Comedian Seann Walsh has said he is suffering panic attacks following the public backlash over his kiss with his Strictly Come Dancing partner.
The scandal erupted in October 2018 after the then-married professional dancer Katya Jones was photographed kissing Walsh, who was also in a relationship, on a night out in London. Both made public apologies after the photos were published.
Walsh and his girlfriend Rebecca Humphries subsequently split, with Jones and her former husband, Strictly professional Neil Jones, announcing their split in August 2019.
Speaking on the Take Flight podcast, Walsh described the impact the episode has had on his mental health.
The stand-up, who previously suffered panic attacks as a young man, said: "The panic attacks came back. Big, big panic attacks and I ended up having what I later found out were vertigo seizures.
"I had one the other day, I just lied down. I had to lie down in the street, it's quite humiliating. It’s London so nobody gives a sh**.
"I have to relive what happened, still. I can be OK and then suddenly the memories of it all come back, that I can’t stop thinking about it.
"It defeats me and beats me until the place starts spinning and I lose balance and fall and then I start screaming.
"So I still get them. They’re less frequent. I’d never had them before.
"Obviously I’m on some sort of anti-anxiety, anti-depression, it’s called Sertraline, to try and help with that. For me the big one is exercise is what helps me. It really, really helps me deal with that."
Walsh said his passion for comedy had waned in the wake of the controversy.
"I wanted to be a comedian pretty much my whole life," he said.
"As everyone does when they get involved with anything in life. You want to leave your mark. You don’t want to leave a mark the way I left a mark.
"But you have got to have some sort of self-belief that you can do something special and make as many people laugh as possible.
"And that had gone really. That had gone with the kiss and the statement really."
