’s film Imperative – also known as The Punished in the USA – is available on streaming platforms, he has been cast in a supernatural detective thriller The Chosen which is awaiting the green light, and has engaged a new agent to push for more roles this year.

Along with releasing his long-planned autobiography, which he plans to hold a book signing event for, the 44-year-old recently relaunched his Rugby Blood graphic novel in which lead character David King is partly based on himself.

A return to the political sphere, after standing as a candidate for former Labour MP and one-time Celebrity Big Brother contestant George Galloway’s Workers Party of Great Britain in the 2024 general election, is not likely any time soon though.

Mason finished sixth out of the eight candidates in the Wakefield and Rothwell constituency, polling 705 votes, yet he is proud of what someone with no prior political experience achieved and still looks back positively on the experience.

“For me, I like to take risks – big risk, big reward – and I did learn a lot of stuff along the way,” Mason said.

“I think the politics, I’ll put the cue on the rack for a while with that one, but knocking on doors and talking to people was quite a cool experience.

“Ultimately, I’m grateful to be where I am. The last two years, I’ve taken a step back and travelled the world with my partner…it’s probably been the best couple of years of my life.

“There’s a lot I want to achieve in my life. I think rugby was just one chapter. I’ve had a bit of luck, but I’ve stayed consistent and stayed disciplined until I’ve achieved what I want to achieve in life.”

First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 518 (March 2026)