Masterchef’s Gregg Wallace reveals booze battle would see him drink from 10am in local pub – seven days a week
MASTERCHEF'S Gregg Wallace has revealed his secret booze battle would see him drinking from 10am in his local pub seven days a week.
The 56-year-old explained how his "drink dependency" came to a head in 2005 as he divorced his second wife Denise.
Reflecting on the difficult period of his life, the TV star said his drinking got so bad that the owner of his then local in Clerkenwell would let him into the pub while he was "still wearing his dressing gown."
Speaking to , Gregg said: "I just wanted to be out and I just wanted to drink. It was seven days a week.
"It got so bad at one point the owner of The White Bear in Clerkenwell used to let me in when he was still in his dressing gown.
"I'd be in there with the window cleaner, who was also a drunk, and a drunken lawyer and we'd start drinking at 10am – then the landlord would open up and we'd just catch up and tell him what we had."
Looking back, Gregg, who has been focusing on his fitness in lockdown, admitted he wasn't in a great place mentally as his weight ballooned to 16.5 stone.
Now, the chef has said he feels as good at 56 as he did at 26 after shedding four stone and becoming a fitness fanatic.
On his birthday this year Gregg posed in the gym surrounded by treadmills, while wearing a pair of black shorts and white trainers.
He had a big smile on his face as he showed off his toned figure. The star captioned the pic: "56 yesterday, feeling good. @showmefit."
The MasterChef star previously credited his wife Anne-Marie Sterpini, 34, as the reason he slimmed down.
He was inspired to get "fit and healthy" mainly to be able to see his son, Sid, 16 months, grow up.
Doctors had give Gregg a pretty serious warning that if he didn't do something about his weight, he was on the fast track to a heart attack.
"Having my baby boy made me want to be fit and strong. I can now go for long walks, which I wouldn't have been able to do before," he told magazine.
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He also pointed to the two-decade age difference between him and his wife as another major reason for getting into shape.
"Anne being younger than me was even more of an inspiration to be fit - you can have an old husband but she didn't have to have a fat, old husband," Gregg revealed.