James Arthur smoked an “ungodly amount of weed” when he was on ‘The X Factor’.
The 35-year-old singer show to fame after winning the ITV singing show in 2012 and has now admitted he turned to drugs throughout the process to cope with his overwhelming anxiety.
He was quoted in the Daily Star saying: “I smoked an ungodly amount of weed, I smoked weed every day for like 10 years.
“A lot of weed, a lot of weed, the paranoia made it worse, and yeah drinking and stuff like that.”
The singer was hit by his first severe panic attack during filming of ‘The X Factor’ that was so severe medics were called.
James – who was living in a bedsit after being homeless at the time he landed a spot on Simon Cowell’s show – added: “It was my first major panic attack where ambulances were called and I thought I was dying and all that kind of s***.
“It was all a bit much, it was the contrast from bedsit to national TV, it was at the peak of its powers when I was on that show, like 12 million people a week were watching.”
Despite winning ‘The X Factor’, James slumped back into depression after he was dropped by Simon’s Syco record label a couple of years later.
He said on the ‘Private Parts’ podcast: “I did not want to be here at all. Because the thing that I worked towards my whole life seemingly was gone and there was zero chance of it coming back, one in a million chance of it coming back.”
James also confessed if he had not found a new record deal he “probably wouldn’t be here” today.
He is now due to release his new album ‘Bitter Sweet Love’ in January.
James also recently revealed on Heart Radio he was rushed to hospital in agony with a kidney stone after the Pride of Britain awards earlier this month, which were so severe he was booked in for an operation to remove them.