James McVey of The Vamps has opened up about his battle with body dysmorphia and revealed he underwent liposuction surgery when he was just 20-years-old.
The 26-year-old guitarist went under the knife to remove tissue from his chest during a dark point in his history of obsessing over food and his body.
Opening up about the extreme lengths he went to in order to gain the results he wanted, James says the surgery was caused by the “sinister” obsession he had about food.
The I’m A Celeb star says he has learned to cope with his body dysmorphia, but says the disorder – which is a mental health condition where a person spends a lot of time worrying about their appearance – is on his mind every day.
Opening up to The Sun on Sunday, James said he left his bandmates Connor Ball and Tristan Evans when he told them last week that he had had liposuction.
He said: “It’s one of my biggest regrets that I wasn’t open about it. I was worried it was going to come across as vanity and self-obsession, when it was much more sinister.
“I evaluate every meal that I have.
“In the early days I would look at the boys and think, ‘How can you have that milkshake in McDonald’s and not feel guilty? How can you have Maltesers in the dressing room?’
“I still have those daily shadows in my mind where I’ll regret eating.”
James had previously only opened up about his cosmetic surgery to his parents, band management, and bandit Brad Simpson.
The guitarist has also opened up about struggling with food in the past.
He told the Mirror in 2018: “Fans always send me pictures from years ago and I’m stick thin, and I didn’t realise back then just how thin I was.
“I was ill and I looked ill. I’m happy that now I’ve come full circle and see food as a positive.”
The star added: “I don’t want to belittle other people who have anorexia, but I think I definitely had a negative relationship with food in those early days. I was obsessed with food.