Are You Really Ok?

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Capital DJ Roman Kemp has achieved much success but he hasn?t had an easy ride. He?s battled depression since the age of 15, once contemplated suicide, and has bravely fought to smash the stigma still surrounding medication and mental health. Mates Tom, Olly and Lysander meet Roman to discuss the death of their friend Ashley, three years ago. “It’s still hard every day,” Lysander says. “I’m not going to sugar coat it. It can still be difficult but we take every day as it comes.” I promise it’s not all heavy going or doom and gloom… there will be a few moments that make you laugh along the way,” he added. Roman - thank you for a book that covers mental health without being statistical and/ or regimented, but being real and honest. The Kate Middleton fit thing was genuinely an accident,” insists Roman. “It was about the terminology for the dress!

He praises the work of mental health advocates Princes William and Harry, revealing the first time he met the future king was at a mental health charity. A football match that was on in the room had just finished. Instead of following royal protocol, the first thing lifelong Arsenal supporter Roman said to Aston Villa fan William was, “F**king hell mate, that was mad!” Sharing that they were as close as brothers and had experienced so many special times together, Roman wants to understand how it reached the point where Joe felt that death by suicide was the only option. In August 2020, Joe Lyons, Roman Kemp’s much-loved best friend and work colleague died by suicide. Roman and his tight knit group of mates were totally blindsided by Joe’s sudden and unexpected death, and understandably their devastation at the loss of such a special person remains to this day.

LoveReading Says

You will find yourself entertained and educated and you’ll be laughing and crying. It is a real rollercoaster of emotions - which, at the end of the day, is what makes us human. Ideally we want to live in a world where there is no suicide, there is no mental health crises; but that won’t happen, and it’s people like Roman who are using their position to help make things a little easier in the meantime.

When I lost Joe to suicide, I was so confused. What do you mean he’s killed himself? He was happy, he was Mr Steal Yo Girl, the life and soul of the party! I couldn’t understand how my friend who was there for me when I would tell him about my own suicidal thoughts, and my life taking antidepressants, had been able to keep such a secret from me. Now, in the second part of our exclusive extracts from his new book Are You Really OK? Roman, 29, reveals all about his relationship with his parents and how much he admires their 40-year marriage ...Slipknot’s Wait and Bleed. It was one of the first songs that I remember making me feel a certain way about metal. I had a huge metal time in my life, and I still love it, how it makes me feel. I will still say Wait and Bleed is my favourite song of all time, just because I’ve listened to it so many times, but now I listen to it and I’m a bit like: “I could switch this off, after a minute.” I think it means more to me than I actually enjoy it. Okay, I know this is going to seem rather churlish, but this book is just terrible. It is a very important subject, but the majority of it it just lists of things the author likes with the flimsy justification that everything in life can affect your mental health, so these are the things that shaped the author as a person. Mum and Dad's parenting style was definitely what you'd call "bohemian". They always made a point of treating my sister Harley and I as their mates, rather than their children to boss around. TW: This article focuses in some depth on the subject of suicide, so please be advised if you think this might be triggering for you. At 60, Dad still has his fair share of female admirers, which he's a bit sheepish about and which Mum thinks is hilarious and ridiculous. But I have to admit he's the best-looking member of our family and in some ways I'm looking forward to going grey like him one day, he's working the silver fox look so well.

Bob Mortimer wins 2023 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction with The Satsuma Complex This book really doesn't know what it wants to be. The cover and particularly the title leads oneself to believe that you're going to get at the very least something substantial on mental health. The reality is the contents (or at least the first two thirds of it, I'll get to why I didn't finish it) consist of some basic discussion of the topic but I actually felt the effectiveness of even this was undermined by the way in which the author switches to discussion of random things that have happened in his life, many of which being subjectively amazing experiences many could only dream of.

Hope and understanding, comes in conversations with groups of mates, who like Roman, find themselves trying to come to terms with missing a friend and the endless questions around what happened, and why. The lifelong Arsenal supporter grafted his way to Capital's highly coveted Breakfast slot - and pulled in record-beating listeners with his cheeky sense of humour. Who else could convince Ed Sheeran to tattoo Roman's leg on air, drive around London playing cab-roulette with James Corden, get Craig David to freestyle rap, or rope Lewis Capaldi into a life-drawing class? He adds, “I think they’re fantastic, though. Every family has their squabbles, but what both of them have done is amazing. Here are two boys who have been through one of the worst traumas you can go through as a child – losing a parent – in public. They’re bringing mental health into that family and environment. It takes a lot of balls and I think they should be very proud of what they’ve achieved.” Whilst I’ve seen Roman in programmes such as DNA Journey and the documentary he did on mental health and suicide, I don’t listen to Capital Radio and so that side of his story was interesting to me. And I know of his parents and enjoyed their music but they were necessarily a family I followed (figuratively of course), but it was a real eye opener learning about them as people rather than just their names. Describing it as the most “f***ked up industry in the world” he says his confidence was shattered as he was called out for having a “Mediterranean nose” and “wide hips for a man”, and became convinced he had bad teeth as he was never allowed to smile for photos.

Then, in 2019, Roman won over yet more fans coming third in I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, with his uncanny impressions of everyone from Ant and Dec to his mate Harry Styles. Here, for the first time, Roman’s ready to reveal the things that weren't captured on camera, and how his time in the jungle changed his whole outlook on life.If there's one thing in life Roman Kemp is grateful for, it’s the enduring support of his popstar parents Martin Kemp and Shirlie Kemp. Roman is clearly living a highly privileged life and I don't begrudge him that. That being said it doesn't put him in a good position to write a book on the subject of mental health for the masses. Possibly the best part of the book I read was that in which he shares his experiences of his friend and colleague dying by suicide. This is real and an experience that cuts across class divides. That being so folk in Roman's position are very much better equipped to cope with loss since access to mental health support in the UK and much of the world depends, to a large extent, on how wealthy you are. Roman simply can't speak to the experiences that the majority of those struggling with mental health face and as such the book perpetuates the narrative that if we all just got our mates talking a bit more or went for an extra walk everything would be alright. It had e substance than I was expecting. I thought it was “just” going to be a book about mental health with anecdotes and helpful advice. And that would have been perfectly fine. But it’s so much more. He’s taken us through his life, his childhood, adolescence and adulthood, his family life, his career, his ups and downs, and the things that have built up to crate this picture of mental health. It’s not a self-help book as such. He doesn’t pretend he’s a know-it-all expert or guru, he’s just telling us his experience.