Peter Kay has revealed he spent the first 48 years of his life trying to lose weight.
The 53-year-old comedian, best known for his shows Phoenix Nights and Car Share, was speaking at an event hosted by Sara Cox at The Lowry theatre in Salford when he lifted the lid on his recent weight loss and his efforts to take control of his eating habits.
Asked about whether he tried to lose weight, he said: “Only for the first 48 years of my life. Yeah I had to, eventually, because you start thinking about your health and things like that, don’t you?
Kay said he tried “everything” to lose weight, adding: “Good God in heaven. I mean, you go to flaming weight-loss groups and stuff like that. I joined Slimming World and WeightWatchers. I did all of them.”
The comedian also reflected on a moment that made him realise he had a binge eating problem when he lied to his wife, Susan, while they were in the cinema, telling her he was going to the toilet, only to leave the screening to eat a hot dog.
He said, according to The Sun: “I was doing really well with this diet, but I’m so bad with willpower. I had this hotdog and I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in, ironically, a framed poster for Babe.”
“I thought, look at you – what are you doing? You’re doing really well on this diet, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“And I got it and threw it in the bin — and just as it was about to hit the binliner, I grabbed it and still ate it.”
Kay went on to explain that his bad eating habits date back to when he was a child.
“Even when I was in my pram, apparently my mum used to get a meat pie from the market hall and put it on my knee, and I’d be there eating it,” he said.
Kay added that his mum would bring pies into his primary school for him to eat, saying: “Everyone would be queueing up and the dinner ladies would be like, ‘Your mum’s been in with a pie.’”
He continued: “She used to hide the biscuits in our house, but I knew where she’d hid them. I used to have me mates round for a brew and I’d reach inside the tumble drier and get a packet of digestives out, like it was normal.”
The comedian stepped back from the spotlight when he was due to go on tour in 2017, but cancelled that due to unforeseen family circumstances.
He returned to the stage in August 2021 for two charity events to raise money for Laura Nuttall, a then-20-year-old with an aggressive type of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme.
In 2022, Kay announced more than 100 arena tour dates as part of his Better Late Than Never stand-up tour, which he is currently embarking on.
The tour, his first in 12 years, included his record-breaking monthly residency at London’s O2 Arena between December 2024 and July 2025. The comedian will continue the tour at various venues in Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow this autumn, before touring more UK and Ireland locations until April 2026.
