Gladiators star Matt Morsia speaks frankly about life-changing eating disorder

27 January 2024 , 09:26

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Gladiators star Matt Morsia speaks frankly about life-changing eating disorder

Gladiators star Legend, whose real name is Matt Morsia, has opened up about an eating disorder that hampered his push to become an Olympian.

The 38-year-old fitness guru, who owns the Morsia fitness app, has spoken about his struggles as he chased his dream of representing Great Britain at the Olympics. He has now indicated that he chose the name "Legend" for his time on Gladiators as a nod to his past in athletics, in which he was caught in a challenging eating cycle ahead of the 2012 Olympics in London.

The former triple jumper has fortunately conquered the disorder but has said that the cycle of starvation then bingeing had often left him unfit for training, with Matt saying he would starve himself during the week as he prepared for events. He would then binge on a calorific diet afterwards, eating a box of doughnuts immediately after the competition had finished.

Matt Morsia was left unfit for training due to his eating disorder (Daily Mirror)

Speaking about those times, over a decade ago, Matt told The Mirror: "I would put away 10,000 calories a day over those weekends. Sometimes I felt so full, I could hardly move and would lie on my bed feeling like I was going to vomit. I remember thinking it was weird at the time but I felt powerless to stop it."

Matt said that he would starve himself during the weeks ahead of competing so that could match the size of his rival athletes, and while he no longer does this, he has warned that there are athletes who still practice this eating regime and are putting themselves at risk.

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Matt Morsia, aka Legend, has spoken about the eating disorder which dogged him in the past (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

The athlete wrote about his disorder in his 2020 book, The 24/7 Body, in which he explained the reasons why he fell into such an extreme eating regime. Matt wrote: "There's a total lack of support for young people in a lot of sports, many of which encourage - if not actively then implicitly some kind of starvation or significant restriction of diet and I certainly fell into this trap."

Matt's dreams of representing Team GB at the 2012 Olympics were eventually crushed by him getting an injury to his back but he came back stronger when he switched to powerlifting and won a silver medal for his performance at the 2016 European Championships.

He is now embracing his new Gladiators persona as the show makes a welcome return to the television, with the new series on the BBC, with Bradley Walsh hosting with his son Barney, receiving rave reviews.

Amy Sharpe