Donal Skehan joined Darren Kennedy on his new podcast, The Number, to discuss fatherhood, personal struggles, and his father's cancer diagnosis.
Speaking about the "hardest year" of his life, the TV chef and cookbook author revealed that in the months leading up to the 2020 onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he had been struggling with "no consistency to life", overwhelmed with the demands of his career and being forced to suddenly uproot his family from LA back to Ireland at the beginning of the first lockdown.
"I think we wanted to find more consistency to life and I knew the answer to that was to come home," Donal told Darren.
"I don't know that we were necessarily ready to do that when we did, we were certainly talking about it, but having a newborn, [we were] moving with what was a bit of a sense of urgency during the pandemic.
"No one knew what was going on and we traveled in a highly stressful time where the two Uber cars who picked us up, the guys were wearing hazmat suits and masks, so it was adding to the anxiety and the fear of traveling - and the guilt actually that you had about traveling during that time was another aspect of it."
This sudden move and the struggle to raise a newborn and a toddler was soon coupled with the devastating news that his father had prostate cancer - all of which left him struggling with his mental health throughout 2020.
"My dad, three months into us moving home, got prostate cancer so our lifeline - the 3k, 5k [restrictions] or whatever it was at that time - just shut down because he couldn't be near us, and my mum subsequently couldn't be near us either."
Reflecting on the year, Donal told Darren that "elements of anxiety and depression" soon crept in, but his some "amazing friends" stepped up, lending support where possible throughout the various lockdowns.
"Our world was torn apart to a certain extent, but then I think, you know, it was the makings of where we're at now," he admits.
"Had we not gone through that, we would not have the understanding of what we wanted and it really did put a focus on things, but I do remember, I think towards the end of the year, I do remember filming a TV show and going 'I actually can't do this anymore, I can't give the energy... I can't basically do the things that make me who I am."
Elsewhere in the wide-ranging discussion, as well as commenting on the jaw-dropping cost of having a child in America, and hos parenthood changed his life, Donal reveals the numbers that have had the most significance in his life.
To listen to The Number, click here.
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