Rylan Clark was asked if he regretted telling his husband he had cheated on him as he addressed it for the first time in a new interview.
The presenter, 37, revealed his infidelity to his husband, Dan Neal, which caused the downfall of his six-year marriage back in 2021.
And now he has taken the hot seat on The Assembly, which sees famous faces answer unfiltered questions.
One audience member asked him: ‘When you told your husband you cheated on him, he divorced you. Is honesty always the best policy?’
Stunned, he replied: ‘Yeah, I think it is. I’m okay admitting I’m in the wrong, because actually I don’t deal well with guilt, and I don’t deal well with secrets.
‘It made me so ill, like so ill. It sounds a terrible thing to say, but I’m glad it happened.’
Rylan Clark was asked if he regretted telling his husband he had cheated on him as he addressed it for the first time in a new interview on The Assembly
The presenter, 37, revealed his infidelity to his husband, Dan Neal, which caused the downfall of his six-year marriage back in 2021 (pictured in 2016)
Rylan was then asked: ‘What do you miss about Dan, if anything?’, to which he responded: ‘Do you know, I never think about him’.
Speaking about his breakdown that followed, he said it was truly like the feeling of having the ‘rug pulled from under you’.
‘That’s the only way I can describe it. It’s like someone went like that, and I fell over, and I couldn’t get back up. [It was] like I broke both my arms and legs.
‘I thought I wasn’t going to get out of it. I went back to live with my mum because I didn’t want to be in my house, because there were too many memories of things in there.’
Speaking about the split on his podcast Rylan: How to Be in Love with Stephen Fry last year, he said: ‘We got married in 2015.
‘That same year, yeah. So it would have been my 10-year anniversary this year.
Stephen then asked if Rylan felt any kind of responsibility to represent gay marriage, as one of the few public LGBTQ+ celebrities.
He asked: ‘But did you feel also that – when it broke up and you were divorced – did you feel that there was in some sense you were letting down the idea of gay marriage, because we have a duty to show that our marriages are as robust and strong as any heterosexual?’
Rylan said: ‘There was part of me that just felt like a complete and utter failure. I felt like I’d failed personally, but I felt like I’d found publicly on behalf of – the gays! You know, I’m not, I’m not ‘head gay’, it’s not that.’
Stephen reassured: ‘No, you’re not, exactly. You’re not a poster child for gayness.’
Rylan continued: ‘But you do feel like, yeah, I’m going to get married, I want to get married, I can get married.
‘But when it doesn’t work out, you don’t want people to go, “you see that’s why they f****** shouldn’t get married”.’
Stephen was quick to insist: ‘You can get married again if you want…’, causing Rylan to hint at his divorce struggles as he quipped: ‘Yeah, with a prenup this time, I’m not going through that again.’
Rylan (L) and boyfriend Kennedy Bates (R) looked more loved-up than ever during their January getaway to the Maldives
Rylan previously revealed his own infidelity during his marriage with Dan caused the downfall of their relationship.
After he revealed that he had been unfaithful, Dan eventually ended the relationship after the heart-wrenching confession.
Following the heartbreak and the deterioration of his marriage, Rylan had suicidal thoughts, and his weight dropped to just nine stone.
He opened up about these challenging times in his second autobiography, TEN: The Decade That Changed My Future.
In the book, he penned a candid reflection and said: ‘I got in a relationship quite young and just went with it. Now I know I’m my own person. I’m not going to settle for something that’s not right. In a way it’s been a bit of a gift.’
‘I’m happy to have sex with someone and that’s that, that’s not a problem. But do I want more? Of course I want more. Am I going to enjoy myself on the way? Abso-f***ing-lutely.’
In January, Rylan went public with new man Kennedy Bates, as they shared snaps from a sun-soaked Maldives holiday.
Rylan and Kennedy stayed at the lavish Adaaran Select Meedhupparu hotel and enjoyed cocktails on the beach while topping up their tans.
Kennedy made his feelings clear as he drew a huge heart on Rylan’s back in suncream before later holding hands as they took in the scenery.
The lovebirds could not wipe the smiles off their faces and swam together in the clear blue ocean ahead of joining a group of pals for dinner.
Rylan captioned the post: ‘Maldives. You were perfect. New year, new friends, new beginnings’, to which Kennedy replied: ‘A fantastic little holiday we had’.
Discussing this relationship on The Assembly, he says: ‘When I first started dating Kennedy, and I told [my mum] about him, she was like, ‘He’s handsome,’ and he is handsome.
‘And then she was like, ‘So, has anything happened?’ And I’m like, ‘Shut up! Shut up!’
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