Women always pester me for a topless pic – but I’ll only do them for one special person, says Joe Wicks

JOE WICKS is pulling faces for our camera, striking Zoolander-style poses which he wants to send to his wife, model Rosie Jones.

She is never far from his thoughts — he talks about her and their two kids constantly throughout the day — so he is more than ready to look a little bit silly if he thinks it will make her laugh.

But despite his preening antics, Joe insists he is actually “very self-conscious” — gasping when I suggest that with moves like his, maybe he should sign up to Strictly Come Dancing.

“I’ve been asked a few times,” he says. “But really, spinning around in a leotard, on television, sober? I can’t imagine anything worse.”

Joe, 36, is in many ways an unlikely star — one of the first influencers to find mainstream fame thanks to fitness and food posts on Instagram, then catapulted to national treasure status via his PE With Joe workouts during the Covid lockdowns.

His YouTube exercise classes — aimed at kids but loved by parents too — drew record-breaking numbers of viewers, saw him donate £600,000 to NHS charities and secured him an MBE, which he will pick up later this month.

Now he is about to release his eleventh book, Feel Good Food — recipes from which are serialised in The Sun this weekend — which is set be another bestseller.

'Banging heads'

But Joe himself knows it could all have been so different.

“When I was a kid, I was a nightmare,” he reflects. “I was so naughty and hyperactive.”

With a heroin addict father and a mother who struggled with OCD and eating disorders, Joe was not expected to amount to much.

Neighbours on their Surrey council estate used to say that he and his two brothers would end up on drugs.

Joe says he was “anxious” and “constantly banging heads” with his mum — but perhaps that’s no wonder, because his childhood was tough.

“When my dad was using, we’d want to be protecting my mum from that,” he says. “I just knew my parents weren’t happy and I thought it was my fault.

“You think when you’re a kid, ‘Why is my dad just disappearing for months on end?

“Why can’t he just stop taking drugs?' But it’s not that easy, is it?”

Joe’s parents have since separated, but he has a good relationship with both of them.

He says it is only as an adult that he has really come to appreciate what both his parents went through.

He says with a sigh: “I wish they had communicated with me, but then they didn’t realise they had mental health issues.

“My mum didn’t get diagnosed with eating disorders and OCD until later in her life, and her cleaning the house five times a day was just her way of dealing with things.”

Joe’s salvation came from exercise — “my therapy since I was six” — and it would many years later inspire PE With Joe.

When my dad was using, we’d want to be protecting my mum from that. I just knew my parents weren’t happy and I thought it was my fault. You think when you’re a kid, ‘Why is my dad just disappearing for months on end? Why can't he just stop taking drugs?' But it's not that easy, is it?

Joe Wicks on his father

He says: “When I was about 12 my secondary school took a group of   naughty kids for a taster day at St Mary’s University in South West London, knowing we were on a certain path and wanting to change that.

“It was such a pivotal moment because I met all these incredible PE students and I said to my mum, ‘That’s what I’m going to do — I’m going to go to St Mary’s and I’m going to be a PE teacher’.”

Joe did indeed make it to St Mary’s — but when he went to work as a teaching assistant afterwards he decided it was not for him.

“That was a wake-up call, I realised I wasn’t patient enough — I couldn’t be a disciplinarian and tell the kids off,” he says, shaking his head.

“I went into personal training instead but I guess I always had that at the back of my mind.

“So when I did PE With Joe, I did what I always knew I was going to do — but virtually.”

 He cites getting so many families moving when they were stuck indoors as his “proudest achievement.” His daily YouTube workouts were born from Joe imagining how he would have coped as an unruly kid during lockdown, with no school, no sports club and no socialising.

He says: “I just imagined being that boy again in a council flat, with this mad, chaotic home life — there’s  no room, no space, you’re on top of each other. It was a driving feeling that I needed to do this for people’s mental health — help people move and let off a bit of steam.”

But he was not prepared for the reaction, which saw 80million views of his 78 workouts — and means he is now recognised wherever he goes.

He says: “Nothing I do in my life will have as much impact as what I did then, in a global pandemic.”

I just imagined being that boy again in a council flat, with this mad, chaotic home life — there’s  no room, no space, you’re on top of each other. It was a driving feeling that I needed to do this for people’s mental health — help people move and let off a bit of steam.

Joe Wicks on his lockdown workouts

But for father-of-two Joe, the daily workouts were as much about mental as physical health — and his new crusade is about how you can look after your mental wellbeing with food as well as exercise.

Feel Good Food is a collection of 100 recipes designed to nourish and energise you toward a happier mindset. He says: “A lot of people don’t understand the connection between the food they eat and their mood.

“When you’re eating junk foods that drain your energy, you feel irritable, grumpy — you don’t feel energised for the day. But going back to basics with healthy ingredients — a lot of vegetables, colour, herbs and spices — will make you feel great.”

 Focusing on mental health has become a new priority for Joe, who made his name seven years ago with his promises to get you “Lean In 15” by burning fat with his short, sharp workouts and diet meals.

Amorous females

He says: “The message has changed over the years.  When you think back to Lean In 15, that was all about losing weight and eating to get lean, and all about physical appearance.

“But now I exercise because I love how it makes me feel and it makes me a better dad and husband.

“It benefits me so much more than getting lean and fit.”

The star’s message may have altered, but so too has social media, where Joe began his career as The Body Coach. When he was starting out, influencers hadn’t yet been invented and people were not yet making money from their posts.

But book deals for the likes of Joe have changed all that and spawned an explosion of “fitfluencers” trying to follow in his footsteps.

So what does he make of them?

Joe chooses his words carefully: “It’s difficult to see the real authenticity now.”

After the enormous success of influencers such as himself, he acknowledges many people get into social media thinking, “Well, if I do this, I can get partnerships and brand money’.”

Social media has also become increasingly toxic but Joe says he actually gets less trolling now, in the wake of PE With Joe.

He says: “There’s very little negative sentiment towards me these days. It used to upset me — I’d think I’m positive, so why are these people giving me a hard time? But I don’t even see it any more.” The amorous female fans who used to slide into his DMs have faded away, too.

“I used to get that in the early days,” he says with a laugh.  “But back then on every shoot it would be like, ‘Right, get a broccoli in your hand, shirt off, oiled up.”

Now he tends to keep his shirt on — and spends a lot of time talking about his love for wife Rosie, 32, who he married in 2019, and children Indie, three, and two-year-old Marley.

He says: “People say they love seeing our family together instead.”

Pictures of the Wicks family feature heavily in Feel Good Food. He says: “I like showing my family. It shows you can be really busy and have a successful career but be there at key times in the day.”

An incredibly proud dad, Joe says his instant mood-booster is putting down his phone and getting out in the garden or on his bike with the kids.  “Being a dad has made me more content,” he says. “I’ve got more of a balance now. It’s so easy to work, work, work and take every opportunity but now I find the time to enjoy the little things.

“It’s non-negotiable that I do bathtime and read the children a book before bed. I get so much happiness from that because I didn’t have that as a kid.”

With so much enthusiasm for family life, Joe  won’t be stopping at two kids. He says: “I want a big family, as does Rosie, so that’s definitely in our future.

“We always say minimum four,” he says with a smile. “I just love seeing them grow — there’s nothing better than being a parent.”

• Feel Good Food, by Joe Wicks, is published by HQ on Thursday, priced £20. And don’t miss tomorrow’s Sun for a special supplement with 16 great recipes, plus more tasty treats inside Fabulous mag on Sunday.