Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction!

My books wouldn't be as good if I, if, if I hadn't gone through that trauma.

Please welcome Richard Osman, ladies and gentlemen. (crowd cheering) Bestselling novelist, television producer, presenter...

You know, if you have a trauma of any type and- and you are looked after and you're guided through it, you can come out the other side. If, however, you're sort of left alone in your trauma, your own solutions never work. I never sat and thought, "Oh, I've got a problem with my life." But I would have addictive behaviors around food.

When did you realize that it was a strange behavior?

I mean, it's an addiction. There's no other way of putting it. It's like having a bottle of vodka, then having another bottle of vodka, then having another bottle of vodka. If you see somebody as different, they do not need to be told. I've had that with my height, you know? And I know you're just thinking, "Yeah, but it's just me." You think, yeah, but it's just you and five other people every single day. I didn't live the life I should have done for many years. I wish I'd been more myself in those years, and I would have taken much less success and much more happiness.

What, what is happiness to you?

Gosh, that's a good question. Well, here's, here's, here's the way I always think about it.

That makes a lot of sense.

Hmm, you think?

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Steven.

What do I need to know about you and your earliest years to understand the man you went on to be and all the things you went on to do?

Uh, that's a good question. Well, if you mean professionally, the man I- I- I- I went on to be, um, I grew up loving popular culture, loving mainstream culture, loving mainstream television. Um, so, you know, that's always been in my soul. Uh, I came from a big working class family and now find myself in a very middle class world, so I- I- I sort of have a sense of what different people, um, from different places in Britain like to watch or like to read. Uh, so that really, and, you know, I grew up, I've, I've, I've, uh, visually, I'm very visually impaired, so I don't see the world particularly brilliantly, but I'm always listening to the world. I'm always interested in what people are saying and, you know, getting that sort of thing. Uh, so I think that combination of things means I've, I've, I've had a career of sort of working out what people might quite like and then finding the right people to help me make those things.