Eddie Hall - The Strongest Man in History

Full transcript: Eddie Hall on London Real

4:03 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Eddie Hall, the athlete, strongman, an actor, better known as the Beast. In 2016 you set the deadlift world record at an incredible 500 kilograms, that’s over 1100 pounds, and what you called quote, the most incredible lifts in human history and one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever done. One year later, in 2017, you won the World’s Strongest Man competition, having tried for six years and finally accomplishing a lifelong dream.

4:31 Today you spend your time recording television projects, YouTube shows, promoting strongmen and mental health awareness, and you’re filming a new documentary with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Eddie, welcome to London Real. Thank you, pleasure to be here. Great to have you here. First of all, what’s it like, you in London versus Stoke-on-Trent?

4:49 And for people around the world that don’t know the difference between the two cities. Stoke-on-Trent, it’s a nice place, you know, it’s, it’s got, it’s got two lovely areas but it’s all Scottish bad areas. It’s a good place to grow up, to be honest. It’s very central to the country. You aren’t, you knew you wanted two hours, you are anywhere in the UK pretty much, and then you compare it to London, that’s just all clogged up and takes you an hour to drive a mile.

5:14 You know, I find London quite stressful, I really do. What, what’s stressful about it? The, the traffic, the getting around, the peelers, too many people here, you know. For someone like me I can’t walk down the street without being noticed, so I find it quite, quite hard to get around in London. So I’m gonna stab you.

5:34 Yes, they know who you are, or just when they see you they know you’re somebody? No, they know, I am, and yeah, I can’t use the tube for that reason, that I have to use sort of private transportation, so I have to use taxis, and even if it’s like, you know, twelve mile journey across London, take you ten minutes on the tube, I have to go in a car because I just, I just, you’ll get swarmed on the tube, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t record risk it. Okay, in that crazy, I had that Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, he can take the tube, rock, you can’t.

6:01 No, I’ll, it’s week on which we come, not too stressful. Would you compare Stoke-on-Trent, like in America, what’s the equivalent, is it kind of like the Midwest where you have like these kind of values, and is it slower, and is it more about like who you are and less like bicoastal, or is that not the best example? So what, why would I compare it? Yeah, like in America, is it kind of like geez, that’s a tough one. You know, I’ve been a lot of places in America, I would say it’s got a very sort of Virginia feel about it, the quality of all the places, you know, it’s just quite, quite relaxed, quite spaced out, people are nice.

6:40 Yeah, all right, but you’re travelling like a madman now, you’re all over the world and you told me earlier the last 180 days you spent how many in the States? I’ve spent just over 100, and so are the last ones Rene’s, have spent just over 160 in the States, so it’s been pretty tough. I don’t say that’s a lot of traveling, a lot of hotels, if I’m a bit fed off of it now, to be honest, I don’t know. Yeah, well, right, well, I want to hear more about what you’re doing with television and the movies because it’s pretty exciting stuff, I think.

7:11 Eddie, we’re gonna have to start with the deadlift, and I know you’ve probably told this story a few times, but you know, people right now watching this have probably already seen a few clips of that from the beginning of the trailer here. I’m watching that moment and I was, you know, it was captured on video, which is amazing, and with close-ups in slow-mo, and I had this crazy thought, and tell me if I’m way off here, but you know how back in the day they sent a space, a space satellite way out into outer space and they put like a record on there, and the record had like opera and like recordings and like all these things of that defined the human race, and I was just thinking like, do you think they should put a snippet of you and the deadlift on there?

7:52 Because this is, you know, this is human accomplishment, this is a human being doing something that, as you said before, seven billion people, you’re the only one that’s done it. This is accomplishing, overcoming, you know, pain, you know, life long of like depression, being told I wasn’t able to do this. I mean, it’s a moment, right? You ever think that that should go out in space for the aliens to see? Birds possibly.

8:19 I’m not sure if the aliens would sort of relate to what we left on the planet, maybe. I don’t know, but it sure was a magical moment within the strength industry, you know. There’s been hundreds of thousands of world records set within the strap industry, but when I came along and said I was going to pull half a ton off the floor, the, the reaction was very negative. You know, no one believed it could be done, and when you think about it, it was such a ridiculous statement back in 2015 when I said I was gonna pull the half ton off the floor, and he, even the promoters just, you know, I said to them after they’re, after a strongman show, I said, I want to pull, I want to pull half a ton off the floor, but obviously I want to, I want to get paid for it.

9:02 It’s how much do you want to put forward it for to pull half a ton? And they both, and these are seasoned promoters, you know, in the game years, and you know, what Hollywood, who know how to promote, no Optimo to, who know what’s capable, and they just looked at your broom like, yeah, how much do you want? You know, it was just seen as the impossible. You know, put it on Facebook and Instagram and it was all negative. Was like, it can’t be done, impossible, to shut off, you an idiot, you just talking b******t, you just selling tickets.

9:32 And this was part of your game plan because this is how you motivate yourself, it is, isn’t it? It is, yeah. In a way I like, support things out there that are impossible, you know, that are extreme and, and, and would burn 99.999% the planet would think, no, no way, that’s just not doable, and then I love to say that, get the reaction and another, I’m gonna do it now, and it’s that, it’s that negativity that really does fuel my fire. It’s literally throwing coal on to my fire to train harder, to dedicate my life to things and go out and get them, like I did with winning the World’s Strongest Man.

10:14 The half-ton deadlift was exactly the same, just the reaction was just all negative, and you can feed off negativity because a lot of people say today, you know, ignore the haters, stay positive, you know, you’ve seen all the, you know, within the unicorns and the rainbow means and things like that, but not for you. You like the negativity and the naysayers? I, I do, who I did, you know, I, I do enjoy the, the sort of negative comments. I mean, when I was a very young sort of athlete, you talking, well, my very first contest I was 19 years of age and I did my first strongman show, and I think Facebook was just starting up around then, you’ve been around a couple years maybe, I can’t quite remember, and then the first contest I remember came back from that and I was taught, I said to everybody, said my mom, my dad, but brothers, put it on Facebook, told my friends, I’m gonna win the World’s Strongest Man one day, watch this space.

11:05 And I said that when I was 19 years old, my very first on my contest, and from day one I was tarnished with this brush of being this arrogant, overconfidence, you know, young kid who’s got a chip on his shoulder and to problem, but I always delivered, you know, I, I delivered on everything I said. And then the week before, the week before UK Strongest Man, my very first sort of big win again, I put a statement out on social media, I can’t wait for next week when I, when I got handed that trophy, and the amount of attack I got was just ridiculous, and I went and won it. Well, and then, you know, the half-ton deadlift, I think was, was the most, the most hate I’d got, you know, it was sort of ridiculous, but through that process, you know, I’d set world records in and the deadlift already, I, you know, don’t British records and log press and whatever else, and then, you know, I’ve got to the World’s Strongest Man, and even when I’m at the World’s Strongest Man I’m getting all this negativity, oh I’ll never win, it’ll never do that, but no, but the deadlift, it was surreal, the amount of hate and negativity was just out of this world, I couldn’t describe, wish I could go back and show you why, all the comments that followed all these posts and statements for but, and that would hurt a lot of people, they would be thinking about that stuff when they’re on stage and they have to get you in business, but not for you, you use it as fuel, and then the day of, you went somewhere else.

12:34 I do, so don’t talk over, sort the 500, how it happened and how it all came, I would love to hear. Yeah, okay, so, so back in, back in 2015 I, I pulled her, or world record, so I pulled the world record deadlift in 2015, it was 463 kilos, so I own the world record, and then I went to the promoters after the show and I said, I want to, I want to pull farmer tequila, is this the one you did in front on Sports Nagar? No, that wasn’t, this is a pretty one that way, even if later, oh yeah, right, but that happened, if a couple kilos less, within, yeah, one kilo less, monkey, less than four six two in front of body.

13:07 Okay, and this is great footage in your documentary movie where Arnold’s right there. Oh yeah, and him yelling helped you think they did it, did well, the, well, the Arnold story was pretty good. You know, I competed in the Arnold Classic, Ohio, and 2050, is it? This is my, my very first big international show since I became a pro strongman and i flirt to Ohio, I did a whole week ecompanion, you know, really brutally heavy contest, the heaviest contest on the planet, and I came sick out of, you know, at the top ten in the world and I was very down, very distraught and, you know, very upset with myself.

13:45 I just not long quit, quit my job and sold my security business to sort of follow this, this journey of becoming, you know, the strongest man in the will and I’d let myself down and I’m packing my suitcase, is getting ready to go home from Ohio, and then one of the promoters rings me up and sort of says, how would you feel about coming to Arnold Classic Melbourne and Australia, you know, and redeeming yourself? So, um, yeah, okay, yeah. When is it? Well, it’s this weekend.

14:13 Oh my, oh f*** it now, okay, you know. So I pack my bags and get my plane ticket off to Australia, I go, it was there, all in all it was about a 40 hour journey to get from Ohio to Melbourne, and I get there and I’m having my evening meal the day before the contest and then the promoter brings me up again and we got all Schwarzenegger coming to the strongman arena at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, we want to do something special. So I’m like, okay, what do you want to do?

14:39 Well, kind of thinking, you know, you could pull would record that lift, and I’m like, oh well, Jesus Christ, but then I remembered six months earlier I’d pull the world-record deadlift and dropped it and got disallowed the lift, so I thought, well, I’m gonna do it. So I signed up for it, 11:00 a.m. the next morning, go for all the warm-up lifts and there’s 462 kilos on the boy, everyone’s waiting around, Arnold’s a no-show, so you know I say that the promoters and the referees as I’m sorry, I’m gonna have to, I’m gonna have to do it now on all the, know Arnold, it’s going to happen within this next five minutes or so, I’m not going to pull it. So I get strapped onto the bar, start rocking this bar back and forth and lean back, lean forward, start pulling this bar up, and then just see this purple pair of loafers just appear, imma, imma Ryan side, and the whole crowd atmosphere just changes, that erupts and know what this deadlift out and the refugees with the downswing or throw it down, III just firmer straps off, celebrate with the crowd, Arnold was right there, he went to give me a high five and I completely ignored him cuz I was too big time, only kidding.

15:46 So I’m just celebrating with the crowd, going off my notes, and then I just sort of serving in Arnolds right there and I would sort of walk over and three year of my life goals at this point in time, we’re number one, to win the world Strongest Man, number two, to hold the world record deadlift, the number three, meet, shake hands and make friends of Arnold Schwarzenegger. So I just killed two birds with one stone, and once that done the left and realize Arnold was there, I went back over, we did the old Predator handshake and it’s like, Eddie, your mind, I was amazing, oh my god, you’re so good, he was it was just a proper on real sort of life moment, to do a world-record deadlift and have Arnold there to sort of spur me on and be there for that moment.

16:33 Why Arnold’s forcing here, why was he so important to you? He was always, always been my childhood hero. I think my, my earliest memory I can ever remember is being five years old watching The Terminator 2 and the memory is that I was sitting in the living room watching TV and Arnie Schwarzenegger walks into a bar butt-naked, kicks this s*** out are about twenty outlaws and then walks out with a new set of levers and rides up on a motorbike, and to me that imprinted on me for the rest of my life.

17:08 I wanted to be that action hero, I wanted to be the guy with the muscles and who was the movie star, and from that day forth I just saw there’s an absolute hero inspiration and, you know, I really followed his, his life story, his career, and his his sort of struggle that he went free to come off through Austria and, you know, going through the army and then going to America and breaking into Hollywood and all the struggles and all the, all the business and everything that he did to get there. It’s just, it’s an amazing story, I mean it spired me throughout my whole sort of childhood, from five years on it inspired me. And the way that you probably mess with people’s heads and that, you know, you go Hollywood a little bit too?

17:52 Yeah, you have, you know, and I think that there’s a lot of, I mean, back in the day there’s no denying it, you know, you look at Arnold on his early Early’s documentaries, on his early sort of tapes, he was very, very arrogant and you always relate successful people, very successful people, especially the Hollywood sort of guys, they tend to be quite narcissistic, you know, they think a lot of themselves, and but I think that’s a very good trait to have as long as, you know, it, you understand it and you can control it, and I think Arnold was that guy, he was the guy that thought, you know, I’m better than everybody else, and he would say it and he would be so confident that they would, it would get in the heads of the other athletes and they would deflate on stage, and I took a lot of that from Arnie and put it into the strongman, and there’s one thing I learned from Arnold is there’s a big difference between arrogance and confidence.

18:46 So arrogance is thinking you’re the better than everybody else, but then confidence is knowing that you’re better than everybody else. But in order to be that confident guy you’ve got to be arrogant, you’ve got to believe it before you become it, and that’s what Arnold did, he believed it before it happened and he was the master of that, it was the master of foreseeing his future. So that’s one of the big one of the main things I learnt from Arnie is, is almost to trick yourself, you know, you’ve got to believe yourself that you’re gonna be that big movie Holly star, you’ve got to believe that you’re gonna be the World’s Strongest Man before you get there in it.

19:23 Can anyone do that, you think? Well, I did it. You did it? I did it. You did it consciously and then it became unconscious, it became about, yeah, becoming a reality, came real.

19:33 I believed it, you know, 19 years of age I said every in the win will win the World’s Strongest Man, and at the time, you know, I’m a 19 stone kid, you know, just started in strongman, and I’m out there and yeah, back on my social media I got, I got absolutely slated for it, you know, I was that arrogant kid that everyone hated, you know, coming up through the ranks, but I delivered, you know, I believed it that much I made it happen and that, that’s what I learned from Arnold is, is to be like God, to be that dreamer, to kid yourself until that dream becomes a reality. Right, so you hit the deadlift which was for 60, what, for 60 to 62 in Melbourne? Yes.

20:13 You would beat your previous record of 61? No, I mean even though I pulled for 61 because I dropped it, I thought this allowed the lift, right, and that’s what made me sort of go on and do this deadlift in front of Arnold, and then I think three months later I pulled for 63 for a new world record, and this is where the following 2 kilo started, where I believed I could pull firemen to kill off the floor, and that’s when I started putting the statements as I say, once I pulled the 463 at this the world Dedalus champs 2015, I went to the promoters and said, you know, I want to pull 500 kilo. How do you get to 500, like how do you even do that in your mind?

20:53 What made you think, you know what, it was that magic number, you know, I mean, when I pulled in 2015, when I pulled for 63, I was, I think, 20, 26 years old, I think, is that, would that be right? Born 1988, Maps, isn’t that good? Yeah, 31 now, so yeah, 27, 26, 27, yeah, okay, 27 years old and I just thought, you know what, that the world deadlift, the deadlift world record has gone off 20 kilos in the last sort of 20 years, you know, it’s gone up a kilo a year and a four net, it’s never gonna get anywhere and a four, I could do that, you know, I could do the next 20 years, I could do a kilo a year the next 20 years.

21:40 Well, when does the point come where you’re not strong enough to do what you’re capable of? And I thought to myself, I’m capable of pulling firemen to keel off the floor, so why, why would I risk missing doing that opportunity in my lifetime just for money, just for that, you know, doing a world record every year, and I fought to myself, that’s up the ante, let’s up the ante, let’s step it up, let’s, let’s go something special. You know, the first man to Paul a thousand pounds is a man called Andy Bolton and is a legend in the strap industry.

22:12 What I wanted to do something even more extraordinary, I want to be the first man to pull half its on, the first man to pull 1,100 pounds off the floor and It just, it just became so obsessive, you know. Once I said it, that was it, I’ve committed, people have heard it and I don’t want to be the guy that said something and not backed it up, cuz to me that guy is a [expletive], you know, the guy that shoots his mouth and then never delivers, that’s Dan. I don’t want to look like a [expletive].

22:40 I want to be the guy that says something and delivers. So I set off on this journey to pull 500 kilo off the floor. Now you know I’m 37 kilos away from the world record, which is, I think it was over 8%, it’s like Usain Bolt taking nearly a second off the hundred meters, you know, it’s, it’s pretty, pretty special, and, but you knew you could do it, or you told yourself you knew you could do it? I told myself I could do it, and if I beat that, honest, you know, I did it, I did it for money, but I did it for not a greed reason.

23:15 I did it for money because I needed money to become the World’s Strongest Man, and I don’t think, I don’t think people realize that to be the top pro strongman how expensive it is. You know, I was spending 300 pounds a week on food, I was doing at least 250 pounds a week on physiotherapy, another 300 pound a week on recovery treatments, you know, like kyra therapy and hyperbaric chambers and shockwave treatments. I mean, all in, you, I was spending 800 pounds a week on my body, and that’s, and when you say that, it’s like f*** hell, but then, but then when you actually break it down, people don’t quite realize what that is, you know, that’s, that’s not the mortgage, that’s not the wife, that’s not the cars, that’s, that’s not, that’s just me, eight hundred pounds a week to be a pro strongman, and my savings were quickly running out and I for, you know, saved up enough money to quit my job and sell the door business, and I thought, I’m never gonna win the World’s Strongest Man unless I can top my bank balance off and be able to take myself all the way.

24:16 So it was for money, it was, it was to fuel my, my career and that was where the inspiration came from for the farm 2 kilo deadlift, was I needed the money to take myself to that number one spot. Right, which you did, and I want to get to that, you know, afterwards. The day of, you got a big crowd in front of you, you know, again, a lot of people would have already seen the footage, what, what do you remember from that day, the Farlander kilo? Well, when I said it and obviously, you know, I set off on this year-long journey from 15 to 16 and exactly a year to train for it, and I went off in the gym and I couldn’t, I couldn’t get anywhere near it, you know, that the most I ever pulled in the gym is 454 kilo, that’s the most I’ve ever pulled in the gym.

25:09 So I go on this little, this year-long journey and, and I’m in the gym and I’m pulling weights and every week I’m getting more and more frustrated with myself, and then six months in, my [expletive], I’ve made a mistake here, I can’t pull fireman Shaquille off the floor, but I’d surrounded myself with an amazing team of doctors, scientists, blog doctors, psychologists, hypnotherapists, you name it, I had this, this team around me, and it was a scientist that actually sat me down one day and just explained to me that you’re never gonna be able to lift that off the floor because the human body is not, not capable of left in there off the floor, but there is one way, and he he said, and this, this is not really, break it down for me, you know, a day-to-day person who just takes the kids to school, does the shopping, goes to work, has access to about 50% of their muscle fibers.

26:04 Somebody who trains 20 hours a week, maybe a little bit more, has access to at most 65 to 70 percent of their muscle fibers. But then you get it, a woman who’s driving down the motorway in a big accident, kids under a car, and they can lift the car off of the kids, she has access to a hundred percent of the muscle fibers, and why is that? It’s the fight or flight scenario, and it’s, it’s just a massive release of hormone, adrenaline, and it’s a natural thing, it’s been proven, it’s a natural thing that people can do extraordinary feats of strength when the put in a scenario, and it can’t be faked, you can’t, you can’t click a finger and release it, it can’t be faked.

26:47 The only way to get out of you is for someone to get a gun to your head, live or die, pull that way off the floor. And obviously I can’t do that on the day, I can’t get someone to put a shot guns in my face and say, pull that file into kilo. I’m sure you could, maybe call a few people, sir. So that’s the scenario I had to create in my head, okay, and with a psychiatrist, we were to hit my therapist, we work together and we got it to a point where I was able to create a scenario in my head that when I walked up to the 500 kilo I wasn’t lifting 500 kilos off the floor, to put it in retrospect, I was, I was lifting a car off on my kids, and that’s the only way I was able to do that lift.

27:34 I had to train my brain to put myself in this scenario that wasn’t the scenario, I’ve got ahead by the way, I’m just giving you an example, the actual scenario is something that I cannot talk about because it’s very dark, very deep, very disturbing, but it’s something that triggered me, there’s something there after you months and months and months of talking about the worse and all you could possibly be in, and creating a pinch point on the back of my hand just before I walk out to the crowd, that put my, my body and mind in this, in this different place, and when I got strapped onto the bar, I got the straps on and start rocking it back and forth and just before I left, I closed my eyes completely shot the shut tight and I just start left in, and you know, watch the footage back and it’s actually quite scary to see because my eyes open but I’m just completely, I’m not looking at anything, my eyes open not on purpose and my eye color changes and you can see it on camera, my eyes change color, and I pull and pull and pull and I don’t remember doing the lift at all, all I remember is waking up at the top of the lift, and the reason is I wasn’t in that arena, I was off on that motorway lifting a car off from a kids, there’s a, it’s a really, it was such a hard thing to do and really to mean to do that, you know, to lift that half a tonne off the floor and put your mind elsewhere, average, that was the hardest thing about it to do in my life, it really was, mentally more than physically.

29:06 Have you practiced that before that night or you don’t really practice and knows when to our act to sit weren’t you sitting there anything? This is the thing, once you’ve done it once it’s gone, it’s done, you can’t do it again, you can only do it once, it’s a really, it’s a really tricky thing to saw. Like the months of training leading up, I’m doing all these lifts in the gym and I never went above 450 but I’m doing my routine, you know, I’m stamping up and down the GM, I’m hiding in the toilets, pretending that’s the toilet in there in the arena, and then I’ll kick the door off the hinges, come out, stomp into the, into the center of the gym like it was the arena, and I’m ripping onto the bar and I’m attacking it, everything’s exactly the same, I’m doing the same touches, I’m doing, am doing everything, and that was all just practice, that was all going through the motions, getting my body through the motions, making sure everything’s in line, making sure it touches machine, making sure the straps are right, making sure the suits ride, but yeah, but until, until I actually got locked onto that bar and I started pulling a my eye shot, that’s when I blacked out and that’s when I just woke up at the top of the lift and sort of looped around and just that, that pure enjoyment for that split second and then BAM, bar goes down and I go down with it.

30:19 I was conscious, I remember sort of my only sort of memory is I’m looking down at the ground neck and just see a puddle of blood just forming very quickly, you know, I could go to liter of blood on the floor and it was pissing out my nose, my unreal coming out the face and the guy’s snap, you know, set me up. Yeah, Bashir off, get my suit off, and then the blood pressure just hits my head and I go unconscious again, so and I’m in and out of consciousness, so I’m convulsing, you can see it on the video, I’m in and out consciousness and I’m twitching like this and everyone’s just holding me, you know, just like [expletive] out, calm down, and after about 15-20 seconds I come to you again and that’s all just whispers in my ear, I had to just get up and make it look easy.

31:05 So of course, well, you know, I get up and do a little speaks to the crowd and then I get backstage and bam, out again, I’m on, I’m on, I’m on a hospital bed, you know, I’m on a trolley, the ECGs are on me and the, the paramedics are saying, oh we can’t get the machine to work, and then two minutes, though we’ll try again, two minutes later it’s not working, it’s not, we’ll try again, and you know, by the fifth time when the paramedics are saying they can’t get a heart reading, there’s something wrong, you know, so they couldn’t, they couldn’t get a, my beats per minute was over 200, so my heart was going like a, super dangerous, super, super dangerous. Blood pressure was unreadable, we said that the blood pressure machine didn’t even take a reading, it was that high, and I went blind in the middle of my eye, so, you know when you get like, you ever had a chi from welding or anything?

31:58 Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, burns. I, so I had like an arc, I so I couldn’t see in the center of my eye, like a dark Park, and see the outside, so everywhere I looked I was just looking at black spots, and yeah, it took me about three hours to sort of calm down, get the heart rate down, my vision came back, and you know, I had blood coming out my tear ducts, I’d blood coming out my ears, and you know, just little drips and basically I just blew by brain. I just, your brain was bleeding too?

32:30 Yeah, yeah, just blue, blue my brain, not basically all the board was just coming out of everywhere and look, what I recovered, you know, three, four hours later I was back out, I was doing meet and greet with the fans, of sanity, sure, it’s doing pictures, and then the next day I got up to drive home and I forgot how to drive my car, so I had to get my old man to come and drive my car back. I’m, you as calm as this when all this has happened? Yes, I’m pretty, I’m pretty i-i’ve got a good grip of life, you know, but when you can’t figure out how to drive a car it’s, I just, I didn’t feel comfortable enough to get in and drive on the right, this right side the road and use the controls, I had someone and drama car back and then the next day was back to reality, was my son’s birthday party, and a massive party in my house from a Shawn, and we get home and all the family and friends there and the kids’ friends and wherever, and I can’t remember anybody, you know, talking to people and I might and then I’d laughter and see into the lab who the f*** is that, you know, oh that’s, that’s, you know, that’s year as she’s sister-in-law or Lexi nephew actually causing, I might, are my god, and I’m having conversations with people and then walking away, coming back, having the same conversation.

33:44 So yeah, I say m– symptoms of concussion, okay, for two weeks after, you know, a stuttering, I miss speech, I couldn’t get words out, so and I saw specialists and I didn’t know, even I didn’t go for an MRI on the end but you said if this doesn’t improve in two weeks you’re in trouble because basically you burst something in your head and if it doesn’t heal and go back to the way it is you could be in some big trouble, but it just every day just got better, better, better, two weeks I was fine, but um, well, I suggest it was, it put everybody was super, super dangerous. Would you do it again? Yeah, I put more weight on, definitely keep putting more weight on board.

34:26 How much more would you put on? I think I’d like to be 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 10. I lifted 500 very comfortably, it was comfortable, very, very go, I’m watching yourself, you can look at the mechanics and say that’s comfortable. Yeah, I think I left it farm did very comfortably, I could have done more. My mistake was holding it at the top of the left and smiling through everybody, and that was the big up yours to all the haters, all the negativity, all the people that said and couldn’t be done, that for seconds are holding it there was an appeals to them, but it was at 4 seconds that absolutely destroyed me, cause all the bleeding in the brain, if I had been given the damn signal, just dropped it, I probably had no problems whatsoever, it was the held in it at the top that messed me up.

35:09 It was, was it a hard to hold it at the top? It was a strangely hard, really hard, hard, I empower any, any, any strongman, any bodybuilder, anyone that goes to the gym that trains 20-plus hours a week doing strength training, got 500 kilos on the ball, get it in Iraq and just lift it one inch and tell me it, no one could do it, no one could even lift an inch, it’s a ridiculous amount of weight, ridiculous. And so ultimately it was that dark place you went, that it wasn’t your kids under a car, because if you can tell me that then it wasn’t that, but that’s the best way to explain it to people.

35:45 Okay, and you’ll never go there again, or you can’t go there again, a car? No, I mean, I could try, you know, I reckon I could, but I wouldn’t have the other thing, it had the same effect, because it’s, it’s that what everyone, something happens to you twice, I think you got used to it, you know, even if you don’t want to, and in training you, you kind of knew where you were gonna go in your brain, but you never really went all the way to the dark place, and when you’re on that stage you went all the way there. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, the same, it’s a really tough thing to do, really hard, and I’ve tried to talk about it with people, I had just break down in tears, I can’t, I can’t talk about it.

36:28 Okay, all right, fair enough. And the next day you’re at this party, you’ve said that’s when sometimes the depression comes in, my goals done. Yeah, yeah, what’s that like? So I think you’ll find with most top athletes and in any sport, they have this massive high when they’re at the top, you know, winning gold medals, setting world records, representing the country, and, and then the next day they’ve got to go back to reality, you know, that high, that euphoria doesn’t last forever, and it’s been well-documented, you know, sports people have some really bad mental problems once they’ve been successful as, what do they do, what’s life after success, and it’s a hard thing to take, you know, to the next day I met with son’s birthday party, you know, mum, I’m picking out dishes and putting them in the dishwasher, you know, the day before I just did the biggest lift in human history and the next day I’m there, you know, entertaining people at my son’s birthday party and not many people cared.

37:38 Right, exactly, and that’s the way it feels, you know, it’s just like, yeah, but of course everyone was our like, well doing amazing, but then once those are over it’s, you know, what’s for dinner, what’s, grab a beer, you know, go get me the Doritos, you know, it’s, it’s back to reality, and I suppose that’s where it hits you, is when you’ve done something so great and so something so amazing, end of the day doesn’t matter who you think you are, what you’ve done, you’ve still got to come back down to reality and at the end of the day you’ve still got to sit down and take your s*** like everybody else, and that’s, that’s when it hits you, that’s what it is, it’s tough to take, you can train, you can push yourself, you can put your, you know, you can have all these dreams but end of the day you’re no better than everybody else, and I think I realized that mostly after the farm tequila deadlift, it really brought me back down to reality and yeah, the dark forts come back, you know, they do come back because you’ve got to reset your goals again, you’ve got a, you’ve got to reevaluate, an attack life again, and since it’s tough, it’s hard, it’s like be not back, almost even though you’re successful it’s like been pushed back again.

38:44 Yeah, whether you win or you lose, the depression still sets in, right? Yeah, yeah, now luckily you still had one more big goal to accomplish, and that was to win the World’s Strongest Man, and before we get to there I was wondering if we could find out, why was that something that you ever wanted to do? When did that start, and were you always, you know, 350 pounds? So again, one of my earliest memories is sitting around, it’s always TV and that amazing as with most people, I think, crazy how that can create, yeah, you know, World Records and giants, yeah, something on a television.

39:22 Yeah, it’s not so, one of my newest memories again is sitting around a TV with the whole family, you know, mom, dad, brothers, nan or grandad, all sitting around the TV at Christmas watching the World’s Strongest Man, and I remember watching athletes like, you know, retakes of luck, Jeff Capes and Bill Kazmaier and Magnus ver Magnusson and Samuel, Samuel Magnus Samuelson and John Paul Sigma soon, and these guys were just, you look, you auntie, especially as you young kid, like superheroes, these are guys that are pulling planes, pulling trucks, they’re bending bars, they’re lifting out the stones, and I was mesmerised by, and you know what really sort of solidified in my head was how Maz mirai’s my mum and dad were, and that’s when I realized that this is something special, and I remember saying to my mum and dad one year, we’re watching a strongman at Christmas, I said, ah, I’ll be on there one day, I’ll be at, well, Strongest Man, and they all burst out laughing.

40:22 How old were you? Six years old, six years old at most, yeah, and you know, I suppose I laughed along with him but I think so consciously it hurt my feet, I was like, you, I’ve said I’m gonna do something and I’ve been pushed back, I’ve been negative, you know, been, been shunted with negative comments again, and it’s just more calm, which helped you because if in these days everyone would have been really nice and politically correct, yeah, I said, Eddie, you can be anything you want, yeah, which means maybe you wouldn’t have done it. Yeah, which is what I’d probably say to my son now, right, and ruin his chance and probably ruin his chance.

40:57 Well yeah, no, I mean, you know, in a world where we’re all super politically correct, right, and where people are asking what is masculinity, you compete in something that is the ultimate display of masculinity. Yeah, think about that sometimes. Yeah, yes, you know, where everyone watches it, like you said, you’re, you saw your parents, the six years old, and they’re fascinated by it. You can’t, you can’t fake that. I think that’s, that’s the beauty of strongman is people, no matter what, you know, you can do, you can do fighting, you can do all sorts of different fighting and all sorts of different sports, but I think the end of the day the human race wants to know who’s the Alpha, and the World’s Strongest Man in my eyes and as a child that decided that, that fact, who is the Alpha, whoever won the World’s Strongest Man was the Alpha of the world, and that’s why it mesmerized me in a way, is I want to be that guy, I want to be the Alpha.

41:46 And you said every man wants to be the Alpha. True, they do, right, whether they want to admit it or not, whatever they do, every do or not, most would say no, they have say, if somebody said to me, I’m not bothered, I know, I wouldn’t want to be the, for you know, a guy, I don’t want to be the alpha man and the male on the planet, f*** off, you lying piece of s***, everyone wants to be the outfits, they dream to be the Alpha, maybe when the people get older and you know, get comfortable with the lives they’re not asked, but I think of minor young man ambition, you know, well what to do in my life, what would you want to be the world’s strongest one, if they said no, the line, they are like, no doubt about it. Okay, everyone wants to be the World’s Strongest Man.

42:27 All right, and you did it. Six, and yet your family was like, yeah, okay, maybe not, and that started putting the coal on the fire. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know what, my mom and dad are really special people but they were always very negative with me, very, very negative, you know, and I got into my swimming, but suppose is another, another sort of big segment of my life. What was your stroke, through style? Freestyle.

42:54 Alrighty, styling, and you were good, very good? Yeah, and I think we will sort of what we’re all pushed into a swimming but it was more just to keep as good, you know, all very, I suppose, very free, three brothers, you know, with ADHD, we’re all very energetic, we’re all over the place, we needed to expend some energy and I think that pushes into the pool was easy, you know, and you say you have an old story about your first time in the pool when you were in Portugal. It’s a fitting tale of who you are, isn’t it?

43:25 It is, it really is. I mean, I look, well, I mean, I was a national champion swimmer, you know, I won the Nationals three years in a row, I set British records, I was on the world class potential squad, which is like the Junior Olympic team, I was the best in the country by a mile as well, not just by a little bit, I was the best in the country for my age by an absolute mile, and that, that, that segment of my I’ve got shut down, but I tell people about it and people say, oh how do you even get into swimming? And when I was, I asked my mom because obviously I’m too young to remember that, how did I get into swimming?

44:00 When one was a swimming teacher, I’m the eldest, brothers were swimmers as well, and it was on holiday in Portugal and this is our, this is our state swimming on holiday imports groaning, jumping in the pool, two years old, you know, can’t swim, and every time I jump in somebody would have to fish me out cuz I was drowning, so I’m a mom, my dad, my brothers, you know, if entler grandma was there, fishing mount fished him out, after about five days, in the thousandth time I jumped in, this room Paul and wonder stood on the edge of the pool, looked at me and just had f*** you, sink or swim, too. Wow, actually when she’s this exact word she said, that’s what she said, she said, and I swam, she said I started swimming, I swam to the side, that’s it, jump back in, swam back, so then I’m swimming, more so anymore, and it was those words that, when she told me those words I was like, that defines me, all over you know, it’s, you either you are this, do you do two things in life, and this is, this is very relative to me and my mental health, is you either sink, you dwell, you blame the world, you blame everybody else for your problems and you just, you for you crumble inwards, and you know that’s when people end their own lives and they kill themselves or they self-harm, or you swim, you move forward, you set goals, you, you have ambitions and you get off, you get out that whole, you stop blaming everybody and you go and get what you want, and that, I always use these words when I try and, you know, do my talks to people and everything, it’s you sink or swim, you do one of

45:33 The other, you’ve got to pick one, and obviously, you know, there’s only one right answer, there’s only one you can pick, it’s swim, because if you don’t, if you don’t keep swimming, moving forward in life, you’re gonna, you’re gonna do some bad things, you’re gonna sink, dwelve, and it’s, it’s a very dark, horrible place if you start doing that, and a lot of people these days are in that position. Yeah, and you’ve been there before? Yeah. Tell me how this swimming career went off the cliff and then what happened to you afterwards.

46:00 So I was 13 years of age, I had won the Nationals three years in a row, on the world class potential squad, and I started, I started suffering with very bad anxiety, of anxiety attacks, which really affected my nutrition, you know, I, to the point I was that anxious I couldn’t eat or drink, you know, I feel sick all the time, and that’s when the swimming sites were, you know, dropping off, I fell out with coaches, you know, I just, my head was such a mess. Why did that happen, do you reckon? Why, anxiety, then puberty year, I don’t know, maybe some chemical imbalance, you know, it’s been proven a lot, there’s a lot of hormone imbalance and teenagers these days and it can trigger a lot of anxiety, I couldn’t tell you dance to that, you know, but it happened, and it was bad as well, you know, I don’t exactly tax at school, I’d be hiding in the toilets, you know, any, I was a big guy, was the biggest guy in me age, you know, I was big, confident guy, go with the ladies, very, I was a class clown, you know, as always up for a laugh, always outgoing, always up for doing stuff, and then couldn’t do anything, it wouldn’t leave the house.

47:08 I think because of this anxiety and, and, and everything I was going through, I rebelled, you know, my attitude changed at school, I got very, very violent and vicious with a lot of people, fighting almost became my outlet, you know, I’d love fighting, I’d beaten people up, I’d love getting beat up myself, weirdly, I just love being involved with that kind of stuff, violence was, and drinking is, well even at 13 years of age, drinking, fighting, drugs, just it just took over, anything to kind of change your consciousness? Yes, I suppose, yeah, right, and I ended up getting expelled from high school, I was obviously chopped off the swimming squad, off the, you know, they weren’t big team sort of thing, my nan who was very, very close to or spent a hell of a lot time with was diagnosed with cancer, and that was the, I think that was the ultimate trigger for me where my life just imploded, it just, I just, that’s when I just stopped sort of caring, you know, I just didn’t give a f***, I obviously we’ve been expelled from school, I was home alone all day, I was locked in the bedroom, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t come out my room, I want to leave the house, was on prescribed prozac’s, I’ve seen psychiatrists, and this was like 13 years of age, so hit rock bottom is the, is the right word, you know, it’s a very, very bad place, and then to top the cake, I ended up getting a girl pregnant around about the same time as well, so that decided, it’s all just kept piling on, piling on, piling on, and yeah, that went off about 18 months, prozac, psychiatrists, and I wouldn’t leave the house barely for about 18 months, and

48:52 There’s a mom and dad one day to sort sat me down, nice generic conversation as you know, ad we know you, we know your ear, we can see you struggling, but what the f*** you gonna do of your life, it’s not good, you know, you can’t do this, you can’t lock yourself in your house, you’re not, you’re not being educated, you know, you’re not socializing, you’re not doing any sport, you’re not doing anything, and just at the time there’s a gym opened up down the road, total fitness I think it was, so why don’t you join a gym? I was like, okay, f*** it, well I’ll do that then, and I went and I felt great, you know, first of the first gym session and now walks out, I had a feeling of euphoria, I felt good about myself, and I realized that that was my outlet, and I think when I stopped swimming it really did dive down, it got worse and worse and worse, so I didn’t have any outlet for my energy, for my pent-up aggression or anything, but she didn’t realize that if you don’t realize it, right, so lifting weights for me was my outlet, it was replacing, and I suppose with my swimming career as well, you know, and I’ll never forget this, when I was twelve, fifteen years old and I was going through this stage of getting expelled from school and I remember a substitute teacher kept me behind class once and it was, it was just never seen him before my wife and he kept me behind after a class, was acting like a knob and, and he said, he just really shot me, just me and him in a classroom, it’s not what the f*** are you doing, what,

50:21 So what the f*** are you doing your life? I was like, what do you mean? I’m on the air honor, so yeah, but you’re acting like a f***ing little dick, and this is coming from a teacher. You just give it me and you know I just say, well I’m not bothered anyway, I’m gonna be another big swimmer, you know, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be on the picture, I’m gonna make more money off swimming, I don’t give a f*** about this, and he just said, said you’re a f***ing idiot, he said, what if the swimming doesn’t work, you know, what, what if that doesn’t, what you gonna do then?

50:48 Well, if it’s wind doesn’t owe you, it’ll be a bomb, you know, live on the streets, and proper prodding me in the chest and I suppose it was this, this substitute teacher I changed my life around, it made me realize that you can’t, you can’t rely on one thing, you can’t rely on, on, on just swimming for the rest of your life, and that’s, I suppose, when the swimming went away it just, that memory come back of that substitute teacher poking me in the chest saying, you an idiot, it’s not going to work, and I suppose it left this massive void and my life going forward, as I’m not going to be an Olympic champion swimmer, and I filled that with the weightlifting, it’s like then I wanted to become a Schwarzenegger because I was old enough to train, started going to the gym, so I lifting weights, felt really good about myself, I set this goal at 14 years of age to be Mr.

51:38 Olympia and went on an amazing journey, you know, off to put this away, 14, 15, 61 arses at school studying for the GCSEs, I was at home pumping iron, you know, and it was amazing. I remember at 16 years of age, I could perhaps get, I could send you a photo to put to the video, at 16 years of age I was 16 stone, it’s 6 foot 1 inches tall, and I was not an ounce of body fat on me. I was absolute shedded, you know, a mean machine, and it just, it just inspired me to go on and on and on, and I kept building my body, kept getting bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger, and then at 19 years of age I’ve realized that I’m not gonna be Mr.

52:20 Olympia, too tall, you know, six foot three at this, this, this point in my life, was I’m never going to, never going to be an Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, then I realized that, you know, from YouTube and Facebook, um, whatever else, that I realized I was one of the strongest men in the country at 19 years of age, and I shall be doing something with this talent, you know, was I was benching sort of 200 plus kilos, squatting 300 kilo, dad left him free, free 23 40 kilo at 19, you know, these are figures that got the pros we’re doing, and I thought, I’ve got to do something with it, I’ve got to test the waters, nose up to my brother who found me a contest in Manchester to sort of do my first run my contest, and I went, they entered, I came fifth, and that’s when I made the statement of becoming the World’s Strongest Man and, and stop by it, and that was the start of my strongman career really.

53:07 Wow, you ever looked into your genetics, and do people ever ask where, where your genetics are? I have, I have, you know, there’s other done many DNA testers have done one with a company called mudo who really dived into my DNA and they found a gene called there, it’s an MST and deformity actually, and you find it in the, you know, the Belgian blue cows, you know, the big mostly cows that just have muscles or muscles and muscles, so they’ve got the MST TNG and they’ve got type one and humans can have it as well, they can have type one which is very, very rare, I think there’s been a few cases of people out, usually babies with muscles on them, but they don’t, they don’t live very long. Well then there’s a type 2 MST n gene where they basically you can, it limits the amount of myostatin you producer, myostatin limits how much muscle mass your skeletal frame can hold, so if you’ve got no myostatin there’s no limit to how big you can get, so I’ve got this gene where I don’t produce as much myostatin.

54:15 Isn’t there any other person and the court the Hercules gene? So and it’s very super rare, so basically I can hold a lot, lot more muscle mass than any other normal person, and I suppose it was just the stars were aligned that I decided to become the World’s Strongest Man and I had this gene to sort of make it possible. Does anyone your family have it, or is it kind of a my dream, you know? I believe, sorry, pulled my mark, that’s right, I believe that I believe that it runs in the family.

54:53 I mean, I found out one sighs, it’s funny story out because once I had this sort of DNA test, don’t I went and overs done and I found out that I was a large percentage of sort of Scandinavia, you know, it’s Swedish, Switzerland, and my mum and dad a British, so I was like, this doesn’t make sense, so we had the conversation with, you know, my mom and everything and it turns out my mum was adopted, so I actually found out that my mom was adopted from Switzerland or, you know, those that Sweden, in Sweden already know, yeah, via my nan, and that’s how I found out, so I’m actually a Viking, you know, got sort of got, you know, got the gene, and you look at and then I’m pretty soon looking at my mom and I’m a dad’s big, you know, B dad, six foot, six foot three nearly, 14 stone guy, you know, he’s in his sixties now, what you think, you know, his dad was a big guy, and then I’ve got my mom, she only has to lift the weight and shoot their arms blow up, but she’s got carbs as big as mine, and I’m not joking, they’re as big as mine.

55:54 Well so I think the gene has come from my mum’s side, from the, from the Viking sort of side, and I can see it in my brother’s because they have very fixed set of a, brother was a pro rugby player and then my daughter who has 10 years old right now and he’ll turn in 11 and she’s huge, she was the biggest in the year, tallest and width, and the other sports day the other day and she, you know, she won a few things, but then she said, well it’s funny you say that Dad cuz we had an arm wrestling competition after I was out, right, and did you get him for what got stuck, it’s like, yeah, I says, did you beat the girls? Like yeah, as I, what about the point you sent? Yeah, it’s like, what, you beat all the boys in your year?

56:36 It’s like, yeah, thrashed him, no problem. So I’ve got my ten-year-old daughter is twice as strong as the boy he’s in the, yeah, you know, she’s a big, big girl, he’s strong woman, a thing or will it be, there’s a thing, yes, so I’m pretty certain that she’s got the gene. I could see it in my light as well, you know, he doesn’t, he’s just started doing some, you know, some sports, but he’s got that, he’s got the bulk around his ribs and he’s got his shoulders sort of starting to sprout out, he’s only six years old, you know, so why I think it’s quite, it’s a hereditary thing, and the Nordics are typically successful in strongman, right?

57:06 Yeah, you know, the Icelandic, the Swedish, yeah, they’ve won a lot of titles between them, Norway, I said they want more titles in any other part of the world, that gene maybe or variants of energy, I think is, I think it’s a Viking gene, yeah, it’s like the MS TNG and could possibly come from the Viking sort of place in the end, the global mop. Wow, you mentioned your nan, can you tell me about her and, and the way she affected your life? So I mean, my name looked after me no end when I was, when I was young, obviously been a very troublesome child, you know, expelled from primary school, always sent home from school at all ages, always in trouble with the police, you know, mom and dad always pick him up from the police station most weekends and it was always my nan, she was the only person and I think perhaps a lot of people could say this, you know, I would talk back to my parents, you know, even a young, young boy, you know, my dad itami, I thought f*** off, you know, five, six years old, I was a right horrible little bastard, and the same with the teachers, I just said, I just didn’t care, I don’t know what it was about me, I just had this sort of really bad attitude to sort of learn in at school and growing up, I really, but I just wanted to be a grown-up, I wanted to be a free spirit, you know, but I never once rebelled or talkback or disrespected my nan because I don’t know what it is, she just knew how to talk to me and calm me down and talk sense into me, and she’s the one who, you know, kept me on that educational path and she almost educated me herself, you

58:56 Know, kept me, kept me straight and narrow, too, always, always gave me advice and it was always solid advice, so I suppose my nan in that respect was more, was more mother to me than natural mum was, you know. She was very, I saw her more as a mother than my actual mama, because I supposed to kind of like the right and wrong thing to say, tweeted my nan like my mom, hey, you know, I’d like a shorter treated my mom, that’s probably the right thing to say, right? And yeah, when, when she got diagnosed with cancer, that obviously was a very bad point in my life and that was all during the Depression period, and she inspired me a lot, you know, she, she would always talk to me about my dreams, she was always the one that was never negative, she would never say you can’t do this or you can’t do that, she was always that, my, she was always my biggest supporter, and so yeah, I got it welled up here, and it was, it was on my Nan’s deathbed that, when my dad died, I was the only one there in the hospital, so it’s just topping to talk alone, I understand, I appreciate that, and as I say, it was, she was the only person I could talk to about my dreams and I would never get anything negative back, you know, she always, always believed in me, and on a deathbed when she died I was anyone there and they really put you in a room with the deceased and you can have, you know, have your private time with them.

1:01:21 I just remember talking to my nan for hours on end about my life, about these, her, about my dreams, about aspirations, and strongman came up, it was, you know, a few months after dad did the strongman contest and said I was gonna win the World’s Strongest Man, and I made the promise to him, a nun on a deathbed, that I would win the World’s Strongest Man one day, which a Fink, which I think is why, which I think is why I took it so seriously, you know, going forward in life, it was, it was a promise that I couldn’t break, you know, cuz if, if I had never achieved it then I’m, I’m laying her down, I laid her down, not just myself, and that’s, that’s one of the main things that kept me going for all the hard times, all the mental health was the noumenon was always out there watching over me, pushing me forward, what did everything it was doing all those training sessions, all that sacrifice, all those hundreds of hours of work I put in to pay for the strongman.

1:03:08 Yeah, so was she with you in those trainings? Oh definitely, definitely, talk to her, you were there, I remember. I mean, the day she died, I mean I was there, I was there two minutes, I arrived, she was alive, I arrived, I was talking to her within two minutes, so heart stopped beating, so it was almost as if you waited for me to get to the hospital and get by a bedside before she actually went, and then I told her these, you know, my aspirations, my dreams, like the World’s Strongest Man, and then my mom came and saw, you know, I said, right, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna leave you two, you have your privacy, were your mom, you know, and I went straight to the gym, I went straight to the gym, and that, that’s when the training started in effect, that’s when that the World’s Strongest Man was like, it wasn’t, it wasn’t penciled in my ambitions in life, it was pending, now had to happen, so that’s where my trade in step taught, that’s when the meals got bigger, that’s when the stretching came in, that’s when their everything got serious from that point, you know.

1:04:21 So because you owed it to her. Yeah. And that was you thanking her for being there for you your whole life? Yeah, I would say so, because without in an end none of this stuff happens, right? Probably not, not none of it, no, no, those women, and I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have been the swimmer, I wouldn’t have been, you know, the, I would have done the halftone, I won’t win the world’s, none of that would have happened if it had not been for mine and sort of impact on my life.

1:04:51 Thank God for grandmas, huh? Got me crying now, Eddie. Wow, and so she was there through all of those times when otherwise you might acquit, or those times when you’re making all those sacrifices? Yeah, she, when they got tough, you know, and it did get hard, she was the always one that sprung to the front of my mind, you know, and kept me pushing forward, and they did get tough over the years, you know, I have dedicated more, more than my like the best years where I like to strongly, obsessively, obsessively, to compose myself a minute, sorry.

1:05:36 And what were those hard moments? Because you had, I mean, you went and basically separated from your family and you know, you were singularly focused on what you were doing and that took a lot of sacrifices that I don’t think a lot of people see. Yeah, it was, um, it was a hard journey, you know, I started a full-time job when I was seventeen as a truck mechanic, I was working 60, 60 hours a week doing, you know, on the Spanish fixing trucks, at 18 I started off for my first, like a security business as walk running a lot of the security in Stoke-on-Trent.

1:06:25 I mean, all in total I was working 80 plus hours a week, plus running accounts, plus paying people, plus, plus filling in on doors as well, you know, doing the doors myself because people who would let me down, and that went on for geez, the best part of eight or nine years, you know, Neal, it’s probably, probably 10 years of, of working 80 plus hours a week, post training 20 hours a week. I mean my days, this is what my days consist of, I get up at 6 a.m., I would he go to work, do a 10-hour day at work, finish it, finish it like 5, half 5, I’ll go to the gym, I train for four hours, you know, so the training some sort of half-past 9:00 at night and then I’d be home, it would be a meal and then straight to bed, and if I’m doing that, you know, six, seven days a week, I wasn’t seeing my wife or wasn’t seeing my kids, and you know, I’m not joking when I say this, I probably wasn’t seeing my wife and kids for more than two hours a week, one week a week, and that was a big sacrifice, and when I got to say 24, 25 that really got even worse, worse, worse, you know, and this is when I started taking a bit more seriously, those one or two hours got took away, and it’s like, right, I’m sorry, BAE, but I need to do my physio, I need to do my stretching, anything, I’m a hot cold, and it got less and less and less and I think my, I think my darkest year was probably 2016 to 17, that last year of the strongman, I was just absolutely obsessed, and I think, you know, my wife can vouch for that, I was ill, I was

1:08:08 Ill to the point of, of being obsessed with the strongman, ill mentally, ill mentally ill, why, just obsessed, like obsessed, that obsessed, III, all I could talk about was strugglin, all I could think about was strong, and all I, all they ever said was strongman, you know, all they ever acted was strong man, and you know, I was, I wasn’t literally wasn’t seeing my wife and kids at all, so for 365 days my routine was get up, eat, back to bed, eat, back to bed, go and train, back to bed, during, eat, back to bed, it was just every regiment I was at, I was military precision day and day out, and I did that for 365 days, and I remember, I remember going into World’s Strongest Man 2017 and I remember just before the last event I fought, no matter what, at least out of all the guys here I know for a fact I tried the hardest, there’s no way anyone put more dedication in than me, wherever I came, first, second, third or last, I couldn’t have stood on that second place spot and said, oh well, I lost because I missed a meal six months ago or a master training session a month ago, I couldn’t have said that because I didn’t, because for 365 days solid I didn’t miss one meal, one physio session, one hyperbaric, one training, I was just so regimented and just imagine getting up every day and doing that every single day for Fringe and 65, they never having a day off, and there was some times where you know I’d get in, I’d come in from a training session at half 10:00 at night and I’d eat a meal and then I’d go and sit in a hyperbaric chamber on my own

1:09:59 For an hour and a half, two hours, why some wife and kids were in the bed and then the house sleeping, I’d never see him, and I was sitting in this chamber that had after pressurized a 30 psi, brief for an oxygen pipe, tiny little perspex window at the bottom on the garden, all on my own, no me, no electronics, no, no TV, no nothing, and I just sit in this chamber looking for this little spec’s window for an hour and a half every single day at the end of the day, and those were the dark moments, those were the ones where it was like, that this is, this is too tough now, you know, this is that I was in there, I was thinking, sure, I understand this, it was just too much when it was always been an that splinter mind, it was like, no, you’ve got to keep going, the guy that just got it card, got it, do it a few more months, a few more months, yeah, that’s what it always was, and that’s what I always said to my wife, it was always just this little bit more, just, just two more weeks, just three more weeks, just five more weeks.

1:10:56 But nobody wants to hear that over and over again, they don’t, they don’t. You separated before that contest, right? We, we honor a very bad sort of relationship about four or five weeks before the World’s Strongest Man. Well, obviously I wasn’t, I didn’t see my wife for the best part of the year, you know, we might as well not been married, my kids didn’t have a dad, I didn’t, and this is what really upsets me the most at that time, is that, you know, I had a daughter that was at the time 7, 7 years old, 8 years old, I didn’t know her, I didn’t know my daughter, I didn’t know my son, because I just didn’t spend any time with them whatsoever, that there was no birthday, yeah, I didn’t do birthdays and then do meals out, I didn’t do christenings, I didn’t do anything because I was so regimented, and she always threw that in my face, you know, and she said, I don’t really give a f*** about me and you, but it’s that what you do in, to Max, it’s what you do in, to Leila, that’s wrong, and she was right in a way, he was, it was pretty mean really, as a father to sacrifice all that family time for his own selfish goal, you know, and five weeks before the World’s Strongest Man, obviously these are the crucial sort of trainer trainings, picking up a pace, and we’re getting, you know, I’m coming in from training sessions, I am broke, I’m training for four or five hours, I’m walking through the house and I’m injured all the time, I’m sore from head to toe, it’s like I’ve been in a car crash every day, and then my

1:12:27 Wife wants to, you know, wants to talk, and I’m like, not tonight, but it was like every night, and in the end it was, you know, one day she’s gone, you know, she’s not at home, no, where are you, buddy, enough, I’m, I’m f***ing fed off that here, I can’t live like this, I can’t be your slave, all she was doing was cooking, cleaning, doing my laundry, you know, doing my meals, and that was, I was just treating her like a maid, and when I look back I was, she was my own personal slave in, you know, it just helping me win the World’s Strongest Man, and I just said, right, I said, well, I’ve got five weeks till the World’s Strongest Man, I said I can’t, I can’t give up now, I said go and stay, he dad’s whatever, I said, book once this five weeks are done, I’m, I’m done, once I’ve worn this World’s Strongest Man up we all get work, we’re gonna go back to normal, you know, we’re gonna go back to husband and wife and the kids are gonna have a dad again, and so I convinced her to sort of hang on for me for this life five weeks, and I think if she had have left me, left me, it would have destroyed me, but I knew at the end of it there was a, there was a marriage there, and that’s what really, you know, got my head down, went to this very, very dark place for the last five weeks and just, I mean I came in to will, so it’s like I said, I came to the World’s Strongest Man without a single excuse, not one, not a one, and I was just so, so confident going into World’s Strongest Man, I’d, there was no way I was losing that title, I was beyond car, I’d already spent the prize money before I got there, you know,

1:14:02 It’s ridiculous, a lot of confidence and, and I delivered, you know, I strolled into World’s Strongest Man and, and III absolutely smashed them, III out squatted him, I out pressed him, I outran him, I just there was nobody can deny that I was the strongest man on the planet that day, and that very rarely happens at World’s Strongest Man, you know, you can say, oh he got lucky, or you know a good events, but there wasn’t, there was none of that, you know, I, I dominated, there was no question, and with the 500 kilo deadlift to back it up, if you think you’re stronger than me, don’t beat that world record, because in my eyes, you ask any strongman the question, what defines a man, what defines enough way, what defines a strength, what would, what if you had to say one lift, what defines the strongest man in history, and they’ll all say the deadlift.

1:14:56 Who can pick up the most weight from the floor to his hips, and that man’s me. So in my eyes, I think in my opinion, I am the strongest man in history there’s ever lived, so I’ve picked up the most weight from the floor and I don’t think there’s any argument for that, anyone, no, people could say, all he’s only won one title, I only wanted one title, you know, I proved my dominance and I proved I could live on after, not for everyone else is still yet to come and prove it. Did you have a word with your nan after you won that thing?

1:15:27 I did, I think if you, if you’ve watched the final when I warm a winning interview, on pointing to the sky and I’m thanking my nan for all that support and, and and guidance, you know, through, through whatever means it was there. Day afterwards, how is that day not different than the birthday party, you know, and if I was your wife why would I believe you by saying for only five weeks left, you know? So that’s, you know, that’s the real question, but this wasn’t, this was different, right, that is deference, I mean this was the ultimate goal, and this one obviously this meant the mask the most to me.

1:16:07 500 kilo was great, you know, it proved they’ll proved a lot of point, but, but the World’s Strongest Man has always been that ultimate goal, I say to be the Alpha, even just for one day, that’s what I wanted, I just kind of proved I could do it, and I suppose the next day, I mean the phone calls, homes, you know, the phone call homes were very, very emotional, as you can imagine, your mom, dad, brothers, sisters, I’m that sister, yeah, wife, you know, kids, it was very emotional, you know, all that relief, all that stress just lifted off my shoulders, you know, got my marriage back, I’ve got my wife back, and, and Thor, they’re also known as the Mountain, was there at that event and you beat him handily. You said he came second? Yeah, he, he actually argued quite a few matters on the way, he tried to say it was this was fixed, that was fixed, that the referee was on my side, all the shite, when you break down all his, all this points, it was just a man clutching at straws, literally, you know, he eat you, you just got beat in a strongman contest and he couldn’t take it, and I think over than punching a man in the face, I think to beat that is the most direct way to beat a man in a strength contest, right, that’s what you did?

1:17:25 Yeah. Day afterwards, how is that day different than the birthday party, and are you worried about that, you must be thinking, when I will Morrow morning, am I gonna be back? So I’ll be honest, you know, afterwards I had a huge amount of you for you, you know, if– literally fell on top of the planet, oh god, like you know, you just flee, it’s a surreal feeling, it’s completely different to winning a gold medal at the Olympics, this is, this is the out of seven billion people you are the strongest, you are the Alpha, you’re the one, and for me it was such a surreal thing to take in, it never really sank in, let me tell you when it sank in, the day I lost the title, that’s when it sank in, that’s when I realized that I had it when I lost it, it’s so yeah, I’d say for a few months I, I had a good you for you, you know, it was obviously I’d Matt down down points but it was a good euphoria, I felt as though I was winning at life, you know, I completed life, I was successful, and then the, the privilege wears off quite quickly, you know, you are coming back down to reality and all the, all the endorsements came in thick and fast, the appearances, I did a good year of solid, you know, work basically capitalizing on the win, and then I wanted to sort of back away from that, take a bit of time for myself, and that’s when it was like, what do I do now?

1:18:55 And that’s when the depression kicked in again, it’s like, where’d you go after, after success, what do you do with yourself? It’s not like with the deadlift where I can reset my goals, in the strength industry I’ve got, there’s nothing else I could do, I’ve done it all, done the deadlift of them, World’s Strongest Man, so where do I go next? And then I just look to Arnold again, I lit to Arnie Schwarzenegger, what did he do? He use sport as a stepping stone to get into Hollywood, to break into that, into the movies, getting to act him, so just fart, right, that’s it, so it doing acting license, I’ve been doing acting lessons now for two years, I signed up with a London agent and started get my name out there, you know, for that TV shows, movies, and two years later I’ve done just on two seasons for two TV shows, done one on my own TV show, Eddie Eats America, which is basically like a man versus food slash strongman slash cultural sort of program, and then I do one for the History Channel, The Strongest Man in History, and that’s basically me and three other strongmen going back in time and doing these feats of strength that you hear about, you know, the near, the Chinese whispers, and you see pictures of guys lifting up elephants and bowls across the back and people lifting up cars on stages in the Victorian times, and I suppose we’re going back in time and investigating these, these historic figures like the Lewis’s and the Poul Anderson’s, put it in the right concept for you understand what the Hercules, you know, you’re here, yeah, these stories of Hercules, you see

1:20:32 A real guy, did he, did he do these feats of strength, you know, where did it come from? I suppose our job is to go back in time and replicate what these guys did, will relive their lives, see if it can be done and if it can’t be done, you know, if we can’t do it, the strongest men on the planet can’t do it, then it’s b******t, but maybe they did some trickery, maybe they’d some levers, some ropes, maybe they had some certain technique, and that’s what we go back in time and do, we go back in time and relive these guys’ lives and what they did, and I think it’s actually really interesting and it’s like, I think it’ll really work, you know, just on season, while we’re talking about season two, but it’s like these, these TV shows that just you never forget, you know, I think we’ve talked about this earlier, is like the Man versus Food with Adam Richman.

1:21:18 I think you say Man vs. Food over anywhere on the globe, they know what you’re talking about, so it captured the audience, it’s so unique, and then you’ve got the River Monsters that me and my wife just love to sit down and watch a guy fish out these 400-pound grouper fish from the ocean, you know, it’s weird but it works, it captures the amount, and I feel so this, the History Channel one is really one of those TV shows that can really captivate the audience. It’s a big deal too.

1:21:46 It is a big deal, it is. I mean three years ago if I told Eddie, you gonna be on the History Channel, would you laughed in my face or not, or did you know you were gonna be like, what, like if I’d probably laugh [expletive] off, not gonna happen, you know, it’s, yeah, it’s a bit, I say it’s all surreal and it’s all off the back of success, it’s, it’s what that title has opened up, a whole a venue of opportunities for me and that, that’s two of them, you know, there’s, there’s quite a lot more on the cards, you know, I’m meeting big film producers and I mean big ones, working with Arnold Schwarzenegger on ER on a documentary. What’s it about?

1:22:21 So I’ve got a documentary on Netflix already called Eddie Strongman, and there’s no one called Born Strong as well, okay, and so it’s basically a from Eddie one where you know anyone was about the story of a working-class guy, obviously a true story, a working-class guy that’s trying to become the World’s Strongest Man, then it goes for all this hardship and, and you know, and loss and grief and and sacrifice, too, for this dream, and I suppose the end of the film leaves this big question mark of what happened to this guy after, you know, this was filmed in too far, it was released in 2015, what happens to this guy, and two years later I win the World’s Strongest Man, I suppose that’s where the film picks up. I do the half-ton deadlift, I do the impossible, you know, I win the World’s Strongest Man, so I achieve the dream, you know, that I evidently set myself in previous years, and then it’s about brick, it’s about following in the footsteps of Arnie, you know, it’s about what do you do, what wife after success, it’s going, breaking into the movie industry, so it’s landing these TV shows, it working alongside on horse now, yet but then I also want to make it about mental health, you know, the films gotta be, it’s got out of a crunch on it, and that’s it for me, because mental health right now is so rife, especially in the UK, and it’s so it’s such a hard thing to talk about, you know, you can’t talk about it with your mates because you feel weak, people can’t open up to family because it makes them look weak,

1:23:59 But I suppose I want to spread that message that you shouldn’t feel weak, you know, it’s such a common thing out there that you should just open up to a family member or a friend. Well, like me, satya open or not to you and millions of people on YouTube, you know, it’s, it’s something that you just should open up about, and I think once you’ve opened up about it you accept it and you can sort of learn to deal with it and move forward in life, and I think what I’ve done is, is used goals, it’s like the sink a swim, you know, I’ve used goals in my life to keep setting goals, setting goals, keep pushing forward and moving forward in life and have achieved that success and it’s like, but down again and then back, what we go around chasing Hollywood now and this is exactly what Arnold’s done his entire life, and I suppose, you know, the film is really about inspirational people and the main one, you know, Arnold as a young kid was inspired by a guy called Reg Park, Red Parks, I think one of the original Hercules in the films, and then Arnold’s grow not to be this huge, massive superstar who has in turn inspired people like myself and all the bodybuilders and, and movie stars, and then I have myself going on inspire millions of people in what I’ve done, and then it’s that massive knock-on effect from from inspirational people, and I think that’s, that’s a lot to do with mental health, you know, it’s sometimes we need heroes to look up to to sort of keep track of our life and keep pushing forward.

1:25:36 I mean there’s some 13 year old kid in the world right now who’s probably been locked in his room for a year who’s watching this, you know, yes, you know, and looking at you, I mean you literally could have ended dead in that room, yeah, or amounting to nothing or whatever, and instead you’re the World’s Strongest Man, you know, so if that’s not an inspiration, what isn’t? Well, that, that, you know, that when you, I mean when you say it like that, it doesn’t really click, click in my head that, you know, 18 years ago I was locked in the room thinking about and trying to kill myself as a young boy, and for whatever reasons, you know, I’ve turned my life around and, as you say, you know, if I’ve been there, done it and I’ve become the World’s Strongest Man from, from rock bottom, literally robbed on, from a kid wanted to kill himself to fast forward 29 years old, winning the World’s Strongest Man and becoming a success, so I think giving that message out there that you can turn your life around, you know, mental health, yes, it’s a problem and you probably will suffer with it for the rest of your life, but there’s ways to deal with it and there’s ways to enjoy your life around it, that’s for sure.

1:26:42 And for you, those things, and this is what you tell other people, goal-setting again, sink or swim, this is your IP, this gonna be in her book, I hope, umm, yeah, good, sink or swim, and also you said something else when you were a kid in 13, you were blaming everybody for your problems, and yeah, that can make mental illness worse, right? When you don’t take ownership? Yes, yes, you know, I mean I was expelled from school and that was, I was a, my fault, that was the teachers, that was the other kids, that’s my parents, I was, you know, chucked off the swimming squad, that was the coach’s fault, as the other swimmers, I’m getting the girl pregnancies, it’s, it’s not my fault, she did it, you know, everything’s, you just blame, you don’t want to take responsibility for, for s***, you just want to blame everybody else and that feel as though you’re owed everything, you want people to give you an A in your GCSE, you want people to give you a gold medal at the national championship, so it doesn’t work, why you’ve got to go out and [expletive], innit, you know, you’ve got to keep pushing forward in life.

1:27:43 It can be a very dark, dangerous place if you start blaming the world, I think a lot of people do, you know, I’ve got quite a few friends in the, in the past, my old training partner once asked, I’ll see him a lot now but mail training part where it’s gone through a very, very bad state of mental health recently and he went through a state of blaming everybody else, you know, it was her, it’s him, it’s that, it’s, it’s, it’s my ex-wife, it’s this, and I’m like, you know, I’ve always been supporting him, but then he went to hell, he went to the saw psychiatrist and he’s broke everything down and you’ll see him now, completely different person, he doesn’t blame everybody, he just gets on with it now, he just accepts it and move forward, and that, the change in him is amazing, and he saw a seeked help, you know, and I think that’s the biggest thing he did, and he’s 39 years old and he’s always suffered with it and it got to the point where he was going to kill himself, and he went and saw a psychiatrist and he’s sort of himself out and talking, it’s releasing, his accepting that life isn’t always everybody else’s fault, it’s, you know, sometimes it just lands on you, deal with it and move forward.

1:28:49 If anyone’s watching this now and they’re in that dark place, what is that, the thing they should really do? Just talk to someone, it’s that the most important thing, I think that is the most important thing, you know, when I was a kid, 13 years of age, I wouldn’t talk to my woman, that mean I was depressed, I was things that I was, I’m an anxiety attack, so I was depressed, I wanted to kill myself, I tried to kill myself and I couldn’t talk to my brother’s because you, you know, it’s that, that competitive monster in me doesn’t want to be a failure in life, I don’t want to let my brother’s know I’m weak, you don’t want to talk to your mom and dad because you feel as though you’re letting them down, you feel as though you’re a failure, you don’t want to talk to, you know, your friends cuz you just look like a loser, there’s no one to talk to, is there really, when you think about it, when you break it down, like people like, and people always say on Facebook, or you know, if somebody puts the depressed on Facebook nowadays, you all see the comment, oh well I’m here if you need to talk, don’t make a f***ing difference.

1:29:48 You need to go and see someone who understands what you’re going through, I’m going to talk and release that to a professional, and I think that’s the best thing you can do, is talk to a professional, as to what, that’s what sorted me, I’ll ask what got me sort of moving forward, because I was stuck in a rut at 13, 14 years of age, I was stuck in a hole for 18 months, and it was a psychiatrist and, and the prozac’s that got me out of that hole. I will openly admit the NHS worked for me for once. Hollywood, is that ever gonna replace that physical struggle that I’ll find out the Alfa’s, you know, sure you’ve been asked this before, but to kick an athlete, where that is your place, you know, being in the crucible and then going out there and performing and delivering, you know, well there always be a yearning for that?

1:30:38 Yeah, yeah, of course, you know, I’ve always got that competitive monster in me, you know, I commentate the World’s Strongest Man this year and watching ons very hard, you know, and it’s a real, real kick in the ego when you’re watching guys that you used to beat quite easily, you know, doing very well in strongman, you know, and I genuinely what in this year was tough because I generally fought as though you know if it had got my boots on and don’t know a year’s training I refreshed it, and I fought the same last year as well, but that’s my mentality and it’s hard for me to sort of take a step back and think so myself know because I could be back in the strongman game breaking my body and being that, that a ridiculously obsessive man with, you know, losing his wife and kids, or it can be the guy that’s took a step back, realise that there’s no longer tivity and strongman, you know, it’s not gonna last forever, you are gonna break down, your body’s gonna break, you’re not gonna be that strong forever, take a step back and make money, you know, capitalize off of that success, you know, I’ve won the World’s Strongest Man, now let, now let’s use that title and get into places, and I suppose Hollywood was, was an easy choice, you know, getting into the movies and the TV shows, if Joe Bloggs wants to go for an audition for a big movie, no, so you know we’ve only got 100 audition spaces, if the World’s Strongest Man wants to audition for a movie, oh yeah, its front of the queue, so it’s creating those opportunities for me and I’ve got a Griffin with both hands now, you

1:32:13 Know, doing this, it’s got the two TV shows, doing the, the documentary of Arnold, got some movies lined up later in the end of next year as well, I’m gripping it with both hands and I’m going for it. I’ve got to know but it’s an comfortable because, you know, how to train four hours a day, you know how to eat, you know how to hyperbaric chamber, you know how to do that, this is, you know, agents, parties and I’ll call you back and let’s do lunch, yeah. I’m two years later, I mean acting lessons, that’s probably hard, I self, I mean well how I’m finding it now is, you know, I’m still training, I still do my, I try and do three to four hours training every day because that’s my life, I enjoy it, I enjoy keeping in shape and it’s my release, it’s always been my release, and I suppose I have replaced all the other stuff, so replaced the stretch, in the physio, the hyperbaric, the eating, I replaced that with the, the acting side of things and it’s sort of working quite well, and of course the enemy wants to go and get my belt out the closet and go to compete, but my clever me don’t let me do it.

1:33:19 Okay, yeah, is that battle ever gonna be lost? You’re 31, right? Yeah. Jesus, I was surprised how young you were. Hmm, I never say never, or are you moving on?

1:33:32 No, because if I have a B plan, if I had the B plan to maybe come back to strongman, and maybe, you know, if the, if the acting doesn’t work I could come back to strongman, then I’m not gonna succeed. I haven’t got a B plan, I’ve got an A plan and the A plan is, is Hollywood, is to get the TV shows, get the movies, that’s my direction, I’m not looking back, because if I did you’re preparing to fail, and I’m not gonna fail. Tomorrow you’re gonna be commentating for strong men, some guys are talking about doing some deadlifting tomorrow?

1:34:03 Yeah. What do you think when you hear people say, I’m gonna beat your record of 500? I mean I first and foremost I know what it to, you know, and then and that’s why I don’t think any of the guys these days are capable of it, so I knew, I know what it took to get me to that place, and when people say they’re gonna break my deadlift world record, honestly I, I just see it as, geez, I just see it as a bit of a joke really, you know, I don’t take it seriously.

1:34:37 I don’t think I’m naive enough to think nobody else could do it, because that would be, that’d be quite, that’d be very arrogant at myself because I did it myself, you know, when everyone said I couldn’t do it, so there’s no doubt my mind that it will be broke one day, as hard as that is to say and it is hard. Okay, yeah, while you’re alive? Well it, it’s gonna be tough, it’s gonna be tough when someone calls comes and pulls 501 kilo, breaks my world record, it’s gonna be a hard day for me, there really is, but it’s got to happen, you know, it’s got to happen, but I will say one thing, do you know who, do you know who ran a four-minute mile second?

1:35:20 Do you know who the second man on the moon was? You might do. What, what I’m saying is nobody really gives a f***, you know, I was the first man to left half a ton, it was the most momentous lift in strongman history and I don’t think if a little sort, I broke the world record by 8%, I saw want to come when add one kilo on it doesn’t have the same gravitas for me and I don’t think it does for anybody else either. Mmm, it could stand for one year, it could stand for a million years, but I don’t think, you know, a normal ever achieve what I did in the end, there’s in the game of strongman, as I opted, I raised the bar, literally raised the bar for the strongman game, and that’s what I’m most proud of.

1:36:04 Say I’m writing the obituary of Eddie Hall one day, hopefully a long time in the future, okay, and I write down your obituary, I got a paragraph or two about Eddie, what am I saying about this guy, say he lives to be a hundred years old, what has he done, what do you want to be remembered for? So I, I guess the legacy I want to leave behind is Amanda with the power of belief achieved amazing things and proved to millions and millions of people that no matter where you come from, what you do, hard work and dedication can get you places in life, and I think that is the best thing I can leave behind is, is that legacy, and you know, even now with what I’ve achieved, I know when the kids grow up they, they have got that inspiration, you know, I’ve proved to my children that hard work and dedication, no matter what’s happened to you in the past, hard work and dedication can get you somewhere in life, and I think that’s the best legacy I’d like to leave behind above anything else, you know, I could say I want to be known as the family man, the love man, the people’s champion, whatever, but that’s the legacy I’d most like but want to be left behind.

1:37:23 Power to the people. Okay, how’s your relationship with your kids now? A lot better, a lot better, still not as much as I’d like to be, you know, as I say in the last six months I’ve been in America a lot, but when I’ve been back I’ve actually been spending time with my kids, you know, I’ve to come on day trips, I take them up for meals, spent birth these with them, it’s it’s not as much as I want it to be but it’s a lot better, and the same with the wife as well, you know, she talked, I think all wives grumble, I think if they’re not grumbling there’s something wrong.

1:37:54 They agree. Yeah, but, but you know I’m happy, you know, I’m really happy with my family life right now, you know, well, gorgeous wife at home I love dearly, an amazingly clever daughter I’m super proud of, it was, you know, just, just a real sort of big personality, I know she’s going to do some great things when she grows up, and then my son, you know, he’s six years old, he’s got a condition called dyspraxia, it’s very, very energetic, like stupid amount of energy, always bouncing off the walls, but I’ll say one thing, he’s so good with people, and I don’t care, you know, he could be, he could never, he could not know what 1 plus 1 is, but I know he’ll always be alright because it’s so good with people, you know, he could high-fives everybody, shakes the hand, he says plays on thank yous, and that for me is just the best thing ever, you know, seeing it, seeing a young I little me, seen a little me grow up and, you know, I’ve seen he’s got, he’s got me as guidance and I hope he doesn’t have any of the problems that I’ve had when I was a kid, and yeah, I’m just looking forward to seeing both my kids saw a girl to be these amazing young, young, young people.

1:39:09 Yeah, um, what scares you? What scares me, good question. I think what scares me is being normal, as as being the guy that goes to work every day, you know, and I’ve been this guy that gets up at 6:00 a.m., goes to work, works 10 hours, comes home and then sits on his arse and watches TV. That scares me because that is not a life to me, that is as those as being a sheep that is following, that’s following the rest of the people and I can’t, I can’t be that person, I can’t be that that number, I can’t.

1:39:51 I remember getting up for work every day, every morning, and I hate of it, absolutely hated it, I hated my boss, I hated the place I worked in, I hated my colleagues, I hated the job, I hated being tired, I hated the money, it’s just this was horrible, absolutely horrible, and the day I quit my job with that, it was like winning the World’s Strongest Man, it was like free, just such a good feeling when you, I never forget when it, when I quit my job and saw him at door business and I woke up on the Monday morning when I made that decision, I sent me along at 7 a.m. to get up and I woke up and I’m just like, this is it now, I’m working for myself and no longer working for a multi-million pound business, I’m getting up and working for myself and that was the best feeling in the world and that, that I don’t, that’s what scares me, going back, right, going back to that, I can’t go back to that.

1:40:47 So you won’t, which means you’ll work hard, that’s never making that happen. Exactly, right. What will we be surprised to learn about Eddie Hall? Something about you, there will he be like, I wouldn’t have expected that from you? Oh jeez, I mean I could give you a million ounces but I D criminate myself so much, jeez, what surprises about myself, or some weird guilty pleasure you have, or you like flower arranging?

1:41:17 There’s something that I’m a pretty simple guy, you know, and I’m very open about my lifestyle, you know, I think I know that’s what draws me to people as I’m a normal guy and I say what I think, I’d do what I want, there’s no secrets of me really, I don’t, I don’t know if little fantasies, if I’ve got a fantasy I’ll go and live it out, you know. You say do what you want, I mean there’s a lot of conversations today, back to what I was saying earlier about masculinity, you know, and you’re in this industry or you were or you still are that is kind of its kind of the back to the caveman days, right? I know, and everybody can’t, they have to watch the TV, right, they have to watch The Strongest Man, so yeah, deep down inside Connelly, we still recognize the Alpha, and yet intellectually these days it seems to be going to where we can’t or that’s bad behavior.

1:42:07 What do you make of all this and how do you raise your son in this kind of politically correct, correct? I think the, the generation has gone a bit, bit nuts literally, it said, you know, you can, you can’t say what you think anymore, well you can get you into trouble and I’ve experienced it a fault, you know, a few times, and I mean only, only the other day I had a policeman knocking on the door who came in, there was laughing and giggling about it, and he said we’ve had a report from the NSPCC, so you know child protection, that you were seeing in a services grabbing your son by the arm and dragging him across the car park in a very violent manner, and he, you see, I said, I let him finish, was I let him, so I said, all right, okay, so why the f*** if you come here wasting my time talking about this crap, I said I know the incident you run about, and I’ll see it was the middle of services, middle of a motor wing, and we were at McDonald’s, me and my son were ordering, it was before half 10 so it’s breakfast only, my son said he wants a chicken nugget, a happy meal, and of course they don’t serve chicken nugget happiness before hearts head in the morning, so he kept the east side kicking, screaming, chicken nuggets, and you might not from me then you run off, f*** off, cross the carpark and my guys gonna run over, stop f***, you know, so I caught up, remember on a 26 stone running after a six year old kid and I gripped him by the arm and took him back to the counter, we ordered it, you know, we ordered food and that was it, but this person seems to deem it that, you know, and I

1:43:55 Caught that, I said stop, you know, I thought twit, you know, just, just whispered it to him, but apparently whoever was observing heard that and reported me for grabbing his arm and calling him a little twit, and apparently that is not okay, but me and the policeman had a good laugh about it, you know, Max came down, he high-fived the policeman and he’s like, look man, he’s like, I can see your son’s happy as Larry, I’ve got nothing to worry about here, I’ll see you later, I’ve done my report, and that, that’s politically fact, you’re not allowed to, you know, want to touch your children, you’re a lot safing, you know, I just caught you know call your son a twit, so this is the new world you’re just gonna have to live in, but you’re not happy about it?

1:44:32 No, I’m not bothered by it, you know, artists though in the long run because everyone’s kind of always worried about what to say, and yeah, I’m worried about what to say, I’m very careful about what I say in public now, you know, I’ve got to be really, what you got to watch what you do and what you say, how you talk to people, you can’t pat a woman on the back anymore because you’ve touched a bra strap, you know, you can’t really, eyes gone politically correct, the world owes, you know, I just, I am where I come from Banta is a very rife thing, you know, you can call it to a rare name under the sun, you can like fireworks and put it down its ass crack in the gouge and the mechanic, you can search over on fire, you know, you can kick the chair out from under his legs and, you know, you play pranks, you call it’s over all the names and that, that, that is Stoke-on-Trent, and I’m in a bigger picture now and this is what I’m learning is I can’t do and say what I want, you know, I better be careful, really careful.

1:45:31 Do you think one day strongman will be banned because it’s too aggressive? It could well be, it could well be, it could be that, you know, we are she discriminating against the women for what, Norway, and that would say smart or small act discriminate against small people, you never know. Yeah, it could well, they could well get to that point. Yeah, stay tuned, stay true. What what keeps you awake at night?

1:45:58 Mmm, I suppose I think the only thing that keep me awake at night these days is, is, is worrying about impressing people and, and this is going forward in life, you know, I’m, I’m always going into these big meetings, meeting these big film directors and you know if I’ve got an audition one day that’ll keep me up because it’s they’re gonna walk into that audition and I’ve got to impress and I find that is a very thing that keeps me up at night, in a good way. In a good way, I think, like an overthinking, you know, I’m one of these guys and if I’ve got a big, you know, I’ve got some big business projects that I’ve got going on in the minute now, what some big means coming off, you know, one with Arnold himself and that, you know, stuff like get something worried, you know, it’s you’ve got a, you only get one chance of these sort of things and I’m a risk-taker, you know, I’ll go, I’ll attack life, I don’t know, B plan, but obviously I do worry about the A plan and I think everyone does, you can help it, and that’s what keeps you awake.

1:47:10 That’s what, Eddie, I always ask people a few questions at the end, I’m gonna ask you, if you can pick up the phone right now and call up the twenty year old Eddie and give that young man some advice, what would you tell him? Jeez, so you just had your first strong man in nineteen, right? Yeah. Oh you had made the declaration that you were gonna win it one day. I think, I mean other than the boring stuff of light, you know what I know about training and you know what I do differently in sort of recovery and training wise, which you could probably write a few books about, geez, yeah, yeah, I don’t know, you know, I think for twenty years onwards I think I’ve done okay, I think I [expletive] a cool a 20 year old a do a lot, but just say a mine just to let you know everything’s gonna be okay, be yourself.

1:48:07 On that same note, best advice you’ve ever received, has been training or parents or your nan or someone? A man once gave me the best piece of advice I’d ever heard, and it was when I was a young lad going for multiple girlfriends and, you know, getting in sticky situations and he said, never put your dick where you wouldn’t put your tongue, and I think, and I think that is the best piece of advice you could give to any young kid in this generation, it’ll save you a hell of a lot of trouble. Look at the social media police is gonna come for you now.

1:48:48 I love it, please continue to be this guy, the rest of your career no matter what, because yeah, it will help a lot. Final part is to that 20 year old that’s watching us right now, advice to them as they go and live their life, what can they learn from you? What can you tell The final question for you: you are the World’s Strongest Man, right?

1:49:31 One of the most alpha men in the world, once you’ve worn it you’re always it, it’s like a heavyweight wheel box, right? Yeah, you know, and at the same time you are willing to sit here and get emotional and show all that to everybody, and if you weren’t willing to do that you wouldn’t come inside here in that chair. Yeah, a lot of people, those, those, those two things don’t make sense, you know, one’s alpha behavior, ones, you know, way down the Beta Gamma Delta chain, but not for you.

1:49:57 Yeah. Can you just say something about that, because you’re willing to be that guy but you’re also willing to show us your emotions and who you were in the past? Well, I think it was the, I think it was the alpha male that stopped me open, you know, when I was a kid, you know, it’s that image of being the hard man, being the, being the alpha, being the guy, being a successful guy, being the guy that’s, you know, rich and, you know, got a nice, nice messes and gorgeous children and whatever else, so you know, all these things pan out, and I suppose you’ve got to release sometimes, you know, and I’d like to release in situations where it can help others.

1:50:43 You’ll never catch me in a room alone crime, you’ll never catch me doing that. You might catch me sat thinking dark, horrible thoughts and getting upset and, and, and dwelling on things and feeling bad, well you’ll never catch me in a room alone crying. I know after whatever reason I always open up to people and cameras and, and I feel as though it’s like my way of stopping others going through my experiences, or if they are going through my experiences it’s helping them, you know, it’s, it’s helping them pull through and realize that even the strongest one on the planet, the Alpha, has gone through mental health, you know, I’ve tried to kill myself, I have anxiety attacks, I still have anxiety attacks now and again now, you know, and you wouldn’t think it, would you, a big guy like myself, you know, you know, I could be at home and I’ll be like, you know, I’m gonna bring two more, or you know, I’ve got a lump in my throat, or you know, it’s anxiety, you know, it’s, it happens, and I think it’s breaking that persona that drop, knowing no one gives a f*** how hard you are or how successful you are, you know, no one gives a f***, so just, just be yourself, just open up.

1:52:07 It’s true, man, no one gives a f***, no one gives, us all of us guys we’re always thinking, ah, we got em either this, forget it, either that, no one kiss. I used to have a real problem self-image when I was a kid and a real bad arrogance about me, you know, I don’t have to be that hard man and I always have to prove it as well, you know, I, I put myself in situations sometimes that were very, very dangerous, you know, I’d pick fights with 20 or 30 people in one go and I’d usually come out smelling the roses as well and then I look back and I’m, I wider to do that, why did it do that, and it’s just, it’s just you want it, and I had all these problems going on in my head, you know, in these dark rooms and in the back of my mind, but it’s almost as if I had to prove I didn’t have those problems, that I was this superstar, this guy that could knock anybody out and, and be this hard man and have the money, the, the cars and whatever else, and now I just don’t care, I’ve got past that point of giving a f*** what people think, you’ve just got to crack on with your own life, get on with it.

1:53:18 What good, what good is playing the hard one, yet you or sharing off your money or whatever else, it doesn’t, doesn’t get you anywhere. Is your nails still with you, do you think about her a lot? Yeah, I, I do, I feel as I put that segment of my life behind me, yeah, you know, it was a very, it, you know, in a way, in a way when she had the cancer that was a very bad time for me, you know, when she was dying I, I was always thinking on her, I was always going to go and see her, then when she did die it was almost as if I could push that bit of life behind me.

1:53:54 Well, then I filled it with this challenge of becoming the World’s Strongest Man and obviously she’s with me all that way, but now I feel as though I’ve achieved that, I’m on the World’s Strongest Man, it feels as though I can put that behind me as well, and you know what, of course I think about my nine a lot, going get unicorn in life, course I do, but I don’t dwell on it, you know, I’m, I’m, it’s sort of like sunk in that it ha, ha, it does happen, it had to happen, and I think winning the World’s Strongest Man helped me to release that and help me just, you know, just sort of let go. Yeah, yeah, Eddie, I think a lot of people be surprised of who you are, you know, and it’s weird as humans we see an image of someone and we judge them, right? Yeah.

1:54:37 We see a big lump like you, we see you breaking records and we just assume that that’s all you are, but there’s a lot more going on in here, and the other thing we assume is that somehow it’s easy for people, and you must get this all the time, you know what, oh yeah, they just lucky, he’s just big, he’s just this, but it’s like the dedication required to be the best at anything in the world, it’s always extreme, and I mean a lot of people in that chair and they all worked for it. Yes, there’s no overnight successes and there’s no luck when it comes to that scale. I mean I’ve got my manager’s got a great scene, you know, my manager came over to the UK when he was 8 years old from Pakistan and he had nothing but an early embody and his about pocket and the guy is worth about 130 million, broughal, you know, towards a lot right now, and I remember talking to him one day, you know, talking about his successes, you know, how he got to where he is and all that, and I just, I don’t know why I said it, I said, you’re a lucky bastard, you know, and he almost took offense to it and he sort of taken back, in his life I make my own luck, and that’s when it hit me that he wasn’t handed those millions of pounds, he fought, he went out on into it, you know, he came to the country with nothing and he worked his way off me, you know, he sold ice creams, he sold life insurance and he bought businesses and then he made them successful, he you just kept building and building, a building, he earned that, nothing was given to him because I don’t know that for fat because he came with nothing,

1:56:12 So yeah, it’s, you can never judge a book by its cover, you see a millionaire and your shoe has been handed to him but no, it’s everything zones in life. Yeah, most of the time, yeah, most of the time, make your own luck. Yeah, looking forward to the movies that are coming out, next documentary, History Channel, it’s exciting, Eddie Eats America and all the other things you’re gonna do, Terminator 4, 5 & 7, stranger things, right? Never know. Yeah, yeah, but Eddie, I really appreciate everything you do, I appreciate you coming on here and being honest and being open emotionally, that’s a big deal, man.

1:56:46 Yeah, a lot of people need to see this, the youth need to see it, the guys and the girls, and it’s a big deal, man, so thank you so much, you’re f***ing legend. Thank you, so are you, buddy. All right, thank you very much, sir, called my pleasure, thank you.