Ali Condon
Rylan Clark has revealed that his devastating divorce from his husband of six years, Dan Neal, took an extreme physical toll on his body.
The It Takes Two presenter announced to fans last July that he and Dan had split – but what he kept quiet until now was that he suffered two heart failures during the separation.
Rylan, 32, spoke out about the harrowing experience during his live event An Evening With Rylan Clark at London Royal Festival Hall this week, telling his audience about how he was rushed to hospital on multiple occasions.
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The former X Factor contestant reportedly told ticket-holders: "It was like my body had shut down.
"Twice last year I ended up back in an ambulance because my heart had failed and it was really strange because I just remember for a couple of weeks going, 'My heart hurts'."
After being rushed to hospital, medics told Rylan that he had a resting heart rate of 248 beats per minute. To get his heart beat back to a regular pace, he was given an injection.
"I just remember the shot going in and all of a sudden this feeling from the middle of your body, both ways, almost takes you over, and you just stop and my heart stopped," he said, per MailOnline.
"There's just seven faces and this bright light just looking at me. And then I took a breath. And they were like, 'He's in a normal rhythm.' I was like, 'What the f**k is going on?'"
At first, Rylan's loved ones assured him that the pain he was experiencing was just from heartbreak, but he was sure something else was at play.
"I knew it wasn't right. It turned out that my heart had to be restarted. My heart had to be restarted."
Rylan spoke further about his health problems on Fearne Cotton's podcast Happy Place, and admitted that part of the problem might have been that he hadn't stopped to take a break since he made his TV debut on The X Factor in 2012.
"It was hard but on reflection, yes, I needed to stop," he told Fearne.
"Maybe it was an amalgamation of 10 years. I didn't stop since the day I went on The X Factor.
"Nothing stopped. I don't regret stopping. I do feel if I try to carry on, maybe I could have dealt with things better from a personal point of view. I don't regret that I stopped."