The former world’s fattest man – who tipped the scales at 80 stone at his heaviest – has revealed how he’s piled on the pounds again after previously losing weight when finding love with an American 13 years his junior.
Paul Mason, from Ipswich, has opened up about his fluctuating weight – admitting he’s now 36 stone and bedridden, but determined to still enjoy life and to help others where he can from making the ‘same mistakes’ he did.
Speaking to The Mirror, he said: ‘A doctor once told me I would be lucky to make 40 and now here I am, nearly a pensioner.
‘I may not walk again now but I am at one with that. I just want to use my time to help others and make sure they don’t make the same mistakes I did.’
He previously dropped down to 19 stone after finding love and having a gastric bypass operation in 2010. But he piled on the pounds again after the break down of his relationship with American Rebecca Mountain, who was 13 years his junior.
When his relationship with American Rebecca Mountain (right) – 13 years his junior – broke down, Paul Mason returned from the US to the UK and started piling on the pounds again
Paul, from Ipswich, has opened up about his fluctuating weight, saying doctors predicted he would die before 40 (pictured in 2008 at his heaviest 80 stone)
Paul who has defied predictions to make it to 64 years old, once tipped the scales at 80 stone at his heaviest (pictured in 2023)
In 2021, he hit a low point with depression and he tried to take his own life after getting to his ‘wits’ end’ and becoming ‘desperate’. But he instantly regretted it and phoned an ambulance.
However the lift in his building was broken, and due to his size two fire engines needed to be called before eight men proceeded to carry him out in a sling.
He said: ‘It got so bad I could not breathe and they sent a paramedic who insisted I go to hospital. It was awful – there were people outside taking pictures.’
Paul claimed he is determined to never let himself hit such a low again and he now lives in a purpose-built flat in a residential care facility on the South Coast.
He can’t walk so to get around he uses an extra-wide motorised wheelchair and even engages in a new hobby of gardening.
Paul gained fame in the documentary The World’s Fattest Man, which showed him at 70st and told how he ate 20,000 calories a day, including 40 chocolate bars, huge fry-ups and takeaways.
He previously hit headlines when he revealed a hospital had planned to cremate him in an abattoir designed for animals if he died because they would have been unable to handle his size themselves.
Paul said he was ‘disgusted’ by the plans drawn up during his three years living on a hospital ward, which included giving him an animal cremation if he died.
Paul started going to the gym to keep the pounds off in 2018 however after the split from his girlfriend he piled on the pounds again
Paul dropped down to 19 stone after finding love and having a gastric bypass operation in 2010
The former postman told ITV in the documentary The World’s Fattest Man: 10 Years On, that he experienced inhumane treatment while battling his escalating weight.
‘If I died in hospital they wouldn’t be able to deal with someone my size so they made a form up to say that if I died in hospital they’d have to take me to an abattoir to where the large animals go to and die…. And I’d be cremated in the animal cremation,’ Paul said.
‘I thought it was disgusting. I couldn’t believe they were doing that,’ he added.
Paul explained that at his heaviest it became increasingly difficult to leave the house and as his diet of 40 chocolate bars a day made his teeth crumble, he would pull the cracked ones out himself, according to the Sun.
He claimed that he was able to kill a nerve by heating needles up and sterilising his mouth before inserting the needle straight into his gum. He estimates that he removed at least a dozen of his own teeth using this method.
He was able to shrink down to 19 stone after a successful gastric bypass surgery in 2010 and soon moved to the United States to be with Rebecca Mountain – 13 years his junior.
While living in the States, Paul underwent operations to have his excess skin removed.
However, he soon ballooned again to over 30 stone after gorging on pizza when his relationship with Rebecca came to an end.
The basic health insurance he could afford in the US was inadequate for his state of health, Paul previously told the Mirror.
Before moving to join Ms Mountain, an eight stone vegetarian, in Massachusetts in 2014, Paul’s care was costing UK taxpayers £100,000-a-year and an estimated £1.5million in total.
Paul, who found fame on TLC’s World’s Fattest Man, said at his heaviest he would take out his own teeth as they crumbled from his diet of 40 chocolate bars a day (Pictured in 2009)
The former fattest man in the world was left with eight stone of excess skin in 2013
However, he soon ballooned again to over 30 stone after gorging on pizza when his relationship with Rebecca came to an end
He can’t walk so to get around he uses an extra-wide motorised wheelchair and even engages in a new hobby of gardening (pictured in 2017)
In a 2002 medical emergency, fire crews had to take out a window and brickwork so a forklift could take him out of the house and to hospital in a five-ton ambulance specially built for obese people.
By 2009 he needed a life-saving operation after putting away 20,000 calories a day, including three family-sized takeaway meals an evening.
Then in 2010 he had gastric bypass surgery that shrunk his stomach to the size of an egg.
In 2013 Ms Mountain contacted Mr Mason after seeing a documentary about him. The pair got engaged and in May 2015 he had four stone of excess skin cut from his body in a nine-hour procedure in New York.
The NHS had refused to do the £30,000 operation until his weight had been stable for two years.
Despite him getting down to 19 stone, the couple called off their engagement in September 2015.
He returned to the UK ‘for the assistance I need to get my life back on track’ in 2019. At the time Paul claimed that he needed multiple operations, including new knees, a hip and numerous hernia operations, costing the NHS over £100,000.
If you need to talk to someone, call the Samaritans for free on 116 123 or visit Samaritans.org
