BBC Have I Got News For You's Richard Osman shares 'non-stop' addiction that started aged 9

Richard Osman has been a huge success, earning fans for his TV hosting and hugely popular books. But behind the scenes the star admits he struggles contsantly with a severe addiction which he traces back to the emotional turmoil of his childhood.

The beloved TV personality opened up about his challenges with a food addiction, which he says began around the time he was nine and his father left the family home. Describing the addiction as 'absolutely ever-present', he spoke openly about how the addiction affects his life.

While speaking on Elizabeth Day's podcast How To Fail, the 53 year old ex-Pointless presenter said: "We've all got human minds and we're all crazy in slightly different ways. That's my version of it since I was probably nine years old. It's been absolutely ever-present in my life - weight, food, where I am in relation to it, where I am in relation to happiness because of it, hiding it. All of that stuff, it's been absolutely like the drum beat of my life."

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Discussing how much he struggles with managing his addiction currently, Richard said: "Non-stop, I would say, but to the extent that it's so daily that bits of it you sort of don't even notice any more. It becomes second nature.

"I'm always either in control or not in control. There's not a point where I'm like "Oh yeah, I'm just going to chill today, I'll just have a salad for lunch".

"It's always I'm aware that I'm eating or not eating. It's a huge amount easier than it was to understand it. I know if I fall off the wagon I'm very forgiving of myself. I've got strategies for coping with it.

"But it's always there. 'You're never not going to be an addict, ever, but you have to try to find a way to live with it."

Richard has previously opened up about the pivotal moment when his father gathered the family in the living room to reveal he was having an affair. During a stint on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, the presenter shared: "My father left when I was quite young, when I was about nine. And that was probably the end of that innocence, I suspect."

For several months, Richard would journey by coach from the family home in Sussex to Rugby to visit his father, but he eventually severed ties. The two mended their relationship when Richard became a father himself in his twenties.

Discussing his struggle with addiction, he confided in Elizabeth: "By and large, addiction is running away from your pain. I was in a lot of pain, clearly, but do you know what, I was nine, ten. .

"I don't want to be in pain particularly, I don't want to miss my dad, I want to go, "this is OK, everything's fine". If you start veering away from your true north, who it is you actually are, the further you drift the bigger leap you have to make back.

"And so anything that can distract you or numb you, or anything like that, is incredibly useful to you, because if you start thinking, you think 'Yeah, but hold on, maybe I do miss him'. Then you think, "Hold on, there's some food in the fridge, I'll have that".

"Nine year old me and a different version of me sort of converged at the age of nine and the bit of me that converged was fuelled by food and fuelled by secrecy and fuelled by shame and all of those things."