Amanda Owen recently disclosed that she experienced a complete shutdown while confronting a challenging health crisis, revealing the steep “price” she has paid for living under public scrutiny. Widely recognized as the Yorkshire Shepherdess, Amanda opened up about her difficult journey with an eating disorder that emerged following a major personal upheaval.

Renowned for her roles on Channel 5’s Our Yorkshire Farm and Our Farm Next Door, the mother of nine resides on the sprawling 2,000-acre Ravenseat Farm in Swaledale, Yorkshire. Despite no longer sharing a home with her former husband, Clive, Amanda continues to manage the farm and co-parent their children. The couple parted ways in 2022, concluding a 22-year-long marriage.

In a recent candid interview, Amanda shared that she battled her eating disorder in the wake of her separation and is only now beginning to recover.

However, this was not the only challenge Amanda has faced lately. She also revealed that she has been dealing with four different mental health issues that compounded alongside her eating disorder.

Speaking to the Mail, Amanda confessed, “I just shut down. Physical and mental health are intertwined, and issues like anxiety, depression, paranoia, agoraphobia, and an eating disorder all merged into one.”

Adding to her struggles, Amanda has been subjected to vicious online comments about her weight loss, recalling a particularly harsh insult where she was referred to as a “bag of bones.” Unfortunately, she continues to grapple with online trolling.

She added: “I remember sitting in the sheep pens in the dark, just hiding. It’s the price you pay for living your life in the open, for being observed. It’s like having a post mortem before you’re dead.”

Amanda elaborated further on the eating disorder, confessing that she had “always had issues” with eating and food, something she says became “amplified” as a result of her pregnancies.

She explained the adverse impact of stardom on her health. Amanda also revealed that the “media intrusion got to me”, as she detailed how the uncertainty of what might occur next impacted both her physical and mental health.

Indeed, Amanda revealed that she was to and fro from the hospital, describing it as a “critical time”, and, in a shocking admission, Clive said there had been nights when he was scared that Amanda wouldn’t be there the following day.

The TV star then recounted how she’d experienced a problem swallowing and how she’d vomited blood one night. She added: “The eating disorder has always bubbled up beneath the surface but I never imagined it would happen to that degree.”

However, in an update that will serve as welcome relief to fans, Amanda added that she’s, thankfully, “out of the woods”, and, although she noted that you “have your moments”, she’s “here to tell the tale”.

In related news, Amanda also recently shared the experience of her first childbirth and how “it all went wrong” as she ended up in hospital, despite planning a home birth, at a time when the UK was in the grips of the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Speaking to Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time, she said: “Yeah, and it all went wrong, and she got stuck and I ended up having to go into hospital, literally, with a baby completely stuck.

“I didn’t know that your body goes into a permanent contraction, but it does. It’s not good. I had the caesarean, and of course it was, like, well, you know, now natural birth could be an issue.”