Shooting end of my thumb off killed my confidence
The former Union J singer tells ELIZABETH ARCHER how an accident when he was 16 changed his life
HAD it not been for a freak accident when he was a teenager, life might have turned out very differently for Josh Cuthbert, former Union J band member who rose to fame on X Factor. Josh lost part of his left thumb while shooting an air rifle and the accident ended his dream of becoming a professional goalkeeper.
“I laugh at it now because it’s just part of me and it’s something my mates tease me about. But at the time it was horrible and terrifying,” says Josh, 27, who is married to model Chloe Lloyd.
The incident happened when Josh was 16.
“I’d always asked my grandad if I could use his air rifle to shoot some targets in his garden and he said: ‘Not until you’re 16’. So when I turned 16, I asked him and he let me. It was an old gun. I was putting the bullet in, doing what he said, but the gun was faulty and it shot off as I was putting the bullet in.
“The mechanism snapped and it clean cut off about a quarter of my thumb. It was like when you watch a film and you see blood spurting out.”
At first, Josh struggled to process what was happening. “I remember thinking: ‘What the heck?’ Then I remember waking up in an ambulance about an hour later.”
The incident left Josh permanently scarred. “It was absolutely horrible. You don’t realise how much you use your thumb... to hold a glass or a PlayStation controller, or drive and change gear.
“I remember thinking: ‘This is going to stop me from being able to do so many normal things. Especially in sport – I was a goalkeeper at the time.
“It was just before my prom and I had to go to prom with a massive bandage on and I couldn’t even fit it through my suit so I must have looked like a right muppet.”
It took Josh months to heal properly. “It was a lengthy process to get me back to a point where I could use it again,” he says. “It was a tough period, it felt like forever.
“I had regular hospital trips and it took around nine months for the stitches to heal properly. In a split second, something freakish can happen and change everything.
“I had to take a season off football and when I did return it took away a lot of my confidence. I had a metal plate in the thumb of my goalie glove to help add protection, because every time I saved a shot with my left hand it would be extremely painful.”
Over a decade later, Josh has learnt to accept his injured thumb – which is slightly shorter than his right one – and it even has its own fan account on Twitter.
“I always remember we had a huge poster of the band for our tour and whoever edited the photo edited my thumb so it looked like a normal thumb.
“At the time I was a bit distressed because I was like: ‘This is me. It doesn’t look like a normal thumb but who cares? That’s me.’”
Josh rose to fame in 2012 as one third of boyband Triple J, when they auditioned for X Factor. Life in the public eye hasn’t been easy and he says at times has made him feel anxious and down.
“My whole life changed within 24 hours, it was as dramatic as that. I remember when our audition was shown on TV. I had 120 Twitter followers and I went to 50k overnight.As exciting as it is and you’re following your dream, it does come with a lot of pressure.”
The band came in fourth place on
X Factor and later won a recording contract with Sony but their success was short-lived. Three months after their single hit No 2 in the midweek charts, their contract ended.
Josh tells how shortly afterwards he “hit rock bottom”, becoming “angry, bitter and frustrated”.
“You feel a bit worthless, nobody really cares anymore,” he told Twitter followers.
BUT despite suffering with anxiety most of his life, Josh, who left the band in 2018 to pursue an alternative career as a radio presenter and Instagram influencer, has only recently begun to recognise his struggles with mental health for what they are.
“I didn’t realise what anxiety was until the last six months or so,” he says. “Mental health has been such a taboo until recently, so you almost don’t know what those feelings are.
“I’ve been feeling anxious for years now and only in the last year I’ve realised it’s anxiety.”
Josh struggles with insecurity about his appearance and sometimes feels like his model wife’s “ugly other half”.At times public events have triggered panic attacks. “I experienced a mini one before the National Television
Awards this year.We were in the car and we were about 10 minutes away and my heart was going, I was sweating and feeling so insecure – very anxious and scared.
“I’m lucky enough to have gone to lots of premieres and events and sometimes I’m absolutely fine. Then sometimes my insecurities get on top of me and I feel a panic attack or anxiety attack. They’re not pleasant, it’s a scary moment.”
Now he has started opening up to his 400,000 Instagram followers about his struggles as he believes it’s important for men to be open about their feelings. “I want other men out there to feel it’s OK, it’s not a sign of weakness or not being manly. It’s completely normal.”
Now Josh is managing his anxiety with exercise. “Fitness has a massive impact on my mental health,” he says. “It makes a huge difference to my day.”
And he tries to take regular breaks from social media. “A lot of the time I’m using it for work and not for pleasure. It does affect my mental health. I set aside times where I don’t go on social media, because otherwise it’s easy to get bogged down in things.”
He hasn’t tried therapy or medication but says it’s something he’d consider in the future. “I’m open to it and I would never say no. I’ll do whatever it takes to make myself feel as positive as possible.”