As Freddie Flintoff opens up about his struggles with an eating disorder, he has inspired Jamie Laing to do the same as he spoke for the first time about living with bulimia
Jamie Laing has opened up for the first time about his battle with bulimia, revealing the moment wife Sophie saw him being sick was the turning point in his recovery.
The Made In Chelsea star has decided to share his experiences with the eating disorder and said he decided to speak about it after Freddie Flintoff aired in his powerful documentary, where the cricket star opens up about his personal journey having suffered for 20 years.
Jamie has added his voice and spoke of his decades of struggles to Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast, where he discussed for the first time his crippling fight against bulimia. The reality TV favourite said he first began having issues with his body when he was 18, after his hopes of becoming a professional rugby player crumbled.
“My story is that I played a lot of sport, very sporty… always quite lean,” he told Fearne. “I used to eat a lot of food because I was trying to put on weight for rugby. 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.
“It was back when you didn’t really have camera phones, so I had a disposable camera and I went on holiday. cI was taking photos and my mum would say to me ‘You look a bit stocky. You’re eating a lot and you look a bit stocky’ – it was from a place of love, but I was like ‘whatever’.
“I remember getting the photos developed and I came across a picture of me topless on the beach and I did look stocky. I didn’t look lean, I didn’t look as six-packy as I usually did. And immediately I just felt shame.’ That day something clicked in my brain, I must’ve been 18 or 19, and I started to diet. I started becoming thinner. I became so conscious of my weight, which I’d never done before.”
He then made the decision to join Made In Chelsea – and things only got worse. “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 went on.
Jamie then spoke about the moment his now wife discovered his struggle. “Sophie caught me once and this secret that I had, was suddenly not a secret anymore and suddenly I realised what was going on. She said to me, “What are you doing?”
“I said I was doing nothing, and she said: “Yes you were. I heard you being sick.” She said, “It’s okay, I just want you to know that whatever you’re dealing with, I’m sorry. And if you ever want talk about it, I’m here. When Sophie said that to me, that’s when I woke up and I was like, “Oh my God, what the hell? Why am I even doing this? Why am I injuring myself?” It was a big wake-up call.”
Jack Whitehall revealed he had bulimia early in his career and also praised friend Andrew for speaking out about his own battles with the eating disorder. The 36-year-old comedian said: “I was bulimic when I first started doing television. It’s not something that I’ve ever really spoken about.
“But I remember that pressure of being on television. And it’s not something that I’ve seen other men or people in the media talk about, until Fred came out and spoke about it. I just remember thinking that was incredibly brave of him.”
If you’re worried about your own or someone else’s health, you can contact Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, on 0808 801 0677 or beateatingdisorders.org.uk
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