A Gladiators star has shed light on his horror injury that saw him lose 15kg in weight.
Matt Morsia claims he went through the ‘worst three weeks’ of his life after being injured during the filming of the hit TV show.
The 39-year-old, from Kent, said he did not eat for 12 days, lost around 15kg in bodyweight and was hiccupping every ‘three to five seconds’ after he tore his bicep tendon off the bone when he tackled a contender last month.
Known as Legend on the BBC series, the fitness influencer told his 2.35million subscribers on YouTube: ‘I’ve done that game almost 20 times and never had a problem before.
‘But at the same time, that’s the reality of Gladiators, right? That’s what makes it the best show on TV. With that, you’re going to get injuries.
‘I won’t lie I was obviously pretty devastated. Knowing I wasn’t going to compete in the games anymore obviously killed me.’
Five days after the incident, the father-of-two went to London for surgery so that doctors could reattach the tendon.
However, at this point, he started to develop ‘intense nausea’ and was ‘vomiting like 24 hours a day’.
‘Everything I would eat, I would throw up,’ Kent Online reported.
‘I’m talking Team America-style projectile vomiting. And it wouldn’t stop. It just stayed 24 hours a day.’
‘It got so bad that I was admitted to hospital and stayed there for almost two weeks. Those couple of weeks were easily the worst of my entire life by a million miles.
‘The sickness and the nausea just wouldn’t go away. I literally didn’t eat for 12 days. I couldn’t stand up because I was so weak. In the end, I lost 15 kilograms in body weight… I feel like I’m half the person I was.’
Matt also revealed how he developed extreme singultus, which saw him hiccup every three to five seconds for eight days.
But after being discharged at the end of last week he is now on the road to recovery and said his bicep has healed ‘very well’.
This comes after Matt’s fellow Gladiators star Steel, whose real name is Zack George, announced a fundraising challenge in honour of his son who was born prematurely and died just 13 days old.
The TV star Steel shared a heartbreaking insight earlier this year into his baby’s premature birth at 23 weeks old.
Posting on social media in April, the 35-year-old shared an image of himself and his wife Samantha in tears as they held their baby Leo inside the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
The BBC star explained how Leo had three blood transfusions, collapsed lungs, a grade one and two bleed on his brain and a hole in his heart.
Now, however, George is currently taking part in a fitness fundraiser from August 18 to AUgust 30 called the ’13 Days Fighting’ Burpee Challenge to help raise money for other families enduring similar heartache.
Gladiators is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
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