Sam Thompson has opened up about his “uncomfortable” year following his split from Zara McDermott.
Sam, 32, and Zara, 28, split in December after five years of dating and the Love Island star moved on soon afterwards with One Direction singer, Louis Tomlinson, 33.
The I’m A Celebrity! winner, meanwhile, has been linked to Love Island star Sami Elishi over the past few months.
Thompson has now reflected on how he has changed since parting ways with McDermott, revealing his recent 260-mile Unicef challenge helped him deal with “pent-up” emotion.
“It's such a weird one because I still look to people for help all the time,” he said on his close friend Pete Wicks’ Man Made podcast.
“I look to you, if I'm ever in a problem, I'll call you, I'll call Marvin, I'll call Tony, I'll call Ryan, my brother-in-law, I'll call [his sister] Louise.”
Thompson went on: “I have a lot of people who I depend on and as much as I love that, I still feel inside like I'm not quite at the place where I can take care of myself.”
Wicks asked: “So do you think then that asking people for help or being dependent on other people makes you less of a man?”
Thompson replied: “Asking for help, no. I think I lean a little bit too heavily into the depending.”
Wicks probed: “So at what point do you think you're going to start depending on yourself? And how will you know?”
Thompson said: “Oh, that's a great question. I’ll be honest with you, mate. After the Unicef challenge, I already think I started doing it more.
“Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations and realizing that you can handle uncomfortable situations.
“I mean, this year, there's been one big uncomfortable situation. I feel like you need a bad year or not bad year but an uncomfortable year to change who you are as a person.
“You need almost like a shock to put you into sort of like a new phase of your life.”
Thompson added that he’s always been an emotional person, and grew up “crying a lot” and “really feeling things”.
He explained that he repressed that side of him at school and admitted it only comes out now in certain situations.
The reality star said: “I remember on the challenge, I had it on day one and I was like don't cry on f*****g day one I was like come on man like you can't be that guy cries on the day one.
“I remember I just finished the first marathon - obviously just done my leg in - I remember like just crying into the physios f*****g arms and I was like, ‘What the hell is going on?’
“Then Ben Shepard turned up on day one. I didn't know Ben Shepard that well, he's a lovely guy and I really needed him actually.
“But like I just cried to Ben Shepard, and I was like, ‘What the f**k is going on?’ I just feel like I think I must just have so much pent-up stuff in me.”
