PHIL VICKERY: Bankruptcy and divorce made me question my purpose in the world - then I put on budgy smugglers and bodybuilding gave me new life
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It is late September, the autumn chill beginning to bite, and Phil Vickery is standing outside a small theatre in Milton Keynes wearing a skimpy pair of black pants. His old mate from the gym, Lee, stands beside him with a bottle of True Tan, scanning his hulking body, ready to slather any white bits into a gloriously artificial shade of bronzed orange. Someone has to do it.
![[He has admitted he lost his sense of purpose before finding bodybuilding and fake tan]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/13/11/93117479-14189505-image-a-2_1734090431546.jpg)
'Budgie smugglers, full tan, waxed, no hair… you're s****ing yourself,' says Vickery, reflecting on the dramatic leap from a rough-and-ready, World Cup-winning prop to a pristinely chiselled bodybuilder at the Ultimate Physiques British Open. 'Pump, stage, lights, pose. It's totally unnatural, totally outside my comfort zone, a totally alien place. I'd shaved bits of my legs and shoulders for taping as a rugby player but this was a whole different world.
![[At his lowest ebb, bodybuilding offered Vickery a dose of endorphins and escapism]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/13/11/93117483-14189505-image-a-3_1734090536163.jpg)
'Afterwards, I stropped in the service station, got out the car and I'm bright orange. People must've been thinking, "B***** hell, where has this bloke come from?"'. It is an 80-mile drive from his home in Somerset but Vickery's personal journey to the show stage has been less straightforward. Queen's Honours, delight, divorce, bankruptcy. Almighty highs and crushing lows that somehow blend into a comforting steady state with a tight vacuum flex of the abdominals.
![[The bonds between England's glory boys of 2003 have been left to gather dust and rust (pictured: Phil Vickery, centre, with Steve Thompson, right, and Neil Back, left)]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/13/11/93117677-14189505-image-m-5_1734090675755.jpg)
