Richard Osman has reflected on his challenging upbringing as he admitted his mother ‘struggled forever’ after his father left the family after admitting he had an extramarital affair.
The TV star was just nine years old when his father David announced he was having an affair before leaving his wife Brenda and children in Sussex and moving to Warwickshire with his new partner.
Brenda, now 84, worked odd jobs before becoming a primary school teacher, but Richard admitted they had no ‘money or freedom’.
But after a successful career as a best-selling author and TV presenter, Richard used his earnings to help his mother after she struggled during his childhood.
“I made sure my mother didn’t have to struggle, because she’s always struggled. It’s freedom, money. Because I had no freedom and anyone who grew up without money knows that.”
He told it The times: ‘I have more money than when I was growing up, that’s for sure. I made sure my family is safe.”
Richard Osman has revealed that his mother ‘struggled forever’ during his childhood as they grew up ‘without freedom or money’ after his father left the family for another woman
Brenda lives in a retirement home in Sussex, which inspired his hit series The Thursday Murder Club.
After his father left home, Richard explained that the entire side of the family had lost contact with Richard’s side of the family.
‘It’s okay. The other side of my family more than made up for it. They’re a sweet couple. We kind of fetishize our family.”
Richard previously said he had no interest in learning more about his paternal family during his appearance on Who Do You Think You Are in 2022.
Speaking to Radio Times, Richard described walking away from his father as the worst thing that would ever happen to him.
When they met 20 years later, they didn’t bond, leaving the quiz show host reluctant to discover more about his ancestors when the opportunity for Who Do You Think You Are arose.
“My dad’s side of the family wasn’t something I was interested in because that’s not the family I grew up in. It would be like learning about strangers in a funny way,” he told the publication.
Richard had a close bond with his grandfather, Tom ‘Fred’ Wright: “I owe so much of what I am to him,” he says in the show, adding that he would have loved to follow in his footsteps and become a detective.
He said, “I made it so that my mother doesn’t have to struggle because she’s been struggling forever. It’s freedom, money. Because I had no freedom and anyone who grew up without money knows that’ (pictured with his older brother Mat, Suede’s bass guitarist)
Richard has also been open about how his father leaving the family sparked his “embarrassing and bizarre” battle with food addiction.
The star believes his issues with food served as a coping mechanism as he struggled through his childhood without an adequate father figure.
“It’s traumatic, that’s for sure,” the host explained during an episode of John Robins’ How Do You Cope? podcast in April.
‘It’s hard to put yourself back in your nine-year-old brain. What do you know when you’re nine? Nothing, but you know family, and you know there’s a security when you go home, and that’s taken away from you, so that would definitely be a trauma.
‘I would say I haven’t dealt with that trauma. This happened in the 1970s, a very different time, and it was not wise to talk about it. As long as I looked good, everyone else was okay.”
He added: “I could accommodate it, put it in the back of my mind and not deal with it in any way; the more modern thinking is that that is not very healthy. But I’ve always had a very fast brain, so I could find routes through the pain I felt and through the betrayal I felt, and present a face to the world that was comfortable and happy and safe, and parts of me were, but it catches up with you.
“I would say that in my late 20s and early 30s, I had lost my way with this new person I had created, this person who could hide from pain and run from pain, and tell a different story.
“That was gone, so I had to deal with it then, because I didn’t have to deal with it when I was nine, because how could I deal with it when I was nine?”
