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Jamie Laing has opened up about his secret battle with an eating disorder after suffering a life-changing injury.
Speaking to Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast, the reality TV star, 36, he explained how a knee injury that stopped his career as a professional rugby player led to weight gain.
‘My story is that I played a lot of sport, very sporty, always quite lean. And I used to eat a lot of food because I was trying to put on weight for rugby,’ he said.
‘And when I had my knee injury and sport was taken away from me, I must’ve gone into some sort of anxiety without realising it. And I got comfort in eating.’
He went on to say that seeing photos from a family holiday where he looked ‘stocky’ made him feel ‘shame’.
‘That day something clicked in my brain, I must’ve been 18 or 19, and I started to diet,’ he continued. ‘I was conscious of what I was eating, so Coca-Cola became Diet Coke, hummus became reduced fat, I would eat rice cakes instead of crisps and I started dieting.
‘And I started becoming thinner. I became so conscious of my weight, which I’d never done before.’
He said that this worsened when he joined Made In Chelsea in 2011 and food became his means of ‘control’ while he rose to fame.
Jamie explained that his struggles only worsened when he joined Made In Chelsea in 2011, when he was 23 years old, as food became his only means of ‘control’.
‘I then joined Made In Chelsea and everything was edited for me, I had no control of my life, I was conscious about the way that I looked because people were writing stuff on social media, that I then had to control something – so that became in part, what I was eating.’
He has been inundated with support online after making the admission, with dr.martha.psychologist commenting on Instagram: ‘So powerful to hear this from a man.
‘Eating disorders affect all genders and we often don’t hear from men. There is a lot of shame around this and talking about it so openly and vulnerably as Jamie does is a huge step. Thank you ❤️.’
Elsewhere on the podcast, Jamie explained how he left his father, Nicholas, hurt after a scathing interview.
Jamie is expecting his first child with wife Sophie Habboo, with the couple sharing their pregnancy journey on social media and their newly-renamed podcast, NearlyParents.
Reflecting on his childhood, Jamie explained how he ‘really hurt’ his dad, Nicholas, after blaming him for his parents’ divorce.
Opening up on the ‘huge guilt’ he felt over the comments, he told Fearne: ‘I spoke ill of my parents in an article once, of my Dad, I spoke badly of him, and he wrote me a letter and he had the article.
‘Imagine that, imagine your parents and he’s seeing you’ve done an article about you. My dad, by the way, never, ever spoke ill of my mum ever; he never said anything bad against her ever.’
Jamie said the article, in which he spoke about the effects of his parents’ divorce in his childhood, meant he and his father ‘did not talk for ages.’
‘I’ve never heard him say anything ever in his entire life right, but my mum more is very dominant and “oh God I had to be the single Mum and all these sorts of things” which is totally fair because she was hurting.’
He said that his dad sent him the article alongside the message, ‘I’m so sorry I’m such a disappointment.’
Fearne asked what Jamie thought Nicholas meant by the message, to which he said it was his way of saying ‘you don’t know both sides.’
He continued: ‘I think he wanted to say that he was sorry. My dad finds it hard to be emotional. He really can’t go there for whatever reason, maybe his childhood, but he can’t go there.
‘But it was him basically probably to say, I’m sorry, but also to say, I think he was hurt. So I think it was him saying, “You don’t know both sides. You don’t know the true story, so if you just say things, it’s really hurtful. I’m sorry that you have that. I represent all these things that you said”.’
However, Jamie said that now he is ‘really close’ with his dad, who was instrumental in his decision to have children after being ‘really nervous and scared.’
‘I didn’t know if I wanted to be a dad. I liked waking up in the morning and just thinking about going to the gym or walking to work. Yeah, that’s gone. Totally gone. Like that in one second,’ he began.
‘I spoke to my dad and I had a big conversation with him. My dad and I have become really close, especially over the recent years; he’s just the best.
‘I said to him, “Dad, what do you think about having kids?” and he paused and he said, “Well, if I hadn’t had kids I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
‘I thought when I get to 90 years old, hopefully, and I’m in my rocking chair or an ice bath and Sophie’s there and we’re hanging out or whatever, you don’t want to look back at life and think I wish I’d done that.’