Craig David reveals health battles as star says he ‘couldn’t move’ after horror injury

"I don't think I'm going to make it"

Speaking to The Times, the 44-year-old recalled "cancelling going out with friends" out of pure commitment to his exercise regime, which left him with just 4.5% body fat at the time.

"I was like, 'Nah, I've got to do my cardio tonight,'" he said. "What life was that? I'm not a bodybuilder."

David, who told podcaster and documentarian Louis Theroux that he was two years celibate in 2024, ended up developing degenerative disc disease from his constant workouts.

Despite the name, degenerative disc disease isn't a disease at all - instead, it's a condition where a damaged spinal disc causes varying degrees of pain, from nagging to excruciating.

"My world was closing in. I needed to get rid of the pain and I went to a dark place where I thought, 'I don't think I'm going to make it,'" he added.

"I never got to the point where I was thinking of ways to end this but I thought life wasn't worth living and I would be happier if I wasn't here any more."

This comes after David claimed Channel 4 sketch show Bo' Selecta! ruined his life.

Airing between 2002 and 2009, the programme's creator and star Leigh Francis moulded a grotesque caricature of the popstar for the screen which clouded David's image in the real world.

"It felt like a vendetta and when it got a following, it became something that affected me," he told The Times in 2022.

"People would shout at me on the street and I felt the same feeling I had when I was bullied at school. Leigh Francis had normalised bullying by making it comedy."

Francis would eventually apologise for his comedy creations, including further impersonations of Mel B, Trisha Goddard, Gareth Gates and David Blaine.