Pointless star Richard Osman: I am addicted to food

Broadcaster Richard Osman has revealed he needed therapy to beat his food addiction.

The Pointless presenter and best-selling author revealed how success in his 30s led him to speaking to a counsellor who helped him address his issues with eating.

Speaking on Desert Island Discs, Osman told host Lauren Laverne about his problems, which he says doesn’t have the “doomed glamour” of drugs or alcohol.

“If an alcoholic came to my house they would be shocked to see bottles of gin and bottles of wine, completely untouched and if I came to your house and there were crisps or chocolate bars I’d be like, ‘What? How are they untouched?’ if I’m going through an episode.

“It’s booze, the addiction is identical. The secrecy of consuming these things, the shame behind it. And food is a tricky one because booze and drugs you can just give up.

“Unbelievably difficult, but a zero tolerance policy whereas if you’re addicted to food or to love or all these things that are sustaining, you do still have to have them and so it’s quite a hard one to work your way out of.”

Osman said the addiction will be with him for the rest of his life.

“I’m either controlling it or not controlling it at any given time. These days I control it more often than I don’t but it’s quite hard and sometimes you slip but I try my best and I certainly have no shame about it now,” he added.

Despite years of success Osman also revealed how he feels like an imposter which almost drove him to leave Pointless just as it began.

In 2009 Richard became co-presenter alongside Alexander Armstrong. He had no ambitions to be in front of the cameras after working with production companies to develop quiz shows but was given the job after standing in while the show was being tested.

“When I’m in front of some raked seating and there are members of the public looking at me I think, ‘What on earth am I doing here – I feel such a fraud’,” he said.

“I remember the first day, if you’d said to me just before we went on, ‘We can replace you with Bradley Walsh’ I would have gone, ‘Yes, please do, I don’t need it’. But I’m so thrilled I did it!”

In 2020, he published his debut novel, The Thursday Murder Club, the story of four friends in a retirement community who band together to solve cold cases.

It was an instant hit, selling 45,000 copies in its first three days. Steven Spielberg has bought the film rights.