Rylan Clark has revealed his mum Linda was convinced he was having a stroke during his breakdown last year amid his divorce from ex-husband Dan Neal.
The 33-year-old presenter opened up about his mental health struggles following the split during an appearance on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast.
The It Takes Two host revealed he had “slurred” speech, couldn’t talk and his weight dropped to just nine stone, which led to him being hospitalised for “safety reasons” after refusing food.
“My body did completely shut down,” Rylan said.
“I wouldn’t eat. I went through a stage where I couldn’t even talk, which for some people might be quite handy.
“My speech was just slurred. My mum thought I was having a stroke. My body just went. I went down to 9 stone and I am six-foot-four.”
Rylan’s notable absence during the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest, which he has been a semi-final commentator for since 2018, raised red flags among friends.
“Two days before I was due to do Eurovision, everyone knew when I wasn’t at Eurovision something was wrong,” Rylan continued.
“If I had done it, I may not have gone on such a quick decline. And when I say quick decline, it felt like minutes. I felt like I’d had the jab and I was shutting down.”
He continued: “It was hard but on reflection, yes, I needed to stop. Maybe it was an amalgamation of 10 years. I didn’t stop since the day I went on The X Factor.
“Nothing stopped. I don’t regret stopping. I do feel if I try to carry on, maybe I could have dealt with things better from a personal point of view. I don’t regret that I stopped.”
Having recently enjoyed a solo trip to Spain, Rylan said: “Doing what I did last week with Barcelona is a stop for me. That is how I am going to manage going forward.
“If I feel I need a stop, have a stop, but have an enjoyable stop with yourself. And don’t be frightened of your own company.
“I have never been on my own my entire life, ever. I would always live with my mum. Then I went on The X Factor. Then I met my ex partner and we moved straight in together.
“I had never lived on my own, at 32. I was so frightened. That is what I was frightened of, being on my own. I was frightened of not having someone there.”
Rylan initially rose to fame as a contestant on The X Factor in 2012, and followed this with an appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, not only winning the show but later landing a job hosting spin-off show Big Brother’s Bit On The Side.
Since then, he’s landed a string of impressive presenting jobs, including commentating on the Eurovision semi-finals, hosting his own show on Radio 2 and fronting the Strictly Come Dancing companion show It Takes Two.