The Rotherham Bugle

He’s the squeaky-clean TV Body Coach who encourages and cajoles fatties to shed the timber and get active, but away from the cameras, health and fitness guru Joe Wicks couldn’t be more different, a former friend has revealed.

Wicks, who appears to be the result of an ill-advised cloning experiment involving Jamie Oliver and Russell Brand, divides opinion. Some viewers find him mildly irritating, while  others want to have him rounded up, placed in stocks and pelted with a selection of organic root vegetables. But the supposed exercise and healthy eating fanatic isn’t the man he seems according to a long-term friend, Nick Reach, who has written a book about the star

“Joe comes over as fit and healthy, but nothing could be further from the truth, “he said “He likes nothing better than a night on the lash. Eight or nine pints is an average session for him, followed by a KFC, a Big Mac, a kebab or whatever he can get his hands on. He’s not fussy. Next morning it’s a full English washed down with fizzy pop. He loves it.  Then it’s the  hair of the dog and he’s off again.”

Nick also poured scorn on Wicks supposed high intensity exercise routine “Don’t make me laugh,” he said “The only thing intense about him is the hangovers. That lad can get bed sores from the couch. He once binge watched every season of Homeland back to back. Nobody saw him for days and when I went round there, he was just slumped on the sofa in his pants, surrounded by empty pizza boxes and Red Bull cans. He gets out of breath trimming his beard.”

Wicks TV and Internet image is down to clever lighting and Photoshop, according to Nick who says the star looks more like a post -retirement Diego Maradona in real life, than the figure presented on screen. “It’s all smoke and mirrors,” he said “and I want the public to know the truth.”

Nick’s new book ‘Getting On Our Wicks comes out in paperback next month with all proceeds going to his bank account.