Huw Edwards says he talked about his own mental health problems because he felt it would be “complete hypocrisy” to support organisations such as the charity Mind without saying why.
In 2021, the 61-year-old talked about his struggles with bouts of depression which have left him “bedridden” at times since 2002.
Appearing on a podcast, he told fellow journalists Jane Garvey and Fi Glover: “I felt that it might be some way helpful to people if I opened up about it and say, ‘You can do a job and you can be successful, whether it’s just reading a bit of autocue or doing whatever it is… while also dealing with issues like that’.”
A former Westminster correspondent, the married father-of-five is the corporation’s highest paid newsreader, with a pay bracket of £435,000-£439,999, up from £410,000-£414,000 last year.
Speaking two years ago about the “taxing” job of leading the BBC’s news coverage, he admitted he had thought about retiring as he approached his 60th birthday and said he did not think he would be “doing that for long”.
He told Radio Cymru: “A time comes when you’re bound to reassess what’s in front of you. Now that a big milestone is here, which is 60 years old, it’s natural for a man to think ‘Am I going to continue in this job for another five years, or do I want to do something different?’”
His four decades at the BBC, which he joined as a trainee in 1984, have seen him rise to the top and become the natural choice to anchor its coverage of major events from the death of the Queen to the Coronation of the King.
Edwards made a cameo appearance as himself in the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall, presenting a BBC report on a fictionalised attack on MI6.
