Harry Derbidge has admitted Tom Daley helped him get over his eating disorder.
The 23-year-old businessman – who starred on ‘The Only Way is Essex’ until 2012 – was just "skin and bones" when he weighed his lowest at just seven stone, but managed to get over his turbulent relationship with food by photo-shopping a picture of his head onto the body of the muscular diver and setting it as his phone screen.
Speaking on ‘Loose Women’ on Friday (05.05.17), Harry said: "I used to overhear people on the streets and people asking for photos with me because of ‘TOWIE’ and then they would walk away and I would hear them saying how skinny I was.
"I look back now like ‘why did I do it’. I remember going ‘this has got to change’.
"Men in their twenties want to take off their tops and post pictures of their body on Instagram and I wanted to do that to but I was just skin and bone.
"I got my friend who works at Photoshop to take Tom Daley’s body and put my face on it. I had it as my wallpaper for a year on my phone.
"I kept saying I am going to look like that one day."
The reality TV star’s eating disorder was diagnosed as a food phobia, which is when someone fears what something is going to taste like and immediately dislikes it.
He said: "My mum once was trying to make me try some prawns because she loved them. I remember I was sat at the table with a hot flush. I wanted to over it.
"I tried the prawns and just spat it back out. I just thought I was naturally skinny and at the time I was so young I didn’t realise how severely skinny I was.
"I used to go a whole day without eating. My mum used to send me to the doctors all the time. She is my biggest supporter and made sure I was looked after."
After being determined to get over his food phobia, Harry said he set an alarm every day at 6am to have breakfast but felt like he was force feeding himself.
He said: "Because my stomach was so small after not eating I would have two pieces of food and be full. But I remember going ‘oh it’s 11am now and I’m peckish’. I made me stomach a bit bigger. Now I’m eating all the time."
Harry Derbridge: Tom Daley saved me
