Richard Osman has spoken about the significant financial and emotional challenges his family faced after his father left when Osman was nine years old. His father confessed to an affair and subsequently moved away with another partner, leaving Osman's mother, Brenda, to raise him and his siblings.
During his childhood in Sussex, Osman stated that his family lived without "freedom or money." His mother took on various jobs, eventually becoming a primary schoolteacher, but the financial strain was persistent. Osman has since used his success as a best-selling author and television presenter to ensure his mother no longer has to struggle, providing financial security.
"I’ve made sure my mum doesn’t have to struggle, because she struggled forever. It’s freedom, money. Because I didn’t have freedom and anybody who grew up without money knows that," Osman told The Times. He added, "I’ve got more money than when I was growing up, that’s for sure. I’ve made sure my family are safe and secure."
The family home, where his mother now resides in a retirement home, served as inspiration for Osman's popular series, The Thursday Murder Club. Following his father's departure, contact was lost with that side of the family, though Osman noted that the other side of his family provided substantial support.
Osman has previously expressed a lack of interest in exploring his paternal family history, even during his appearance on the television program "Who Do You Think You Are?" He described his father leaving as the most significant negative event in his life and felt no connection to his paternal relatives, viewing them as strangers. He credited his grandfather, Tom 'Fred' Wright, as a significant influence, stating he owed much of who he is to him and that he once aspired to be a detective like his grandfather.
Osman has also linked his father's departure to his own struggles with food addiction, which he has described as "shameful and bizarre." He believes his issues with food developed as a coping mechanism during his childhood, a period he describes as traumatic due to the loss of familial certainty and the lack of open discussion about such issues in the 1970s. He explained that he suppressed these feelings as a child, presenting a happy and secure exterior, but these unresolved issues resurfaced in his late twenties and early thirties, necessitating a confrontation with the trauma he had not processed as a child.