Alex Bowen has candidly opened up on losing his best friend to suicide and explained his friends now go to to ensure they are checking in on each other
It was supposed to be the happiest year of his life, but in 2022, Alex Bowen’s world was turned upside down when he lost his best friend, Joe, to suicide.
The star – who had welcomed son Abel with wife Olivia just five months earlier – described the grieving process as one of the hardest things he’d ever been through. “My friend was obviously in a terrible place,” he tells New Magazine.
“I’ve never lost anyone before, especially in that kind of way, so it was really, really shocking to me. When I found out, I went on a two-hour walk, just over the fields at the back. I literally just dropped my phone and left. We had just had our son at the time as well. When I came back, I started drinking.”
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Fortunately, Alex was quick to realise that turning to alcohol wouldn’t help him process his grief. Instead, he threw himself into raising money and awareness for men’s mental health.
“Obviously, it was all so fresh, but I thought, I don’t need to go down that road. And instantly I just thought, I need to do something,” Alex explains. “The best thing for men to do is to just open up, but I feel like there’s always been a stigma. We all have lads’ group chats where we all rip each other and say bad things to each other, and that’s kind of therapy. But that’s not always going to work.
“Me and my friends double message. So we’ll be like, ‘Are you OK?’ Then ask, ‘Are you really OK?’ It gives you the option to open up or not. “I’ve got two kids now, I’ve got my wife. I feel like I’m happy. But even people who are doing well in life and have all this money still have bad days. We’re all human.”
Since coupling up in the Love Island villa back in 2016, life for Alex, 34, and Olivia, 31, has been a whirlwind. But amongst all the lucrative brand deals, glitzy red-carpet events and TV projects – the pair recently starred in another fly-on-the-wall show for ITV, Olivia & Alex: Parenthood – Alex has realised it’s the simple things which keep him feeling his best. It’s what spurred him on to return to his love of fitness, and he now runs an online coaching business.
“It might not work for everyone but I’ve realised that if I don’t have a routine, my mind just wanders and I’m all over the place,” he says. And staying healthy – both mentally and physically – is more important than ever now Alex has his hands full with two littles ones. His son is now three, and in August, Abel became a big brother to Siena.
Olivia’s second pregnancy didn’t come without its challenges. Speaking on Loose Women, the couple shared their heartbreak at losing one of their twins eight weeks into the pregnancy.
Olivia said she was “numb” when she found out, while Alex said the loss hit him “really hard”. “I took myself to the bathroom to cry because I could see how much pain [Olivia] was in,” he said.
Olivia went on to give birth to Siena, but she was admitted for an emergency caesarean section and lost 2.8 litres of blood in the process. The couple say the grief has made them stronger. “We’re not quitters. When times are tough, we just work through them,” Alex said.
While Alex admits “there’s no handbook” to parenting and it’s about learning “on the job”, he’s determined that his son will grow up in a world where talking about his mental health is a natural part of everyday conversation.
“I want him to be able to open up to me as he grows older, to know that he’s always got a safe space,” Alex says. “To me, being a man is all different things rolled into one. It’s showing strength, but you can show strength from showing weakness. If you’re struggling, you can ask for help, and it doesn’t mean you’re less of a man to do so.”
That said, Alex understandably has his concerns about the impact of social media on his kids – especially after navigating the highs and lows of the tool over the last decade.
“What’s scary is how kids are with each other. I feel like it’s down to social media. Kids are given phones at such a young age – we don’t let kids be kids any more,” he reflects.
“I deleted X and everything else because I don’t really like looking at it. I kind of block it out. I’m just sick of seeing it. Over the years, I’d get 100 good comments, but I’d always focus on the one bad one. I was always quite skinny growing up and always struggled with how I looked.
“When I came out of [Love Island], I did all these appearances at clubs and was drinking all the time. I was getting messages and comments saying, ‘Oh, you look really ill.’ It really affected me.
“But now I’m getting older, I just think that person doesn’t know me as a person, or they’re dealing with something, or just not a nice person. I feel like I’ve matured a little bit in that sense, where I don’t really care. There are bigger things to worry about.”
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