By Jessica Sansome,Ravi Meah
Copyright ok
TV star Paddy McGuinness admitted he was in “shock” when he was diagnosed with depression as he laid bare the heartbreaking extent of his mental health battle. The presenter and comedian said he was first diagnosed with the condition five years ago just as he was gearing up to make his BBC documentary about his children’s autism.
However, he only recently opened up about his depression in a chat with Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast, mere days after he struggled to hold back tears on announcing the death of close friend and boxing legend Ricky Hatton, on his BBC Radio 2 show.
When asked about his reaction to being diagnosed, the 52-year-old admitted he was alarmed he didn’t recognise the early warning signs and that depression had slowly crept up on him. He coped by distracting himself with work.
Paddy said: “Firstly, a shock because with depression – personally, you don’t realise it. It’s people around you, your friends and your family who will kind of [say] you’re not yourself today or you’re reacting a little bit differently. And me at the time, when it started creeping in, my first twins were diagnosed with autism and that was a lot to take on and to sort of compute.
“Because before you have children – and this is me speaking as a bloke – you have an idea in your head of how it’s going to be. So, you know, on the park, a game of football or you’re going to go here and you do that, you do this and all that, then all of a sudden it all changes.
“So, I didn’t realise how much that started creeping into my mind and just how upset I was at the time and not being able to deal with things and what have you. So you throw yourself into work and like most people, you think, ‘Oh, I’ve got to, I’ve got to provide for my family and I’ve got to try and get as much as I can now because these children are going to need as much support as possible’.”
After recognising he had a problem, Paddy said his ex-wife Christine, from whom he divorced last year, suggested the idea of seeing a therapist at the Priory. He was hesitant at first and even considered giving up before one life-changing moment occurred.
“I went there and started talking to this therapist and it was kind of all right, but didn’t really work for me. I saw two different therapists and I thought, ‘I’m wasting my money here’. And then someone got in touch and went, ‘There’s this guy at the Priory and he said he’ll see you’. And I was like, ‘Oh, come on. All right, I’ll give it a go this last time’.
“And honestly, after that first hour, I felt just light. I felt like I got so much off my chest and talking about my children and autism and my life. And there’s no two ways about it. I honestly felt like, ‘God, I wish I had done this sooner’. It’s like a weight off your shoulders.”
In 2021, the documentary Paddy and Christine McGuinness: Our Family and Autism was released, showing the couple raising their three children Leo, Penelope and Felicity, who were all diagnosed with the neurological condition. Paddy revealed that making the film proved therapeutic over the long run.
“I felt like I was drowning and I needed help, and I wanted someone to throw me a lifeline,” he admitted. “And I thought, ‘I need to speak about this’, because what was happening was I was going to work and you’re doing shows, which is all jazz hands, and you’re dealing with management and different things, and no one had a clue what was going on.
“I need to talk to someone about this. So the idea of the documentary was really originally to try and get some help.”
Christine and their three children all received autism diagnoses and Paddy confessed it was “little things” that “helped depression come to a front”, reports the Manchester Evening News. He added: “They’re all little chinks in the armour that were slowly being eroded that I didn’t realise.
“But again, on the positive, the job is brilliant for then talking about things because you’re going to reach more people and you’re going to make more people aware, so I take the positives out of things like that.”
