Strictly’s Seann Walsh said his Strictly kiss ruined his life – leaving him with depression, anxiety and panic attacks.
The star was caught snogging dance partner Katya Jones in 2018.
It prompted a furious reaction from his then girlfriend Rebecca Humphries who released a statement urging women not to stay with controlling partners.
“From that point on my life changed for ever,” Walsh said, adding he started having panic attacks after suffering them in his early twenties.
He revealed: “The panic attacks came back – big, big panic attacks and I ended up having what I later found out were Vertigo Seizures.
“I had one the other day, I just lied down – I had to lie down in the street, it’s quite humiliating. It’s London so nobody gives a s***.
(Image: Brian J Ritchie/Hotsauce/REX/Shutterstock)
“I have to relive what happened. Still, I can be ok then suddenly the memories of it all come back.
“It defeats me and beats me until the plates start spinning and I lose balance and fall and start screaming, so I still get them.
“They’re less frequent, I’d never had them before.
“I’m on anti-anxiety, anti-depression, it’s called Sertraline. For me exercise is what helps me.”
(Image: PA)
Walsh told the Take Flight podcast his self-belief as a comic “had gone with the kiss and the statement and ongoing articles”.
But in a tweet announcing their break-up, Humphries accused him of dismissing her suspicions he was straying by “aggressively, and repeatedly, call[ing] me a psycho/nuts/mental”.
Walsh has yet to respond to the allegations in 2018.
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He said: “I was a very dream-like young man, I would dream of doing the Apollo, my sitcom, I was always living in this fantasy land.
“Then it was suddenly the first time I was living without hope.
“A kiss and a statement destroyed my dreams and who I was. What I could have been, what my life could have been, what I could have made myself was gone.”
(Image: David Dyson)
At the time Walsh released a statement calling the kiss a “one-off drunken mistake”.
Jones also apologised and said the incident “didn’t reflect on her marriage” and she loved her husband Neil. They later split.
Walsh still performs stand-up with upcoming gigs at London’s Camden Comedy Club and the Whitchurch and Stourbridge festivals.
*Samaritans (116 123) operates a 24-hour service available every day of the year. If you prefer to write down how you’re feeling, or if you’re worried about being overheard on the phone, you can email Samaritans at jo@samaritans.org
