PEUGEOT Attitude Pride Awards host Rylan’s Attitude cover in 6 images
Exclusive: “I think I could, but the problem is if I step away, people will still know who I am. So, that won’t solve that problem," the broadcaster has told Attitude about the idea of stepping away from work
It’s Pride and that means one thing, the PEUGEOT Attitude Pride Awards 2024 are here. Stepping in to host this most magnificent and celebratory of events is the one and only, Rylan!
He’s been a ubiquitous presence on TV and radio since 2012 when the six-foot-four giant first burst onto our screens on The X Factor, an excitable blur of blond highlights and fake tan. Since then he’s won Celebrity Big Brother and gone on to become front the likes of This Morning, Eurovision, The One Show, and many more.
Speaking to Attitude in a frank and candid interview as he appears on the cover of the July/August issue – available to order now – the broadcaster and author touched on his rise to fame, being in the public eye, and his breakdown after his marriage ended.
On looking back at his very first X-Factor audition, Rylan shared that he watches it once a year as a reminder of where it all began. “Normally in August, I watch that episode, and then the judges’ house with Nicole [Scherzinger]. I do it as a reminder.” He also told Attitude: “I could see exactly what he [younger Rylan] was doing. No one else could, though. I want to go back and go, ‘Babe, keep doing it.’ I had my doubts, thinking, ‘What if this don’t pay off?’. If I didn’t do it, someone else would have and probably wouldn’t have done it as good as me. I took something and just heightened it for television, and it worked, so I don’t regret it.”
Commenting on the realisations he has had since his breakdown and divorce, Rylan said that among those is: “You’ve got to look after yourself because what’s having money, a beautiful house, amazing jobs without being there to actually enjoy it? If you run yourself into the ground, you’re fucked. It’s all over.”
“If I step away, people will still know who I am. So, that won’t solve that problem. I’ll be Rylan still”
Later on in the interview, he added: “The best thing to come from that restart was remembering who I am and actually going, ‘I’m actually a nice person and I do deserve happiness.’”
Asked whether he could ever imagine stepping away from the cameras Rylan decided it wouldn’t be that easy. “I think I could, but the problem is if I step away, people will still know who I am. So, that won’t solve that problem. I’ll be Rylan still, but not earning money.”
And on the internal relationship between Rylan, his effective stage persona, and Ross, his real name, the author said the two sides of himself had begun to merge in recent years. “It’s whether I want to give up and submit,” he said. “I like to have a small part of me that’s private, and that’s where I am now. That keeps me sane, that I can sit there and laugh about [everything]. When the gates shut at my house, it’s Ross.”
Issue 359 of Attitude magazine is available to order online here and alongside 15 years of back issues on the free Attitude app.