Love Island’s Jack Fincham fears lasting health problem after heartbreaking secret eating disorder

Jack Fincham has revealed that he’s been secretly battling bulimia for nearly two decades in a heartbreaking confession.

The Love Island star, 34, who won the series back in 2018 alongside then-girlfriend Dani Dyer, has opened up on his struggles with the eating disorder and his mental health, saying he now relies on daily medication.

Jack revealed that he developed the eating disorder when he started boxing at the age of 14 after feeling pressure to get his weight down before fights.

‘I have been a bulimic for 19 years, bingeing on food and then being sick,’ he told The Sun.

‘I’m in agony without daily medication, I could be on them for ever, I don’t know.’ 

Jack candidly revealed how he would binge eat and then make himself sick in a vicious cycle whenever he felt depressed or was struggling with his mental health.

His initial struggles were connected to boxing, as well as his heartbreak of discovering his father wasn’t his biological parent.

Jack’s mother Samantha married her partner Fraser McManus in 2006, who Jack considers to be his dad as he has no contact with his biological father.

He explained how he would buy a McDonald’s breakfast, 12 bags of crisps, several bags of sweets and two large Domino’s pizzas and side dishes, before bingeing on them all.

‘It caught up with me because I started to get really bad reflux, I was in agony,’ he explained.

Recounting getting down to 52kg (114lbs, or 8.1st), he said: ‘It was a tough time for me. I’d just discovered my dad wasn’t in fact my biological father, and I think that screwed with my head.

‘And I wanted to be good at ­boxing. Before an evening match I’d go to school and not eat or drink a thing so that I’d be ready for the weigh-in. I could lose 1.5kg in a day doing that. I was just a kid.’

He said things got worse when he became a pro boxer last year and he resorted to using slimming jabs to try and get down to his fighting weight before entering the ring.

Earlier this year the reality star admitted how the fame he found from Love Island ‘accelerated’ blowing more than £1,000,000 on drugs, booze and gambling.

Jack opened up about how his fame ‘accelerated’ the addictions, during an appearance on This Morning.

Speaking about his addictions for the first time on TV, he said: ‘They all went hand in hand.

‘I’d be drinking and doing whatever I was doing, I wasn’t in my right mind, I’d think to myself, I’ll give into myself, “I’ll go and win 100 grand today on Blackjack” – never gonna happen.’

He added: ‘The behaviour – driving, having no regard for even myself. I didn’t even care for myself.’

Earlier this year Jack was sentenced to six weeks in prison for dangerous dog offences, and was ordered to pay a fine of £3,680.

He was then freed on bail, with it understood that he was pending the outcome of an appeal to the ruling. Bail is granted ahead of an appeal in exceptional circumstances.

Jack was in court after his pet – a black Cane Corso called Elvis – bit a runner in Kent in September 2022.

In 2023, Jack was arrested for drug-driving and having false number plates.

The case went to court in March 2024, and Jack admitted to not having third party insurance, driving with a controlled drug above the specified limit, driving without due care and attention, and fraudulently using a registration.

He was spared jail but given a 12-week suspended sentence, which was reduced from 16 weeks due to his early admission.

After winning Love Island with Dani, the pair remained together for nine months after the finale. He has also went on to appear on Towie, Celebs Go Dating, The All New Monty: Who Bares Wins and Don’t Rock the Boat.

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