Jake Humphrey battled suicidal thoughts as his TV career took off when he was in his 20s.
The 41-year-old BT Sport presenter has opened up about how he experienced a "dark period" and was "really struggling" with his mental health when he fronted CBBC’s ‘Against All Odds’ in the early 2000s and it led to him stopping eating and considering taking his own life.
Jake even considered hiring a bodyguard to ensure he didn’t act upon his suicidal thoughts as his mood got darker and darker.
Speaking on the Blank Podcast, Jake – who also hosted ‘BAMZOOKi’ and CBBC’s coverage of ‘Fame Academy’, along with Holly Willoughby – revealed: "I remember my mum and dad leaving when they dropped me off at my flat. I went through a dark period then. I genuinely believed I was mad basically, it was a really weird time.
"I went from this super confident guy on the telly, and I was still working every day on Children’s BBC, to this guy who was not eating and getting thinner and thinner and really struggling.
"I remember one time looking on the internet to see if I could hire a bodyguard to be with me all the time to make sure I didn’t do anything mad, but that in itself was madness.
"I wasn’t a guy who had been through a trauma, I had this great job and that almost made it worse."
Jake admits thinking about his grandmother, who did take her own life, stopped him going through with the fatal act as whenever his thoughts went too far he would remind himself of an important sentence somebody told him about suicide.
He shared: "My grandma killed herself and I suppose that created a weird relationship with suicide for me. I remember someone saying at the time ‘the irony of killing yourself is you have shown you are strong enough to live’.
"Someone saying that at that time meant when I was going through this tough period, suicide was not an option for me, because of that message. Whenever that thought entered my head I remembered ‘if I can do that I can live so I need to stick around’.
‘It was a horrendous, traumatic period for my family when my grandma did that and 10 years later maybe it saved me, I don’t know."
Jake Humphrey battled suicidal thoughts as TV career took off
