Peter Kay has lifted the lid on his long-running battle with weight in a revealing new chat with Sara Cox — admitting he only truly tackled it when he “started thinking about [his] health”. The comedian, now deep into another blockbuster tour, sat down with Sara on BBC Radio 2 to promote his new book and opened up about years of struggling with diets, gyms and failed routines. And while fans have recently praised him for looking healthier than ever, Peter didn’t shy away from the less glamorous truth behind it.
When Sara asked if he’d ever seriously tried to slim down, the beloved comic, 52, didn’t skip a beat: “Only for the first 48 years of my life. Yeah, I had to eventually, because you start thinking about your health and things like that, don’t you? But I tried everything, flaming weight loss groups. I did quite well at one point.”
He then launched into one of the hilariously bleak memories from his book — a night at the cinema in 2000 with his wife, Susan, that sent his diet spiralling. He confessed: “I once went to watch The Green Mile with Susan at the cinema in Bolton… I said, ‘Susan, I’m going to the toilet’.
“So I nipped out, bought a hotdog… I had this hot dog, and I am shoving it in… I caught a glimpse of myself. I thought, ‘Look at you, you should be ashamed of yourself,’ and I threw the rest of it in the bin. And just as it was about to hit the bin liner, I grabbed it and had another bite!”
When he returned to his seat, Susan immediately rumbled him: “Anyway, I went back in and ran up and sat back down and said, ‘What have I missed?’. She said, ‘You have had a hot dog’, and I said, ‘I have not’, and she said, ‘I can smell it on your breath’. That’s how bad it was, honest to God.
Peter admitted his fitness attempts weren’t much more successful. He joked about sweating through a Rosemary Connolly video — only for the instructor to announce the warm-up had just ended — and recalled signing up for a Bolton gym before quickly retreating to the pool.
He joked: “You know why I stopped going? Men just talking to you naked.” Still chasing motivation, he joined high-energy aerobics with a “two-litre bottle of Tizer”, before ending up at a hardcore old-school gym in Manchester: “A lad ran this gym, he had me pulling a tyre outside… I’d go and sit in the toilet and sob because it was like proper old school.”
Despite all that, Peter’s determination stuck. His Better Late Than Never tour is now extended well into 2026, with proceeds from next year’s final shows going to 12 cancer charities. “Unfortunately, everybody knows someone who’s been affected… and I just hope people support it,” he said.
Kay told Sara he’d been fortunate to meet every comedian he admired: “I have been really lucky because I have met them all. “I met Ronnie Barker… he wrote back to me in character as Norman Fletcher from ‘Her Majesty’s Prison Slade’.”
He also shared concern for Billy Connolly: “I met Billy Connolly as well… he’s not so good now… I think so much of it is influenced by him… Amazing.” Peter Kay’s Diary: The Monthly Memoir Of A Boy from Bolton is out now. Sara Cox is on Radio 2 weekdays from 4–7pm.