Jamie Laing on fatherhood, family, loneliness, and male body image
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.6 • 15.2K Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2025
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Broadcaster and entrepreneur Jamie Laing had big fears about having kids... and yet he’s about to become a dad any day now.
In this chat with Fearne, Jamie’s honest about the pros and cons he deliberated over before deciding to have children. He talks through how his parents’ divorce expanded his world in beautiful ways, as well as why he chose to re-kindle his relationship with his dad as an adult.
Jamie also talks for the first time about his body image and eating disorder. Given Fearne has been through her own experience of bulimia, Jamie looks to her for advice on how to break free from the shame that’s gripped him for much of his life.
Jamie can now say he genuinely likes himself, but explains how throughout his teens and twenties he felt a real need to be popular, liked, and validated by others. How did he learn to cultivate self-compassion in his thirties? And what does he reckon is the best way to get men to open up to their mates?
Jamie’s book, Boys Don’t Cry, is out now.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that gives you permission to be your |
| 0:06.2 | absolute full self. Today, I'm chatting to Jamie Lang. It's hard for me to say, but I had an |
| 0:13.3 | eating disorder, for sure. I went to a therapist and when I told the therapist what was happening, |
| 0:20.2 | I had to cover my eyes in sex. I was too |
| 0:21.7 | embarrassed about it. But there were moments in my 20s where I wouldn't keep my food down |
| 0:28.7 | because it was just a complete control thing. And it was a secret that I had. I find it pretty shameful. |
| 0:38.9 | So, I've had a right shit week. |
| 0:41.2 | And I'm not saying that for any sympathy at all. |
| 0:43.8 | I'm saying it because I know many of you listening will have had a shit week too. |
| 0:47.2 | And it's quite normal. |
| 0:49.1 | It doesn't make it any better. |
| 0:50.6 | But we're all in this together. |
| 0:52.4 | But sometimes amongst the shit, there are little glimmers |
| 0:56.4 | still, and I had one really lovely evening the week just gone. I went to the Royal Geographical Society, |
| 1:03.6 | but you weren't expecting I was going to say that, to watch my friend Arling Cagger do a talk. |
| 1:08.5 | Now Arling's actually been on Happy Place many moons ago. You'd have to |
| 1:11.5 | scroll back in the archives to find that episode. But basically he's just this amazing Norwegian |
| 1:16.7 | explorer who was the first person to reach the North Pole, the South Pole and Everest unaided. And it was |
| 1:23.7 | so beautiful. A lot of it was around having a sense of adventure, etc. |
| 1:28.6 | But one thing really, well, two things really stayed with me. |
| 1:30.9 | One I've already talked about on Instagram, so you can go and have a look on my Instagram. |
| 1:34.1 | The other thing that has stayed with me, right at the end of the talk, he said everybody needs to find their North Pole. |
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