TV star Martin Roberts says he has an “irrational fear” he’s going to drop dead at any moment after experiencing a near death experience last year.
The Homes Under The Hammer presenter was within minutes of dying after being taken to hospital with chest pains. Doctors discovered he had pericardial effusion, which is a build-up of fluid around the heart, and needed life-saving surgery.
More than 12 months on Martin says he’s still struggling to mentally come to terms with his ordeal.
“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?
“That slightly irrational fear, but when you’ve been through what I went through it’s a hard thing to move on from.” Determined to seek help, Warrington-born Martin turned to an unlikely source, a bizarre new E4 show, The Big Celeb Detox, which airs on Monday night.
Over the course of three weeks the property expert, 59, joined a host of famous faces, including the late Queen’s cousin Princess Olga Romanoff and Atomic Kitten singer Kerry Katona, as they tackled a string of weird and wacky therapies designed to cleanse the mind, body and spirit.
Viewers will see him tackle family constellation therapy where fellow celebs role played moments from his life in a ceremony that claims to “awaken ancestors and welcome them”.
Reality stars Toby Aromolaran and Chloe Veitch agreed to pretend to be a young Martin and his mum, who died when he was 20 after suffering a stroke. Martin says he’s spent years feeling guilty he didn’t support her enough in the final months of her life.
And he firmly believes that the spirit of his mother showed up during an emotionally charged moment.
“It was extraordinary,” he admits. “Everyone just felt an energy that wasn’t there before. Something came into that room, we all felt it.
“It’s like my mum was there, offering me this comfort and telling me that she loved me and that I did everything I could have done.”
Another 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.
“I couldn’t do it. I was literally gripping the robe like my arms were attached to a different person,” explains Martin, who admits he was bulled about his weight as a child.
“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.”
From drinking their own urine to spanking each other and having snake massages, the celebs are pushed to their limits.
One of the most intense therapies they took on saw them tackle a sacred Native American ceremony where they eat piñon pine seeds to purge their bodies.
And it did just that, with the gang being left violently ill. “It had very bad effects on all of us,” explains Martin. “The boys had violent diarrhoea and were throwing up. The girls, pretty much all violently throwing up.”
Despite the horror of being violently ill on TV and the spooky encounter with his mum, Martin says the show has helped him.
“It’s really helped to keep the negative thoughts I was having, not just about my body but everything after my near death experience last year, in check.
*The Big Celebrity Detox airs on Monday night on E4 at 10pm.
