BBC The Repair Shop's Jay Blades heartbreaking hidden health condition after marriage 'flopped'

The Repair Shop star Jay Blades opened up about the hidden health condition he suffered following the breakdown of his marriage. During an appearance on Loose Women, the BBC TV star discussed the moment his life and marriage 'flopped'.

He explained he had fallen into a severe depression and spent a week in a retail centre car park following the split. Jay explained how he had even considered driving himself into a bridge.

He opened up after Jane Moore asked: "Seven years ago, you had terrible depression, you were in a really tough place. How did you get yourself out of that?" Jay replied: "The community around me....Everything flopped for me...my first marriage, the job, the charity I was running and all the volunteers that I had.

Read more Chloe Madeley admits 'strained conversations' with James Haskell in co-parenting update

"My intention about eight years ago was basically to drive myself into a bridge." Jay told viewers he had been driving along the M5 one day during those dark times, when a fuel light came on and meant he had to stop.

He continued: "I pulled in and got some petrol and I went into a kind of retail park and I stayed in the car for about a week. I didn't know what was going on. But you could see night and day and people would come and pass and whatever.

"To cut a long story short, what happened is they found me and I got interviewed by two police officers, a psychiatric nurse, and a community nurse. And once they deemed that I wasn't going to be section then a friend of mine came up.

"That was the first time I cried in front of a man. And when I cried in front of him, I thought he was going to take the mickey and stuff like that. But he just wrapped his arms around me and said, 'I'm going to look after you until you're successful'.

"And the funny thing is I'm still being looked after now so I'm not successful yet. I think the biggest killer for men over a certain age of 45 I think is suicide. And it's one of those things that us men, we go through life, and there's not enough people talking about the vulnerability."

"And what I found is that when I actually was able to just expose my vulnerability, it actually gave me so much strength, it made me grow and become something that I never knew was possible."

The furniture restorer married his second wife Lisa Zbozen last November, who he has nicknamed 'Tiny'. But he confessed he was previously a heartbreaker from the age of 12.

Jay confessed: “We’re talking about lots of girls. There were a lot of broken hearts along the way. There was even one point where I was going out with two sisters and they lived in the same house.

“It’s crazy — imagine that. I told them not to tell each other, and they didn’t. I think I had another girl as well. I was really bad. They came round to my house at different times. I would say to one of them I was somewhere else, and I wasn’t.”