'VICIOUS CYCLE'

Towie’s James Argent reveals jokes about his weight drove him to binge on fast food and cocaine

HE is the poster boy for big and bubbly – and always laughed along with the jibes about his weight.

But in Part Two of his explosive interview with The Sun, Towie’s James “Arg” Agent reveals his happy exterior was just a front and that every dig killed him inside.

And he tells how to combat the pain, he binged on food, as well as alcohol and cocaine, making him dangerously overweight.

Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Arg, 32, says: “The core of my addiction stems from my eating disorder.

“I binge on food if I hate the way I look.

“It’s like the opposite of anorexia where people starve themselves if they are down about their body. I eat when I’m not even hungry.

“Everyone thinks I’m this really happy guy but it’s a front.

“All this p**s-taking and the abuse I was receiving on social media was hurting me inside.

“People would say to me, ‘You’ve been binge-eating on drugs but supermodels take cocaine to stop themselves from eating.

“Surely you should be skinny like a rake, not the biggest you’ve ever been’.

“But that’s part of my vicious cycle.

“I’d feel down so I’d start using drugs at 9pm until 6am, not eating a thing.

“Then I’d wake up, feel low and be absolutely starving and I would binge on everything from fizzy drinks, burgers, fast food, crisps, snacks, pizzas, takeaways to the point where I couldn’t possibly eat any more to feel better.

“Then I’d look in the mirror, see I’m the biggest I’ve ever been, then think, ‘When is a suitable time for a dealer to drop me off’.

“It was a never-ending tale of destruction.”

Before he checked in to The River rehab facility in Thailand at the start of the year, Arg was the heaviest he had ever been.

He is now five stone lighter, and tells me that focusing on body confidence and positivity has been a big part of his recovery.

He says: “I’ve actually lost five stone.

“I was 23 and a half stone before rehab, and I’d like to get another three stone off.

“I feel so much better in myself.”

Arg admits he has always struggled with his weight and recalled an incident on his first lads’ holiday to the Greek island of Kos.

Feeling self-conscious, he refused to take his top off by the swimming pool, so his pals threw him in to get him to remove it.

But his anxiety over his weight heightened after his best friend Mark Wright, 33, got him on to the cast of reality show The Only Way Is Essex in 2010.

He says: “When I was on screen I was looking at myself at times and I felt ugly compared to the rest of the Towie cast.

“I was constantly getting bantered about the way I looked and people taking the p**s out of my weight, calling me ‘Large Arg’ or the ‘tubby crooner’ on social media.

“I got a lot of love but I also took a battering.

“People didn’t realise it was hurting me because when they see me I’m always really happy and friendly and laughing off all the fat jokes.

“It was really hurting me inside.

One piece of abuse came from football bad boy Joey Barton.

The former Manchester City midfielder targeted the cast of Towie during the early days of Twitter and laid into Arg about his teeth.

Arg says: “I was seriously suffering with body image and self-worth, not feeling good enough and paranoid about how I looked.

“Joey Barton took the p**s out of Towie and I tweeted him something to dig him out and he tweeted me back saying, ‘Arg, you’ve got teeth like a burnt-down fence’.

“It is funny looking back at it, but I remember being so conscious and embarrassed that every time I had a picture after that I’d smile but close my mouth. I wouldn’t show my teeth. “It made me go straight to the dentist to get my veneers done.”

But Arg does not regret appearing on the ITVBe series or blame the accompanying fame for his problems.

He says: “So many cast members come and go and from what I know, I’m the only Towie member that’s ended up in rehab.

“The show can’t be blamed otherwise more would have ended up like me.”

And had Arg not gone on the series, he would never have met girlfriend Gemma Collins, 39.

The couple have been dating on and off for two and half years, and he says she has never covered for his drug-taking and instead given him much-needed tough love.

“She isn’t an enabler,” he adds.

“I hated her sometimes.

“I’d say, ‘Why are you telling my mum, my friends, the bosses of the TV shows? You’re gonna ruin my career’.

“She wasn’t going to lie for me or let me get away for my using.

“She was extremely tough, but that’s exactly what I needed.

“If she was a girl that was going to lie for me, telling people I was alright when I really wasn’t, that wouldn’t have helped me.”

Arg now hopes to settle down with Gemma — but accepts that will only happen if he stays clean.

He says: “One hundred per cent I want to get married and have children.

“But I know if I was to relapse again, Gemma has made it clear to me that she’s done everything that she possibly can.

“And you’ve got to remember that Gemma’s late thirties so she hasn’t got time to be mucking about any more.

“She wants marriage and wants kids but if I relapse again or go downhill, it’s done. It’s finished.

“Gemma’s said to me she wants me to be clean and sober before we were ever to get married and have children.”

And if they do tie the knot, Arg says the wedding will be, “Bigger than the Beckhams’”.

He added: “Gemma seems to think that when we do get married it will be the wedding of the decade. Being with Gemma Collins is never boring.”

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