Comedian Jack Whitehall has revealed that he suffered from bulimia when he launched his television career.
The 36-year-old funnyman admitted the ‘pressures’ of the industry led to his eating disorder battle and it was something he kept quiet about until his good friend Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff ‘bravely’ shared his own bulimia battle.
Whitehall, who struck up an unlikely friendship with the Ashes hero, 47, after they starred together on Sky’s A League of Their Own, admitted to suffering from bulimia in Flintoff’s new Disney+ documentary.
‘I was bulimic when I first started doing television, it’s not something that I’ve ever really spoken about,’ he confessed.
‘But I remember that pressure of being on television.
‘And it’s not something that I’ve seen other men or people in the media talk about, until Fred came out and spoke about it.
‘I just remember thinking that was incredibly brave of him.’
The Preston-born cricket legend made a BBC documentary called Freddie Flintoff: Living with Bulimia, in 2020, where he revealed his struggle with the eating disorder at the start of his career when focus was put on his weight.
Comedian Jack Whitehall (pictured) has revealed that he suffered from bulimia when he launched his television career
Whitehall and Flintoff (pictured with James Corden and Jamie Redknapp) became friends on A League of Their Own
Flintoff was making himself sick while helping England roar to their first Ashes victory in 18 years in 2005.
He said in the documentary at the time: ‘I became known as a fat cricketer. That was horrible. That was when I started doing it.
‘That was when I started being sick after meals. Then things started happening for me as a player.’
Admitting to being sick during Ashes 2005, he said: ‘Everyone was happy with me. ‘My weight was coming down. It was like: “I’m bossing this.” It just carried on and I was doing it all the time.’
In Flintoff’s latest documentary, Whitehall recalls how they became good pals despite their different upbringings after host James Corden insisted the England hero be on the A League of Their Own panel.
‘I remember being quite intimidated – I was meeting Freddie Flintoff, who I looked up to a lot as a kid, for the first time,’ Whitehall said.
‘I was also like, he’s this big burly northern bloke and I’m this rather effeminate flouncing boarding school boy, I’m probably not going to be his type of chap.
‘So many people think of him as so strong and so alpha but he’s definitely fragile.
‘To see how open and honest he’s been about his struggles – like his bulimia.’
‘Flintoff’, which will air on April 25, will tell the story of one of the country’s greatest sporting heroes – including how he nearly died in a horror car crash during Top Gear filming in 2022.
Whitehall makes the admission in Flintoff’s Disney+ documentary which airs on April 25
Whitehall praised Flintoff for revealing his own personal battle with bulimia in a BBC documentary in 2020 (pictured)
Freddie Flintoff celebrates England winning the Ashes for the first time in 18 years in 2005
Freddie Flintoff attends the London premiere for Disney+ original documentary ‘Flintoff’
Flintoff will speak candidly and at length about the impact of the trauma and injuries he suffered when the Morgan Super 3 three-wheeled sports car he was driving flipped, dragging him across the tarmac of Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey.
In the documentary, he reveals he wished he had died in the immediate aftermath.
‘After the accident, I didn’t think I had it in me to get through,’ he said. ‘This sounds awful: part of me wishes I had been killed, part of me thinks ‘I wish I had died.’
‘I didn’t want to kill myself, don’t mistake the two things, but I was thinking ‘this would have been so much easier.”
‘My biggest fear was I didn’t think I had a face. I thought my face had come off,’ Flintoff added.
‘In some ways it would have been easier if I’d gone unconscious and then been unconscious for a week or two, and you wake up and the stitches are out, but I remember everything.
‘We’re probably doing about 40, 45 (mph). They were just showing me how to get the car going sideways and the wheel came up on the front. It’s a funny thing rolling a car because there’s a point of no return and everything slows down. It’s so weird.’
