He then added: "The book opens with a disclaimer put it that way. That is how bad it got." Last week, Rylan hared how his mum Linda, who is a hit among his fans having appeared alongside him on Celebrity Gogglebox and his BBC Radio 2 show, was concerned.

Does choosing the high road also mean ignoring those headlines? “Since the whole ‘drugs scandal’, I just laugh now,” he says.But now if there’s something I really don’t want to do, I’m going to say no. I’ve learned to be more in control. I’ve not had control for so long, I feel like Britney!’ Clark is funny and formidable company, full of quippy, brazen one-liners and with such a fondness for the F-word that I am amazed he managed to hold down so many jobs on live TV. He’s talking to me in the plush, open-plan kitchen of his Essex home, which he renovated himself. It has a custom-made Big Brother “diary room”, a gym, a replica train station, a swimming pool, and a floor-to-ceiling tank that once housed three moon jellyfish called Beyoncé, Kelly and Michelle. That is, until Kelly ate Michelle, Beyoncé ate Kelly, and Beyoncé dissolved. By the time he started presenting This Morning, he was a consummate professional. Well, the Rylan Clark version of a consummate professional, which means telling presidential candidate Hillary Clinton not to change her grandchildren’s nappies, “or it’s gonna become your responsibility Hill, and you don’t need it, babe”. “She offered me a job, she loved me that much,” says Clark when I mention that interaction. Maybe if he’d taken it, she’d have won. He then sought help and spent time in a mental health hospital. Speaking at an event in London on Wednesday night, Rylan reflected on that time and the Mirror reports him saying: "It is no secret that my marriage broke down last year. And I disappeared for five or six months and people knew when I didn't turn up for work that something was wrong because I am always on f****g telly, you know what I mean?

The book is honest to a fault about Clark’s own shortcomings, but skirts around the details of his ex’s behaviour, dropping hints – “It still keeps playing on my mind why he didn’t want to work to fix what we had. Well, unfortunately/fortunately, I found my answers” – without ever going into detail. Was that to protect Neal? “All I’ve ever done is protect everyone else apart from myself,” says Clark. “And do you know what? For the first time, I could easily not protect anyone. But I’ve actually got a bit of class.” The TV star has now put pen to paper in a new book, Ten: The Decade That Changed My Future, which chronicles his life from finding fame on The X Factor in 2012 up until now. And for the first time he details the reasons for the end of his marriage, admitting he had cheated "years ago" but only told Dan last year.

If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:

Since then, the 33-year-old has gone on to present shows such as Big Brother’s Bit on the Side, This Morning and Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two. I felt I couldn’t carry on no more,” the 33-year-old writes in the book. “‘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. And so I tried to end it.”

With unforgettable stories about his rise to fame, his biggest regrets and his special bond with his beloved mum, TEN: The decade that changed my future is as warm and honest, enormously entertaining and full of surprises as its brilliant Sunday Times bestselling author. I was paralysed doing stunts on Harry Potter. It was still the best job in the world 17 November, 2023 Mathew Baynton on the end of Ghosts: 'What the f*** have we done?' 09 November, 2023 Richard Hammond: 'Top Gear wasn't laddish. We weren't misogynistic. We were three nice blokes' 23 October, 2023 The new memoir begins with that breakdown – “I thought I might as well jump straight in, get it out the way,” he says – and describes in stark, painful detail the worst year of his life. It tells of how Clark woke up one morning and, for reasons he didn’t yet understand, confessed to his then-husband Dan Neal that he had once cheated on him. Things unravelled from there. Neal left him. He stopped eating. He stopped talking. He stopped sleeping. He pulled out of work commitments, including presenting his beloved Eurovision. Then he tried to take his own life. Rylan Clark on Celebrity Masterchef (Photo: BBC/Shine TV) Thankfully, there are other options for anyone hoping to catch a TV personality at the Greenhithe shopping centre this autumn. In January, The Mirror published a video of him on a night out, in which he giggles the words, “Gimme the gear.” It was, he writes in his book, “in the middle of the street, in public, and clearly I was making a joke”. But he doesn’t care about that now.

This is Rylan as you've never seen him before - an intimate, fascinating and joyful insight into an extraordinary ten years on the telly and in our hearts. Speculation then began as to why he had pulled out of his show before his split was rumoured. Rylan, 33, later confirmed the separation in a statement which said: "Following reports about Dan and I spending time apart, I feel I have to speak out - as the way it is being reported is unfair. I have made a number of mistakes which I deeply regret and have inevitably led to the breakdown of our marriage."Slowly, the public’s perception of him started to change. People started taking him seriously. “The council estate boy is always going to be there,” he says. “I’ve not changed. My world changed. My teeth changed, my voice changed, but I never changed. Now people are just realising, ‘He is quite switched on! He does know what he’s doing!’ I knew it years ago, but it was hidden with long blonde extensions and a feather boa.” In the book, he writes of feeling like an imposter. Does he still feel like one? “I think I’ve always seen myself as the newbie,” he says. “But I’m not the newbie no more. So I shouldn’t have to be polite to that person that’s being rude to me, or brush off a comment from someone in the industry because they’ve been doing it for 30 years. Don’t f***ing come for me. I’m nice to everyone in this industry – I always have been, I always will be. But actually, if you cross me, I will f***ing ruin you.” Having my teeth done when I started Big Brother was the best thing I ever did, because everyone was so busy taking the piss out of my teeth, no-one knew I was a shit presenter,” he says. “By the time they got used to my teeth, I could f***ing host the show, and I could do it well. So the old ones served their purpose.” Anyway. He didn’t win The X Factor, but it got him onto Celebrity Big Brother, a show he had adored growing up. He walked out the winner, and was asked to host Big Brother’s Bit on the Side. It turned out that innate charm doesn’t teach you how to read an autocue. It would be overly simplistic, but not altogether inaccurate, to say that little Ross Clark found comfort in the dream of becoming a star. In an era where reality TV made people bona fide A-listers, it didn’t seem that out of reach. Especially if he wasn’t fussy about how he got there. “I didn’t care what the job was,” he says. “I just wanted the fame.”