• Rugby referee reveals battle with bulimia on BBC’s Desert Island Discs • Owens also says he attempted suicide before coming out

The rugby union referee Nigel Owens has said that he asked if he could be chemically castrated after realising he was gay. Owens said the pressure of refereeing the 2015 Rugby World Cup final was nothing compared to the struggle to accept his homosexuality.

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Owens also revealed his health struggles. He tried to lose weight and became bulimic; at another point, in an attempt to gain weight, he started going to the gym, then became hooked on steroids. He also described going to a doctor and saying: “I do not want to be gay. Can I get chemically castrated?”

The 45-year-old told the BBC’s Desert Island Discs that he attempted suicide, and was just 20 minutes from death. Following this, he came out publicly in 2007 after realising he could not live a lie.

Speaking about his suicide attempt, he told Desert Island Discs presenter Kirsty Young: “I cried that night and realised: ‘I need to grow up.’

“Refereeing that World Cup final between Australia and New Zealand in front of 85,000 people and the millions of people watching at home, scrutinising every single decision you make under a huge amount of pressure, was nothing compared to the challenge of accepting who I was. Accepting who I was then, saved my life.”

Owens was born and raised in the close-knit village of Mynyddcerrig in Carmarthenshire, and said that realising he was gay felt “totally alien” to him. He said he “would have done anything to be ‘normal’ in people’s eyes”.