The Netmums Podcast - S8 Ep9: Tackling the taboo of suicide, and why it's ok not to be ok, with Roman Kemp

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Capital Radio breakfast show host Roman Kemp has suffered his own mental health demons over the years, and during lockdown lost one of his closest friends to suicide. Understandably it's a subject he feels incredibly strongly about, and he deals with this and much more in his new book 'Are you really ok?' which is out now. 

You're listening to The Netmums Podcast with me, Wendy Gollage. And me, Jennifer Howes. On this week's show... I feel personally that it's pointless asking someone, if you're feeling sad, talk. It should be your duty as a friend or a parent to get that out of them. But before all of that... Hello, hello everybody. Welcome to another episode. It's... oh, it's officially sad season, isn't it?

It's raining. Horizontal rain at the moment, if I'm honest, looking out the window. It's November. I'm not a Christmas lover, so everyone else is getting excited about Christmas and I'm just like, oh Christ, give me summer. Jen, are you all right? What a Scrooge. I know, I'm a total Scrooge. I can't, I don't care. Well, I feel like I know it's really, you know, kind of wintry weather

because whenever the weekend rolls around, I want to get on my bike and go for a ride and inevitably it's raining and I'm too much of a wuss to then kind of... You're not made of sugar. You can go out in the rain. I don't know. You don't know that, Wendy. I am. Well, indeed. Well, someone who isn't made of sugar? You can go out in the rain. I don't know. You don't know that, Wendy. I am.

Well, indeed. Well, someone who isn't made of sugar, I hope, is our lovely guest. I'm going to let you do the big intro and then we'll say hello. Great. Yes. So this week, we're very excited to have as our guest, Roman Kemp. Roman is, of course, the popular Capital FM morning DJ. In 2019, he came third in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. He's presented the New Year's Eve fireworks and won bands on Celebrity Gogglebox, appearing with his father, Martin Kemp, the former Spendale Ballet singer and EastEnders actor. He's also struggled with depression from age 15. During the pandemic, he tragically lost his best friend Joe to suicide, and he made a powerful documentary for BBC3 called Roman Camp, Our Silent Emergency, which tackled the topic of suicide and mental health struggles, particularly for boys and young men. And now he has a new book

called Are You Really Okay? that talks more about his family and the topic of mental health. Welcome, Roman. Thank you so much for being with us here today. Oh, good. No, thank you so much for having me. It sounds like a very dark opening whenever people say why I'm here. I promise you it's not that dark. I still have some form of fun in me. Well, we can testify to the fact the book is very fun to read. It's very serious, but it's not all doom and gloom. Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like, you know, so many people, like, you know, you look at people when they finish reading it and things like that,

and they were like, oh, it's not all about suicide. And I was like, no, I'm not a doctor for one and two I don't think I can physically talk about that or you know an entire book and and I think that what what I wanted to achieve is with the book that uh you know are you really okay is i wanted to be able to um have obviously um have obviously you know all my kind of how i've gone through grief and how i've experienced it and understanding of mental health and understanding how my own mental health is such a huge factor in my life but also moments in my life that give me the thought process that I have now um and the people that have kind of given me those things as well so you know there's a lot of like fun stories in there as well as sad so it's it's

it's good it's a good mix so what was the experience like of actually writing the book because like you say there's some really quite hilarious stories in there and there's also some really powerful personal tragic stuff in there did you was it a roller coaster to write did you just kind of like so yeah I mean I can't like my attention is so poor I can't physically I wouldn't be able to physically write a book. I wouldn't be able to do it because I write everything down. We started out and I was like, right, I'm going to try and write everything down. And then all the bits I want to put in and it's just a mess. And then I was like, okay, well, I'll write it down.

Then I send it over to someone and then they can help me out. And then, then that was a mess. So what we ended up doing is I worked alongside a lovely lady called Susanna Galton, who, you know, she referenced first page in the book, you know, like she's, she's been amazing. And Susanna basically became my therapist for a kind of almost six month period. And we would have like, you know, we try and do it to like, almost like, maybe once or twice a week, just sit down and do like one or two hour chats based on what type of topic we're going to approach and I found that was a really nice way and Susanna did it so well because she because you know I said to her at the beginning I was like you know I want this to be obviously first person but like I want it to be what I say not what someone else do you know what I mean you see so many groups these days that get released and you know someone else has just put a story together it's clearly not the person talking who

yeah yeah you can almost hear my intonation in it so you know she's she's done a phenomenal thing and for someone else that you know suffers with forms of ADD you you will know that it's almost impossible to sit down and get everything in the right order. So I was so grateful to her. So yeah, in terms of, you know, the process, it was like therapy. It really was. It was something that I needed to do and something that I'm so pleased to have done. Well, you have a lot of very uh sobering statistics in the book you know suicide's biggest killer of men under the age of 40 in this country that three-quarters of men feel they can't confide in those closest to them about their problems having you know done the book and done research why do you think young men aren't reaching out to those around them?

So a lot of the time, you know, we look at why people are killing themselves. And that was the first question as to what I wanted to find out is, you know, I lost my friend to suicide. And like 90% of other people that lose their friends or families to suicide, you don't get left with any note, suicide you don't get left with any note or you don't get left with any inkling as to why but that's because the reason is so simple and that reason is I don't feel like I'm where I should be in my life yet do you know what I mean and it's like I'm I'm I'm gonna take my life because it's not doing the path that I was told it was gonna be or where I think it was gonna be you know it's not doing the path that I was told it was going to be or where I think it was going to be.

You know, it's setting these kind of like high standards, you know, and I think that that's something that is now unfortunately flowing younger and younger. And when I say younger, I'm not talking 18 year olds. I'm talking 10, 11. 10 11 really and and yeah for sure i wrote an article over the weekend about about um about suicide and and someone said replied and said suicide rates are actually getting better you're saying this problem is getting worse well it it is because you're now just moving it away from men age 35 to 50 and you're moving it to 12 years old to 25 if you ask me those are you know how is that even possible that kids are choosing this as a life option but but the reason again behind that you look at reasoning my life isn't where it should be and then you think about the pressures that are constantly put on people from a younger and younger age you know and, and one thing that, you know, I'll clear this up now,

because this will be the number one thing I guarantee when people hear me speak about it, they'll go, oh, social media, social media. It's not just social media. It's everything. It's the pressures that are put on in schools. It's the pressures of life. You know, it's the pressures of the social aspect of school. You know, again, again i always my focus now

honestly is so based around what are schools doing you know because the only way you're going to stop this is by um is by getting in there as quickly as possible you know i'll i'll break it down into kind of like three stages for you to understand this suicide you can look at it from three angles right one is prevention second one is intervention third one's postvention postvention right this is after someone has just taken their own life and what happens so in a in no suicide is the same as the next but average averaging around is around 180 people are affected per one suicide so if you fan that out so like if someone were to take their life 180 people are affected personally about that and that can trigger certain

mental health thoughts so those are 180 people that already you need to look out for the way how you sort those people out is through post-traumatic therapy you know making sure there's psychologists around making sure there's therapies around you know checking in on those people etc bubble wrapping those people the one in the middle is intervention now all of us on this podcast right now are in that category and what i mean by that category is it's we are um in x factor terms we're the over 25s right so so we are we are the group that unfortunately all of us speaking now are pros at wanting to put up our own mask and pros at being able to put up a mask that you would not be able to tell yeah i could lie to you point blank and tell you i'm absolutely fine. And you would believe me.

Where it gets interesting is prevention, because you can get in there before kids even develop the idea of having a mask. But they just don't know how to talk about it. They don't know how to explain what they're feeling because they've never been taught about it and the thing is is it's my firm belief that at some point in your life you will go through some form of depression anxiety or state of panic something where your mind has kind of taken over we all know that that is going to happen but yet we are not taught anything about those moments or how to deal with those moments we are taught however things like cpr we are taught things like i'll draw the diagram of a heart and show how this goes to this and don't eat this food because of this all of those steps we kind of understand later on in life avoid these foods because it does this especially when

it comes to biology what doesn't make sense is why am i learning about my heart so much when realistically my brain has just as much power to do me as much damage if not worse so that's where intervention for me is the most interesting part and going back to your point i know i've strayed away from it the reason the reason i think you know is affecting so many men is because one we don't have those tools that was never given to us and what we're realizing is that hang on a sec the pressures of life and those moments where we have to decide shit how do we deal with it they are becoming earlier and earlier so you've got a problem with your dishwasher or something

like that right right i go to i go over to the cupboard, I get out the manual, and I look through the pages to find, you know, how to fix this. There is no page explaining what I need to help or how to do it. So how am I meant to know what to do? I just leave it broken and it gets worse over time. So what's the solution then, helping schools? How do you think we need to get to kids young boys especially yeah because then you kind of over time that problem will then just get worse and worse

and if you've got nothing to understand it one or even understand how to fix it you know that's that's the thing that we're seeing as well, is that so many guys that kill themselves, you know, they don't even address that they've got a mental health problem or believe that they have a mental health problem because they don't understand mental health. They don't even know in the first place. And it is that's for me how it needs to go. It needs to get in schools as early as possible and how do you i don't know you say in the book that it's still even now there's a pressure for boys and young men to be the strong ones to bottle up their feelings to never ask for help as a parent that terrifies me why do you think that persists because we we try and teach our kids to be more open we try and teach them that it's okay to share their feelings but you're right it does

still persist and I see that divide in my 11 year olds class that the boys are the ones who shouldn't cry they're the ones that they think they should be strong and it's still there how do we tackle that yeah for sure i think what what what you need to understand is that that will be there for for a very long time because if you think about you know men or you know men in general from even from cavemen times it's it's like it's always been kind of their job to go out and hunt it's always been their job to take on this thing the way even how testosterone works as a chemical you know it wants to wants to overpower wants to be able to be dominant wants to be able to be powerful i think i think that kind of ideology it's going to take a very long time to dissolve in terms of

like the idea that you know i shouldn't i should be't, I should be this way, I should be this way. But all I'm saying is, that's fine. If that's what you believe that you should be those ways, that's okay. However, talk about it. If you are feeling the pressure of that, talk about it. And I understand that that's really hard to do. And you know, especially like, you know, I never, I feel personally that it's pointless asking someone if you're feeling sad talk it should be your duty as a friend or a parent to get that out of them like and and you know there are lots of different ways that you can do it and i understand you know a lot of people struggle with being able to have those types of conversations but there is always a way there is always one way that you can that you find and it does take a little bit of time

you know that's why the easiest place to start was you know what i was taught just that two okay rule you know you ask someone at the beginning of a conversation how are you and then at the end of the conversation you ask again and you make that the point and you say look i know you just glazed over it but how are you really you know that's that that question on the front of the book isn't a question for the person reading it it's it's say this to your friends you know it's something to learn and um i think that you know when it comes to those young young guys i do think it's going to be you know look we can we can do things that are good which is you know you get rid of phrases like man up or things like that

you know or just get rid of that i think you know you've rid of phrases like man up or things like that you know or just get rid of that I think you know you've got to remember that it takes time it's definitely a generational thing I'd love to see you trying to have this conversation with my 74 year old dad he'd just be like no exactly exactly but so so but my my grandmother was heavily depressed my grandmother was heavily depressed you know and it takes time, you know, and it takes time for, you know, like even things like racism, racism, you know, for, you know, if you go back to your your granddad's time, that was just an accepted thing. Like, which is mad, you know, and even the pupils just accepted it. Then if it was your generation or, you know, my generation in terms of of it if a teacher were there to ever be racist it would be you know looked upon the school would deal with it nowadays if a teacher is racist

it is a bollock do you know what i mean it's horrendous like so slowly over time that generational thing will hopefully um get better but i just think it's it's not about okay it's not it's accepting that boys and girls will go through this stuff we can't you know skirt around it give them the tools you know accept they will go through the depression they will go through the anxiety they will go through the social insecurities give just don't ask them, just give them the tools. Yeah, I think that's really a powerful idea, that it's going to happen. It's normal to go up and down and it's normal sometimes to be very low indeed. Also that I think because girls are encouraged more to think about their feelings, talk about their feelings. When you were speaking earlier, I was thinking, you know, lots of boys and men, they may not even know what's wrong with them when they get really down.

Like being able to look at how you feel and define it just because it's always this idea that you're not supposed to feel this way. What do you think about that? Yes, you know that that's the thing it's like I truly believe that this acceptance that depression doesn't really exist is very strange like you know this acceptance you know the thing I was so sad about over the even over the pandemic was you look at um all of the adverts that came out you know or you know about covering your mouth and all that jazz and blah blah there was a complete lack from you know whether that be the government or anyone thinking about people that are stuck on their own and i don't mean that in a loneliness sense i mean

that in a mental health capacity you know um i think that, suicide rates in the UK actually went down in 2020. And my thinking is this, you know, I mean, look, it's almost impossible to, you know, if I was to take a guess, this is how it would look. So suicide rates in 2020 came down. If you think about 2020, there's something going on. Everyone's at home everyone's together people are talking to one another people's jobs everyone's job is in limbo then it gets back into 2021 and you look at the back end of 2021 when people start going back into the office they start going back to their lives their lives that they really live and it's

that that people don't enjoy you know and that's that thought, that stat of the fact that it went down in 2020, but went back up in 2021 because people were coming to the realization that, hang on, I don't like my life. I don't want to go back to my life. You know, it's so sad. And again, it's that safeguarding thing of depression. You know, we're going through a huge pandemic of mental health you know and there's I still don't see any adverts on tv I don't see anything but it's always charities that are doing it I just find it flabbergasting you dedicate the book not just to Joe but also to your mom and you know is are there things that she's done or your parents have done or that people

have said to you that you thought were particularly helpful in terms of times you were struggling with mental health problems yeah i mean my mom always used to have so many ways of doing it she used to she used to do this thing she was like i mean a couple of them are good a couple of them are a bit not so great well i mean it was good for me but whether or not it's right for other moms i don't know she basically said to me you don't have to do your homework if you if you cook dinner with me so i used to cook dinner with her and she'd be talking to me whilst we're doing it slowly just bring in mental health type conversations you know and and things about you know but you what you have to understand as well is that this is I come from a very open

family like very open in the sense of not just you know oh we talk about sex I mean open in the sense of we're not I wouldn't say we're closed-minded we're not intelligent by any means but but you know for instance my mum used to teach me about reiki when you know healing powers and and reiki and angel cards and all those types of things and there were certain bits i just thought shut up mom this is all rubbish but but you know the idea of you know mental health and and understanding positivity you know my mum kind of started it out by saying you can get what you want from things if you put it out there into the universe you know my mum always used to get to me you know so I used to sit there and go awesome with universe I'm telling you can you get Arsenal to win the Champions League

you know what I mean like that's quite what she meant by it but hey precisely but then but then it gives that ideology of okay get it out say it out loud you know what I mean talk about it and you know I I kind of you know we used to do this thing where you know my mum would then slowly introduce me to other things like you know just positive affirmations or gratitude so I already had a little bit of a connection with you know that side of life but my mum did used to do things like you know if we cook and you you don't you can not do your homework but we'll have a conversation you know just talk to me that's all she used to say she goes I never hear about your day I want to know you know and when and

when when I talk to her about my day she'll say to me okay well then that person said that how did that make you feel do you know I mean always ask me how I feel and also I guess validating not never telling me how to feel but just validating how I feel that's the slight difference isn't it yeah I mean even just acknowledging and saying I hear you instead of trying to either I think as a parent we can often I have this problem where I try to fix it I'm like oh maybe you could do this or maybe you could do that instead of doing that just saying but also yeah yeah but also questioning it you know and it's almost like she used to set me a challenge and kind of be like why do you think

you feel like that and then it's like well why do I feel like that is you know and then maybe I bring up something to do with an insecurity or do you know what I mean I try and map out you know our brains are good for one thing and that's solving problems that's what our brains want to do so if you give your child the reason say that's interesting I wonder why you've reacted like that to that so what about your dad then if your mum was the positive affirmation one what was he up to uh my dad was my dad my dad and my sister are always my dad and my sister are very lucky that they have the most happy-go-lucky outlook on life ever my dad is very open to things but I never used to feel like I would have a proper conversation because my dad would always hand it to me yeah um anything I said was right anything I did was right anything you know and and sometimes

they get to a point where you kind of sift through the bullshit and you just kind of go hang in a minute no it's not right you're just telling me it's okay so I get old enough to kind of say it I found it tough to have those conversations with him um also he had never really had those conversations in his life my mom came from a family that that was hugely like just in the wrong place you know she had a a father who was abusive to his wife you know he had a mom who was raising six kids essentially on her own um and constantly you know cheated on and whatever and all this jazz and you've got kids that all just hate each other and so she came my mom came from this highly toxic environment and is a very emotional person so she had to learn about her own emotions pretty quick and i think she kind of found power in that you know and and

that's what she she wanted to give to me you know me and my mum are both very sensitive we're very like if and what i mean by that i don't mean like oh if something grazes me i cry for a week i mean we're sensitive to environment and other people that also makes you attuned yeah that's what i was going to say you're kind of you're tapped into other people's emotions. That also makes you attuned. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. You're kind of, you're tapped into other people's emotions. I hate it, right? If I can't deal with, it's like going to sleep on an argument. I can't do that.

And also I can't like, if someone, if I say if I'm in the studio and one person's had a bit of a rift with the other person, I can't sit there because i'll feel that you kind of pick up on the on the vibes yeah but but in a bad way in a way that it annoys me you know and and so you know all of these things all of these things are kind of things that i've taken in from my mum and you know my mum used to do little tricks and this is you know the best trick i'm sure you you both know this but from a's perspective, the best way to do it is if you have those car journeys or if you go for walks or anything like that, if you have dogs, make your son take the dog for a walk with you, you know, and as you're walking, then bring up those topics anything that you can do to talk about a topic like either suicide mental health etc anything you could do in a way that isn't with eye contact is sweet spot best conversations ever

in the car you don't have to look at each other i'm with you there but exactly and and so many people still don't really do that and you know they worry about you know i hear a lot of parents worry about saying should i talk to my kid about suicide because you know suicide is is so scary and i don't want to give them ideas and things like that unfortunately that as i said earlier 70 of the people that do take their own life don't even think mental health is a thing like don't even think you know i mean they it's crazy you know it's the idea of suicide and the way how we talk about it the fact that we're not talking about it is why people are killing themselves. And yet people still say it like a swear word.

Yeah, it's said in hushed tones. Yeah, they come up to me and they go, do you think I should talk about suicide to my son? And I'm like, you can say suicide, don't worry. It's like in Harry Potter, don't say Voldemort. But actually, you're right. If you keep talking about it in a whisper and not actually talking about it, then how is anyone supposed to get their head around their own emotions? Dumbledore in Harry Potter says,

fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself. You know, so it's, and that's, you know, from Harry Potter, which I've never taken a quote from in my life, but it's really true. You know, because we're saying it in that way, everyone's so scared of it and you're throwing this this like taboo around it is then you know but it's not just that for the people that really do feel suicidal they're so scared to talk about it themselves you know businesses you know even businesses these days they're being told and I really agree with this I really do I agree with it businesses these days, they're being told, and I really agree with this. I really do. I agree with it. Businesses these days, they're being told if your employee is going through a mental health breakdown or is going through a mental health issue, the first question you should ask them is, have you considered killing yourself? Have you thought about taking your own life by addressing that first you are stopping any dance around the subject you are all of a sudden you are making an issue a reality in someone's

head someone that has been fantasizing about suicide which one in four men do by the way one in four men have thoughts about suicide which is completely normal but by bringing it into the real world and not just in their head diffuses it so much because all of a sudden you go oh no actually i'm not i'm not gonna kill myself i'm not do you know what i mean yeah and i just think that it's so powerful just to be able to say it that's the worst case scenario say it have that conversation i mean case scenario. Say it, have that conversation. I mean, I think, I think that, that statistic, even one out of four men, I would be surprised that, you know, if it wasn't more like 95% of people at one time or another might've had a fleeting thought when they'd get very low of thinking about it,

not necessarily contemplating it or, know ideation or planning but just going uh would would it be better if i weren't here that seems like a completely normal thing to think it's completely normal it's completely normal life is really really shit sometimes it's completely normal and understandable to feel like that but again it goes back to what we said everyone's having those thoughts but no one knows how to kind of get rid of those thoughts because your brain will take over like you know your brain wants to take over and again like i go back to it what i said it wants the problem solved and if your computer is just breaking and breaking and breaking what do you do you pull it out the plug at the mains and that's unfortunately what men are doing they're just going can't be bothered bang pull it out like that's what they're doing and and there's there's a lot there that you know it's just

it sounds so simple but but it you know unfortunately it's not you know not one suicide going back to it is the same and and it's just it's a weird, weird world. That is true. Very true. Very, very true. I just want to talk about the book a little bit in terms of it is, it's just, it's a fantastic read. It's obviously, you know, it's very meaningful, the place it came from.

It's also interesting. You talk very openly about your upbringing, about your family. There's some really amusing bits. And also you talk about having gotten abuse along the lines of people saying, you know, somebody with your privilege has no right to be talking about suicide or mental health, which is really funny. It's a bit like, ooh, people like you, famous parents, privileged life, y'all never have any problems in a way. That's kind of baked into our ideas

about mental health, isn't it? Yeah, of course. But problems are relative. Everything's relative. It's like, you know, everything's relative. It's like, you know, it doesn't, suicide or depression or anything like that, again, doesn't have a uniform that it has to follow. The idea of what a suicidal man looks like is so far from what people think it is like a suicidal man will be that person at the party that's actually really fun and really full of joy and they are the people that you know have got quite a lot going for them because they're working really hard but unfortunately they could be

achieving and yeah you know whatever it might be yeah and you know that's what I learned the hard way which is it doesn't have any form of uniform that you can go because you know before people just think oh it's someone that is in therapy all the time crying all the time you know it wants to do that but it realistically it's the people that you don't expect and and that's the only correlation I had with any form of suicide which is it when does the people that you least expect become the person that you most expect to take their own life? Often too late. That's the problem. Always too late. But I think, sorry, going back to your question, for me to be able to write a book about something that is very personal to a lot of other people other than myself, you have to be very open.

I've always been a very open person in in terms of you know my upbringing but I think you know again that's what I wanted to shock a bit more but the online comments can be brutal yeah but I deal with that on a daily basis and that's fine like like like I honestly I'm very fortunate very fortunate of of how I process that certain thing. The only time I would ever really feel down is if I've hurt someone, is if I've upset someone. People commenting on my way of life or who I am, I don't really care. I really don't. But if I've ever hurt someone, then that would be, you know, that that's something that I would want to address. But I think that I think when it comes to when it comes to, you know, online comments or things like that, I love that, you know, the way how I've been able to talk about, you know, wanting to take my own life or, you know, having fantasies about it, about how I would do it etc I look at myself and go I'm thinking that and I am the one

of the most privileged people in this country I've got a great job I've got parents who yeah probably if I went broke and if I lost all my job I'll go live with them like but it doesn't make a difference like it and it truly't. And I'm telling you that firsthand from someone in that position, because your brain is the thing that is killing you at the end of the day. And your brain will make you feel like no matter how privileged you are, it will make you feel just as bad as someone that doesn't have any of the privileges that you have. Right. Mental health is not about like who deserves it.'s relative to the situation yeah you know it's it's

my goals are different to your goals but if i'm not achieving my goals i can feel just as bad as you do about you not achieving yours let's talk about what else you might be doing i've heard rumors rumors rumors well not rumors you've said that you're in talks about big brother talk to me about big brother please i also want to talk about about Prince William because you met him and is he nice and I also want to know who you think is going to win I'm a celeb please okay all right well yeah well let's talk Big Brother first I mean I think the the quote in the paper was just that obviously they've they've spoken to me about it because they already they already asked about it and I think it was already someone already printed it in the paper all I can say is it is what I say it's a phenomenal show it would be an honor to be able to do it I love it and I you know that's

that's what I would always want to do I think I think whoever hosts that show needs to be a fan of the show you know that that's all you can say is whoever whoever hosts that show has to be a fan and has to, you know, understand what people can go through in those scenarios. So that's Big Brother. That's all I can say. Succinctly done. Thank you, sir.

The rest is not in my hand. What would you like to know about Prince William? That's not going to get me beheaded. Is he a nice chap? I've been fortunate enough to meet a lot of the Royals. I never, unfortunately got to meet Her Majesty the Queen. But I have had nothing but lovely encounters with all of them.

Very understanding, very much, you know, my thing in life is I love people that do their job properly. You can see that they want to do their job properly. You can see that they have a responsibility and they're willing to stand up and do that take that responsibility and i think that's a very admirable thing you know i understand people have certain opinions on royals and again that's fine this is just my opinion you know my opinion is i view them in a nice light i i can only go off when i've met them and you know king Charles um is lovely I've had the honor of meeting him on several occasions he's he's very nice very personable very funny like Prince

William and Kate for that instance very empathetic people you know and I think as someone that you know I would say I'm an empath in that sense. You pick up on other people that are like that. And you can see people that are genuinely kind people. And that's, you know, what I can say about them. And Prince Harry, again, lovely guy, quite funny, you know, of lovely encounters. Now, you haven't answered my other question. Who's going to win I'm a celeb do

you know what I'm I'm tied between one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life and someone that is just a legend like a hero I'll start with a hero so the hero is obviously Jill Scott yeah right I think Jill Scott she's a winner and from what we've seen of her so far in the show she's clearly you know she works on a team mentality she'll love that element of it so I really really you know I think I can't see any anyone else winning it over her but I do love Charlene as well I think Charlene is great I think Charlene could potentially be pop three however I would love to see Mike Tindall win it I would love to see Mike Tindall win it Mike Tindall is hands down one of the nicest top five nicest people I've ever met in my life and I include my dad in that it'll be interesting I have to say yeah watching the first episode where they're in

the boat and they they pull up to that submerged other boat. And he's like, OK, I'll go in and just like waded in. Yeah, I really hope we see more of an emotional side to Mike, because I think if we get that, then he will win. He's pretty unflappable, though, isn't he? That's what I mean. I'd quite like to see that. But yeah, I do think jill scott is great i thought charlene is you know she's she would she would be great to win but but no some there's some great there's some great people in there do you know what it made me really really emotional seeing them some go in there because you know i say it

in the book it was one of the happiest times of my life and and seeing it there was really cool do you have any advice for people in the jungle uh yeah I think it's it sounds ridiculous but it is those things of don't argue understand it is a tv show you know always know and always know that like you know my thought process is always this show is they kiss you on the lips then kick you in the nuts or make you eat the nuts depending exactly that's it so it's always going okay they've just done something really nice for us expect hell that is the best tip ever yeah that's what it happened you know it happened in the show when they opened up on episode one and they're saying you know on their first episode they were talking about you know vips and they're like great and then bang you know so it's um it's it's certainly

a show that that you need to be wary of thank you roman what a lovely way to spend a monday morning chatting to you thank you for joining us thank you so yes everyone you can see Roman's new book Are You Really Okay in stores and order it do check it out it's a very important and also very enjoyable read thank you so much Roman thanks ladies thank you