Divorce left Rylan Clark so broken he 'couldn't dress or eat'

15 August 2023 , 20:33

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Rylan Clark (Image: Getty Images)

Rylan Clark says the aftermath of his divorce hit him like a “baseball bat around the face”.

The former Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two host presenter split from his husband of six years, Dan Neal, in 2021 after admitting he had cheated on him, and became so ill that he tried to take his own life. He says: “I am so, so strong but I was so broken, to the point where I physically couldn’t dress, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do none of these things.”

He adds: “I would pray that I wouldn’t wake up because then it wouldn’t be my fault. Every morning I’d wake up and there’s that three seconds of forgetfulness where you think it’s a dream, or you don’t think it’s real, and then you remember, and that’s it for the rest of
the day.”

Rylan, 34, took five months off work during his difficult time, and checked into a hospital to seek professional medical help. He tells Matt Willis’s On the Mend podcast: “In a weird way, I can look back at everything and be grateful for what I went through, because I would never let myself get like that again.

Rylan struggled with divorce

"I know that. Because when you’ve been there, like you’ve been there at times, other people have been there – you’ve been to that place, you know the road that it takes to get there and you know the tell-tale signs. The best way I’d describe it is breaking your leg. It heals, but you’ll always have the scar.

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“Sometimes you might look in the mirror and you might see that scar on your knee, and you’ll remember or you feel a bit s***. The scar will always be there, but we can still walk and sometimes we run.” Rylan is currently on the lookout for a new fella, with pals trying to play matchmaker for him. He surely won’t be single for long.

Ashleigh Rainbird