A Homes under the Hammer presenter has spoken of his fears that he could collapse and die at any moment. Martin Roberts has been left living fear after he had a near-death experience.
In an interview with the Mirror, Martin said that he has been left mentally scarred by his experience. He said: “I have struggled quite badly since I nearly died last April,” he says. It was scary. I’m not young, but I’m not old, and to suddenly have your life come within a couple of minutes of ending, you do play the “what ifs?”.
“The health recovery I think is probably a lot quicker than the mental recovery. The mental recovery is that fear that that happened, will it happen again? Suddenly, it’s a Monday morning, am I going to die?”
The popular BBC host had gone to hospital with chest pains about 12 months ago. When he was there doctors found he needed immediate surgery.
Martin, 59, was suffering from pericardial effusion, which is a potentially lethal build-up of fluid around the heart. He explained: “That slightly irrational fear, but when you’ve been through what I went through it’s a hard thing to move on from.”
He is now appearing on new E4 show, The Big Celeb Detox tonight where he and a number of other celebrities including the late Queen’s cousin Princess Olga Romanoff and Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona, as they have therapies to help them get over personal issues.
One therapy helped him overcome life-long issues around his body. In a spiritual session called Nude Mirror Gazing, the gang were led into some woods where they took part in a ceremony that saw them confront their insecurities by stripping naked and staring in a mirror by candle light.
Martin who was bullied about his weight as a child said: ““I couldn’t do it. I was literally gripping the robe like my arms were attached to a different person. No matter how hard I tried, there was just this little boy in me which was going, ‘Don’t do that. People will just make fun of you again!.’
“But eventually, I did it. And it was a massive thing to do. ‘Am I strutting around semi-naked now? If I don’t have to, absolutely not. But am I embarrassed about my body? I don’t think I am.”
The Big Celebrity Detox airs on Monday night on E4 at 10pm.
