Gooners fan had to work at Chelsea as he followed his comedy dream

Everyone starting out in comedy has to make sacrifices… now Matt Lucas has revealed his.

The hardcore Arsenal fan has admitted that he swallowed his pride to work in Chelsea’s club shop as a teenager so he could earn the money to gig.

‘I’d do that job in the day and then in the evening I’d go to far-flung places and gig,’ he told Gabby Logan on her Mid-Point podcast. ‘But I used to wear my Arsenal top underneath my Chelsea top.’

He also spoke about his weight loss – that did not go unnoticed when he returned as host of Channel 4’s Great British Bake Off this week.

Lucas said: ‘'I'm 48, my dad died when he was 52, very suddenly, his dad died I think at 56, so I was looking at the law of averages here.

‘I was very big and I was getting bigger in the pandemic actually. Sort of not being very active, not really going out, not seeing people, just eating a lot of roast potatoes. I can't tell you how many roast potatoes I ate!’

He said he has slimmed down from a XXL - ‘sometimes an XXXL’ – to a medium.

The Great British Bake Off is on Channel 4 on Tuesdays at 8pm.

Published: 15 Sep 2022