Mr Motivator has exclusively revealed that he lived a ‘horrible’ homeless life with his young daughter after leaving Leicester to seek the highs of a successful career in London
As an icon of the 90s, Mr Motivator encouraged the nation to take fitness seriously through his performative segments on breakfast television. But now, at the age of 73, Derrick Errol Evans shows no signs of slowing down.
In fact, he has taken on a new challenge which is to highlight the fact that 900,000 children in the UK are without beds growing up.
And while, like many celebrity endorsed charities, that are passionate about making the government aware of issues in the UK, bed poverty has also struck a chord in the fitness guru, as it has brought back memories of the time he too was a homeless single parent, sleeping on floors in a desperate bid to make ends meet.
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In an exclusive chat with the Mirror, the TV personality explains his demise before making it big and becoming one of Britain’s much loved personalities.
At the age of 24, Derrick, better known as Mr Motivator, found himself as a single parent raising a daughter in Leicester. But he soon realised that his dreams of becoming successful lay in the hands of London. But it was far from easy.
He told us: “Two years ago I was doing a series for the BBC which looked at bed poverty, and I didn’t have any idea what bed poverty was about.
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He added: “And in the course of doing that I met a family who had a 15 year old daughter who had been sleeping on a bean bag for the previous three years. And I was really moved by that because what it did to me was stir up in me when I was going through homelessness. I was a single parent trying to look after my daughter.”
Recalling the harsh memory of being homeless in a strange city, he went on to explain: “In 1973 when I moved to London from Leicester, basically when I moved to London I was sleeping on someone’s couch and then eventually I ended up at a homeless family unit. And while in the homeless family unit, each day you had to wait to be given a bed and breakfast allocation and once you got that you then went into a house. “
He continued: “And the last house we went into, there were five families sharing a bathroom and kitchen and that was hell on earth. And I remember the old mattress I was sleeping on, and I wouldn’t (wish that on my worst enemy), so we slept on the floor. This was me and my daughter. After that I thought ‘look let me sort myself out’.
And while doing the BBC show ignited good and bad memories, it also made him remember moments when he felt rather unsafe due to the level of arguing among the other families he was forced to share a space with.
Taking himself back to the point where he was in dire straits, trying to raise his daughter the best way he knew how, he went on to reveal: “The thing is you didn’t get to know people because there were always arguments and the noise of people arguing was something horrible and so you tend to be a lot more insular.
He added: “It was her and I and as long as I could put a meal for her to eat at the end of the day, that was my aim and sometimes that meant I didn’t have anything to eat but it didn’t matter.”
The nation grew to love Mr Motivator from 1993 when he stormed on to our screens in his multi coloured lycra outfits encouraging the nation to get fit.
But his enthusiasm hid a dark story that he kept hidden behind his larger than life persona.
Unlike many of his peers at the time, Derrick was unable to take London by storm as he found himself desperately trying to look after his young daughter.
When asked how easy it was to find a place to live, he candidly admitted it was ” difficult.” He said: “I was in my 20s. At the time I was 24, so for me it was really tough because most young men at that age were growing up partying until all hours and I was not doing any of that because I just didn’t want to leave her with anyone and made sure I looked after her.”
Prior to his fame, he worked for the East Midland Gas Board and also sold costume jewellery in high street shops to become financially secure for his daughter.
But his breakthrough came when he started doing fitness classes at a church hall in Neasden, London which was soon brought to the attention of the British Heart Foundation, who asked him to give classes throughout the country. And that was where his stardom started. By 1993, he got a slot on GMTV until 2000 where he promoted health and fitness as a lifestyle. And this was where Mr Motivator was born.And now in his seventh decade he is just as dedicated to health and wellbeing.
He said: “Most days I get up at 5am, I go to bed around midnight. I live on five hours sleep. I then do some weight training until quarter past six. I don’t have a diet, I don’t eat meat I’m a pescatarian so I have a lot of fish and vegetables. I don’t drink coffee or tea and I’m very much into hot water and lemon, that’s what I live on. A lot of times I fast between six o’clock in the evening and two o’clock the next afternoon. I just do it because it is really good for you. It’s an 18-hour fast. It works for me. I have been doing it on and off for about the past 20 years.”
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