Tom Grennan said a violent attack when he was 18 set him on a years-long slide into depression and poor physical health, a trajectory he has since reversed as he appears in the October issue of Men's Health UK.
The 30-year-old singer told the magazine the first assault occurred outside a chicken shop in his hometown of Bedford and left him with such serious jaw injuries that he required surgery and metal plates. In comments first reported in interviews with other outlets, Grennan said the attack made him feel “rewired” and precipitated what he described as chronic depression.
“I went from thinking that I was loved by everyone, this golden boy, to being someone hated by the entire world,” Grennan told The Guardian in earlier remarks recounted to Men's Health. He said the experience left him struggling with dark thoughts and uncertainty about who he was.
Grennan said he was attacked a second time in New York in 2022, an episode he described as less damaging because he had learned how to cope. “I woke up quickly and I immediately knew I had to snap out of it, so I didn't sink into a depression again,” he told Men's Health, adding that long runs and endurance training for events such as the Iron Man have helped him confront difficult emotions.
The singer also reflected on his twenties as a period of poor fitness and heavy drinking. He told the magazine he was in a “bottomless pit of going out every night, boozing and eating rubbish,” and that the lifestyle left him out of shape and struggling on stage. In the Men's Health photo shoot that accompanies the interview, Grennan displays a markedly more muscular physique.
Grennan has publicly tied his renewed focus on fitness to a broader effort to change his life. He said he reached a turning point when he realised he needed “something, and some people, that really challenged me,” and began rigorous training that he said exposed “every dark side of who you are.”
Alongside his health struggles and recovery, Grennan has marked recent personal and professional milestones. In an Instagram post this year he announced his latest album had reached No. 1, saying he had achieved three consecutive No. 1 albums and likening the accomplishment to joining an “esteemed club” alongside acts such as The Beatles and Oasis. In the same post he disclosed that he and his wife, Danniella Carraturo, had privately welcomed their first child, a daughter named Dottie.
Grennan and Carraturo married in May 2024 in Majorca, after becoming engaged in 2022. The couple met in 2020 and briefly split before getting back together during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Grennan has said in earlier interviews. He told Australian radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O Henderson that the pair first bonded after meeting in a lift and sharing a cigarette.
At the wedding reception, Grennan said he performed a song he wrote for his bride because he felt dyslexia limited his ability to express himself in a speech. He has said becoming a father has given him “everything” and that music provided purpose while parenthood now grounds him.
The full interview and photo shoot appear in the October issue of Men's Health UK, on sale now. Grennan has also said he looks forward to an upcoming tour in September and thanked fans for their support as he balances his music career with family life.