Pointless star Richard Osman reveals childhood trauma that led to four-decade addiction battle

ok.co.uk:

Richard Osman has revealed how his childhood trauma led to a four-decade battle with addiction.The TV presenter and best-selling author opened up about struggling with a food addiction, triggered by his dad leaving the family home when he was nine years old.

The Pointless co-host told the How To Fail podcast: "It’s so ridiculous, this food stuff. Alcoholics will tell you the same, like it’s absurd that there’s a bottle of vodka in front of you or there’s a packet of crisps in front of you and it’s more powerful than you.

It makes no sense. People are very judgmental in this world.” The father of dad-of-two, added: "I think, ‘How can you judge anyone in this world and how they behave, or how they act, or what their instant reaction to something is when you are less powerful many times in your life than, like, a big bar of chocolate in front of you?’ “We’ve all got human minds and we’re all crazy in slightly different ways." “That’s my version of it since I was probably nine years old.

It’s been absolutely ever-present in my life — weight, food, where I am in relation to it, where I am in relation to happiness because of it, hiding it." “All of that stuff, it’s been absolutely like the drum beat of my life.” Richard told host Elizabeth Day how he was left traumatised after his father told him at the age of nine that he’d been having an affair.