Celeb chef Heston Blumenthal’s dark admission: ‘Like a prison'

The MasterChef star opened up about the devastating night his new wife had him sectioned as he descended into “dark energy”.

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal has opened up about the night his wife of less than a year was forced to have him sectioned amid his “increasingly manic behaviour” connected with his bipolar, admitting he was “close to death”.

Melanie Ceysson, 36, had married the MasterChef Australia star, 58, less than seven months earlier when she had to watch her “other half” be forcibly removed from their home by police, firefighters and a doctor in Provence last November.

As well as his TV career, which has also seen him appear on Top Chef, Kitchen Chemistry, and Heston’s Feasts, Blumenthal is the owner of restaurants including three-Michelin-star The Fat Duck in Berkshire, England, and has penned numerous cookbooks.

He was diagnosed with ADHD in 2017 and with bipolar disorder last year.

Blumenthal on MasterChef Australia. Picture: Ten

Being sectioned was a devastating moment in his life, but as Blumenthal told the Daily Mail in a new interview, his recollection during that “manic phase” is hazy.

“I’ve forgotten a day … I’m still processing the facts,” he said.

Ceysson explained that in the lead-up to the medical intervention, her husband had a “dark energy” and was having “hallucinations about guns” and death.

“He was hardly eating. Not sleeping. Waking me up in the middle of the night,” she recalled.

“It was horrible, horrible – a proper tornado … I just wanted to run away but this was my husband, the person I love, who was here in the middle of the storm. You exhaust yourself, watching everything you do, everything you say … He was non-stop and I was in merry hell thinking, ‘Has he lost his mind?

“I’d done everything to try to help him – explained how worried I was, threatened a divorce if he didn’t see a doctor. It made no difference. He was talking non-stop about embracing death. What else could I do? Wait for him to kill himself?”

The celebrity chef admitted he was “close to death”. Picture: BBC

Blumenthal admitted that he had been “so close to death” and this his wife’s drastic actions have “saved [his] life.”

“The doctor said if I’d been sectioned two or three days later …” he said.

“My body was dying. I’d lost so much weight – 28 kilos. I was exercising three or four hours a day, hardly eating, not sleeping. You’re either manic and over the moon or manic and under the moon. My endocrine system had collapsed.”

The endocrine system is responsible for producing hormones which dictates the function of tissues and organs within the body.

His wife, Melanie Ceysson, was forced to have him sectioned. Picture: BBC

Ceysson told The Mail she watched the distressing moment her husband was taken away via their security cameras from her father’s house nearby. Once he’d left the house, she said she turned to her father and said: “It’s done. Now we can breathe.”

Meanwhile, Blumenthal explained that he was “talking ten to the dozen” as authorities arrived.

He went on to recall that they pinned him down, and he spotted “a really big syringe”.

“I stopped fighting … Then I got injected,” Blumenthal said.

“ … When I woke up [in a psychiatric hospital] I was basically in a prison cell in a hospital. I thought, ‘Where the f**k am I?’ There was a metal toilet, a mattress and a window.

“ … I was so confused as to what was happening. No one would speak to me. I had no telephone, no shoes and was feeling very, very drugged. I was hardly able to speak.

“ … You’re woken with a bang on the door. You’ve got to make your bed and queue for the shower. Breakfast was a bowl of coffee-powdered water and a hard bun.”

Blumenthal added that some of his fellow residents got “very angry” at being held there.

“They would scream and bang the bed against the door. I remember the noise: the building vibrating with the screaming.”

The high-profile culinary figure went on to spend 20 days there, and said it ultimately gave him “time to think, time to digest” – although he’d “never choose to go somewhere like that ever again.”

“Being sectioned has been a blessing. I feel some kind of purpose has come out of this,” Blumenthal said.

Originally published as Celeb chef Heston Blumenthal’s dark admission: ‘Like a prison'