While grinning Joe Wicks was bouncing around on our screens every morning during lockdown, trying to get us all to do burpees and encouraging positivity (often in fancy dress), it’s hard to imagine this was a man who had ever faced emotional turmoil.
But Joe grew up in a turbulent, unstable home, with a mother suffering from severe OCD, eating disorders and anxiety, and a father with depression and a heroin addiction.
After Joe became the nation’s PE teacher, he received millions of messages of thanks – but he hadn’t expected parents to start telling him about their mental health.
It was after this happened that he decided to make Monday’s hard-hitting BBC1 documentary, Joe Wicks: Facing My Childhood. He says: “My mum and dad were up and down all my life. My mum had severe OCD and my dad was in and out of rehab. It was madness.
“I remember being the child in that scenario and just being so upset and confused and lost. It was really tough.”
More than three million children live with an adult with a mental health problem – a concerning figure, especially as so many more must be struggling under the radar.
Joe, who I didn’t think I could love more, was shown reaching out to many of his fans with their own mental health struggles. “I feel guilty if I don’t reply,” he said.
But it was also a deeply personal journey for Joe, who wanted to understand what impact his childhood had on him.
“It must affect me more than I think,” says the father of two, who is expecting a third child with wife Rosie.
Candid conversations with his mother, father and brother unearthed some long-suppressed memories and discoveries.
He realised that his mother had gone to rehab for five months when he was about 11 – in his head it had been for just a couple of weeks. He found out that his friend’s dad was violent.
He spoke to his dad, who started drinking and taking drugs as a teen and believes it medicated his depression.
Joe also visited Our Time, the UK’s only charity dedicated to working with children of parents with mental illness.
He has a genuine keenness to help and to make change.
It was all very heavy but Joe, as always, remained upbeat and positive.
And looking at how he’s forged his own identity, it could not fail to be hopeful.
Given his proven ability to rally a nation (and beyond) into burpees and bear crawls, I’d bet this candid film will start an important conversation.
