The world’s former heaviest man has revealed that at his heaviest he weighed 80 stone (about 44kg), but lost the weight after falling in love with an American man 13 years younger than him, only to gain it back again.
Paul Mason, from Ipswich, opened up about his own fluctuating weight and admitted he is now bedridden at 36 stone – but is still determined to enjoy life and help others in any way he can to avoid making the “same mistakes” he made.
Speaking to the Mirror he said: “Doctors used to tell me I’d be lucky to live to 40 and now I’m almost a pensioner.”
“I may never walk again, but that’s OK. I just want to use my time to help other people so they don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
He found love in 2010 and after having gastric bypass surgery his weight dropped to 19 stone, but he gained the weight back after the breakdown of his relationship with American Rebecca Mountain, 13 years his junior.
In 2021, he was at the lowest point of his depression and, feeling “at a loss” and in despair, attempted suicide – but he soon regretted it and called an ambulance.
However, the elevator in his building was broken and, due to his size, two fire engines had to be called and eight men had to carry him out in a sling.
He said: “It got so bad I couldn’t breathe so paramedics were sent and they urged me to go to hospital. It was awful. There were people outside taking photos.”
Paul says he is determined never to let himself get so depressed again and now lives in a specially built apartment in a residential care home on the south coast.
Unable to walk, he uses a wide power wheelchair to get around and has taken up a new hobby: gardening.
Paul shot to fame with the documentary The Fattest Man in the World, which revealed that the 70 stone star was eating 20,000 calories a day, including 40 chocolate bars, giant fry-ups and takeaways.
He previously made headlines when he revealed that he planned to be cremated at an animal slaughterhouse when he died because hospitals could not cope with his size.
Paul said he was “disgusted” by the plans that had been made during his three years living on the hospital ward, which included having his animals cremated after his death.
The former postman spoke in ITV documentary The World’s Fattest Man: Ten Years On about the inhumane treatment he endured during his battle with weight gain.
“If I died in the hospital they wouldn’t be able to handle someone my size so I drew up paperwork that if I died in the hospital they would have to take me to the slaughterhouse where larger animals die and then I would be cremated at an animal crematorium,” Paul said.
“I thought it was awful. I couldn’t believe they were doing that,” he added.
According to The Sun, Paul explained that at his heaviest, he found it increasingly difficult to leave the house and that a diet of 40 chocolate bars a day had left him with damaged teeth, which he had to pull out himself when they cracked.
He claimed that he was able to kill the nerve by heating a needle, disinfecting his mouth, and then inserting the needle directly into the gums. He estimates that he extracted at least 12 of his own teeth this way.
In 2010 he underwent successful gastric bypass surgery, dropping his weight to 19 stone and soon moved to the US to live with Rebecca Mountain, who is 13 years younger than him.
While living in the US, Paul underwent surgery to remove excess skin.
But after his relationship with Rebecca ended, his pizza-guzzling diet soon saw his weight balloon again to more than 30 stone.
Paul previously told the Mirror that the basic health insurance available in the US was inadequate for his health condition.
Before he moved in with Mountain, an eight-stone vegetarian, in Massachusetts in 2014, Paul’s care was costing British taxpayers £100,000 a year, an estimated £1.5 million in total.
During a medical emergency in 2002, firefighters had to remove a window and a brick wall, use a forklift to remove him from his home, and transport him to hospital in a five-ton ambulance specially built for obese people.
By 2009, he was consuming 20,000 calories a day, including three family-sized takeaway meals in the evening, and required life-saving surgery.
He then underwent gastric bypass surgery in 2010, which reduced his stomach to the size of an egg.
Mountain contacted Mason after seeing a documentary about him in 2013 and the couple became engaged, and in May 2015, Mason underwent a nine-hour surgery in New York to remove four stone of excess skin.
The NHS had refused the £30,000 operation until his weight had stabilised for two years.
Despite her weight dropping to 19 stone, the couple called off their engagement in September 2015.
In 2019, he returned to the UK “in search of the help he needed to get his life back on track”. At the time, Paul claimed he had needed knee, hip and multiple hernia operations, costing the NHS more than £100,000.
If you need to speak to someone you can call Samaritans free on 116 123 or Samaritan.org