Rylan Clark-Neal suffered heart palpitations while using tanning injections.
Rylan Clark-Neal
The 'Big Brother's Bit on the Side' presenter has admitted he used to rely on the hormone jab to help keep his hair black and his skin golden but realised he had to pack in his habit when he got "really ill" and his heart started pounding in his chest.
Speaking on 'This Morning' on Friday (06.04.18), he explained: "To me it was like a Barbie drug - my hair was growing through naturally black and I was tanned. I'm naturally a red-head, so I don't tan so I've always been pale. I was on these and I got really ill on them, I had heart palpitations one morning and I thought I need to stop."
The 29-year-old star made the revelation while interviewing 'Big Brother' star Ryan Ruckledge on the brunch time show about his unhealthy addiction to tanning jabs.
Speaking about his wake-up call, Ryan said: "It was about a year ago, me and my boyfriend Hughie were in bed together and I started to get these bad chest pains and I was like: 'Hughie, this is really bad. Something is happening.' My heart was irregular, it was beating different beats and it was feeling like it was coming out my chest. I know I'm a dramatic boy but I thought I was having a heart attack. So we rang the ambulance and the ambulance came and put a drip in my arm and they said: 'Your heart is going quite fast, we need to slow it right down.' They took me to the hospital and they said: 'These aren't tested, these aren't regulated so we can't say these have caused this to come on. You've not had a heart attack but your heart rate was high but because these aren't regulated, no body knows anything about it."
But it wasn't his hospital dash that gave him the wake-up call he needed.
He added: "And then my boyfriend said: 'I'm going to wake up and you're going to be dead in the bed next to me.' And he finished with me there and then."
Ryan hasn't used the tanning injections, which are illegal to sell but legal to buy in the UK, for over a year now and has advised everyone to stay away from them.