Rylan Clark has opened up about his breakdown: “I had to learn to talk and move again.”
The This Morning presenter has revealed how he rebuilt his life following the breakdown of his marriage with Dan Neal.
In 2022, the former X Factor star revealed he tried to take his own life after splitting from his ex-husband.
In his book Ten: The Decade That Changed My Future, Rylan revealed Dan left him after he told him he had been unfaithful “years ago”.
He wrote: “I woke up one morning and decided to tell my now ex that I had cheated on him, years ago. I’m not sure why it was that time, or that day I had to do it. But I did.”
“He left. Told me it was over and that was that. You’re not surprised? I get that. But I couldn’t believe it.”
Rylan said that after Dan left him, he would go to sleep praying “I wouldn’t wake up,” and that he then tried to end his life.
The presenter admitted: “For the first time in my 32 years, I felt I couldn’t carry on no more. ‘What’s the point?’ I thought. I’d lost what I thought was everything, the one thing I always wanted. A man I loved. A family of my own. And now it was gone.
“So I tried to end it. I won’t go into detail as I don’t think it’s fair on my mum, but thank God I was unsuccessful.”
Addressing why he had previously cheated, Rylan said: “I have no excuses for what I did way back then, but I had my reasons. I think for many years I had felt a bit like an imposter. That nothing I was doing was right or not quite good enough.”
However, Rylan has turned his life around and those dark days are far in the past, with Rylan back at the top of his TV game having made £2.5m in the past year.
Reflecting on his rock bottom in an interview with the Guardian, Rylan said: “I couldn’t understand why I pressed the nuclear button on my seemingly perfect life.
“And it’s only now I’m better that I realise it was the ejector seat I needed. Now I just wish I’d pressed that escape button earlier.”
“I got so ill to the point where I knew I couldn’t get any iller. I couldn’t speak; I had to learn to speak again, I had to learn to move again – it was like I’d had a stroke. Nothing made sense to me.”
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