He has spoken openly in the past about his cancer fight, mental health and journey to becoming a father, and now The Living Room’s Barry Du Bois has opened up about the “dark hole” of depression he fell into after his mother’s death, followed by his wife’s cervical cancer diagnosis.
The 58-year-old told New Idea that “everything started to unwind” following the loss of his mother, who died of breast and bowel cancer in 2004. Then, just months later, Barry was dealt another blow when his wife Leonie, who he married in 1999, was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
Following her diagnosis, Leonie suffered a series of miscarriages after the couple tried to start a family, before she was forced to undergo a hysterectomy.
“I was depressed, I refused to talk about it and I just thought it was everyone else trying to annoy me,” he told the publication, reports The Daily Mail. “I lost my mum, my wife got cancer and everything started to unwind. I didn’t want to talk, I closed down.”
Du Bois was diagnosed with Plasmacytoma Myeloma, a cancer of the immune system, in 2010, before being diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2017. He is still battling the disease and regularly sharing updates on his treatment with his fans on social media.
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The TV presenter also shared an image of a New Idea article on his social media page, where the father-of-two wrote: “Talking about being depressed is the best way to get out of that dark hole. We all have all different types of pressure, work, health and love. This week I had a chat with New Idea re my life and work with @ruokday.”
Last month Barry Du Bois spoke to Starts at 60 about the series of heartbreaks he and his beloved wife had to endure before finally welcoming their twin children through surrogacy.
The Sydney-born star has six-year-old twins Bennett and Arabella with wife Leonie, after the couple flew to India in 2012 to welcome them from a surrogate mum.
He has previously spoken of his happiness at watching the precise moment they were created and in March the proud dad has opened up on the agony the couple had to face prior to that joyous moment.
“We know loss personally, we know better than a lot of people what it feels like to go through miscarriage, we know better than a lot of people I guess what it feels like to lose the ability to have children through cancer, and we know better than some people how it feels to want something terribly and not be able to have it,” he said.
“We also know the gift of seeing one cell divide into two and start a life, I’ve seen it.”