Rob Beckett, who returns to screens tonight (March 5) for a new series of Smart TV on Atlantic, has been very open about the effect dyslexia and mental health struggles have had on his life.
The 39-year-old dad of two was only diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult and he has admitted he was in floods of tears after the condition was confirmed.
Speaking to co-host Josh Widdecombe on their podcast Parenting Hell he revealed: “She [the assessor] said ‘Okay I’ll send you the full report…and then she said ‘Just to let you know, you do have dyslexia’.
“And then actually hearing it from someone who’s like a trained specialist and trained in it, not like ‘Well I’ve probably got that from what I’ve garnered’. She told me, I burst into tears again, but honestly so badly….it was like an out of body experience of emotion.”
He admitted the “signs were always there” but confessed he had only gone to be assessed after realising he was hindering rather than helping his daughter with her school homework.
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Rob Beckett has been open about his ADHD and dyslexia (Image: Getty)
He said the three-hour assessment had revealed he has “zero” short-term memory and struggles to write things down. Realising how it affected him throughout his school years, he told : “I was told I was thick and that I wasn’t trying, but I was trying 10 times harder than the others in the class.”
He has also been very open about his struggle with depression which, at one point, led to suicidal thoughts.
Speaking on The One Show in 2021 he said: “I suffer with depression. I think it’s good for men to open up more, especially working-class men where in the past it’s been about being strong and tough.”
He acknowledged he has “good days, bad days” but said it “got really bad” just before the lockdown. He said overwork had led to “burnout” and he “couldn’t really cope”.
In his 2021 autobiography A Class Act: Life As a Working-Class Man in a Middle-Class World he expanded on this saying he had felt that “it would be better if I was dead” as he struggled during 2020.
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Rob Beckett is joined by Alison Hammond and Josh Widdicombe for a new series of Smart TV (Image: Sky)
He also touched on it in a 2019 interview with The Guardian. “I had all the markers of a successful person. But I was having suicidal thoughts… It was a toxic fuel. Effective, like chucking petrol on a bonfire, but unsustainable,” he said.
However in a 2022 chat with he revealed he now has coping mechanisms when he feels the burnout coming on.
“I have trigger points. I know that if I’m getting overwhelmed and overworked – and my diary is crazy at the moment – I book loads more time off now,” he explained.
“If I’m not working a particular week, I’ll think, ‘That’s because you need to rest, not because you’re lazy’. I don’t have that voice telling me not to have time off.
“I make sure that I ringfence things, so I play football on a Tuesday afternoon with comedians. That would be the last thing to be taken out of the diary for something. I do lots of Lego, lots of colouring-in, and I love spending time with the kids,” he said.