Gary Barlow was in a “hole” of food addiction and bulimia.
The Take That singer, 53, fell into depression after the boyband split for the first time in 1996 and his solo career tanked – leading to him putting on so much weight he has described the period as his attempt to “kill off the pop star”.
He has now told the Daily Mail about how his life changed after he started adding to his family: “It’s a long time ago now. I came out of that hole when our second child was just born, probably the end of 2002.”
Gary, who has been with his wife Dawn since the 1990s, has three children with his partner – son Daniel, 24, and daughters Emily, 22, and 15-year-old Daisy.
The singer added about how he changed his life from his binge-eating days: “I discovered running, which wasn’t really something I’d ever done before.
“It was my antidote to everything.
“You’ve got to remember, this wasn’t a day and age where you could say, ‘I need help’.
“It was a very different time then, especially as a man and as a new father.”
“It was a time when I needed to be – on the outside – extremely strong and keep the house together.
“Even though I didn’t have a job at the time, I had to be positive for everybody. “So the fact that all this was going on underneath was really painful and I was on my own.”
Gary added about his addictive personality: “If you have a smoking addiction, you just don’t smoke. But with food, you’ve got to eat anyway, so you’ve got to work it out.
“Some years are better than others, but in general as long as I’m doing four things – sleeping, exercising well, walking a good amount per day, not drinking too much – food isn’t an issue.”
