He once tipped the scales at 70 stone and doctors warned he would be lucky to live past 40. But former world fattest man Paul Mason has defied predictions to make it to his 60s – and is counting the days to retirement age. Paul turns 64 this year and longs to savour life as a pensioner.
Although he is bedridden and his weight has crept back up to 36 stone, he insists he will never go back to the dark old days and will do everything in his power not to become the world’s heaviest person again. He said: “A doctor once told me I would be lucky to make 40 and now here I am, nearly a pensioner. I may not walk again now but I am at one with that.
I just want to use my time to help others and make sure they don’t make the same mistakes I did.” Paul gained fame in the documentary The World’s Fattest Man, which showed him at 70st and told how he ate 20,000 calories a day, including 40 chocolate bars, huge fry-ups and takeaways. A gastric bypass in 2010 helped him shed weight but left him with large folds of skin, which were removed in two operations, and he dropped to 19st.
In January 2014, the former postman got engaged to Rebecca Mountain, an American he met on Facebook . The pair moved to the US, but the relationship soon fell apart and Paul moved back to the UK alone. In 2021 he hit a low point with depression and became seriously ill during the Covid pandemic and had to be taken to hospital.
Paul was filmed by bystanders as he was hauled out of his accommodation by fi.
