Where is John Hathaway? That’s been the question on many UFC fans lips since his last fight in 2014 and the Englishman has now broken his silence.

Hathaway was last seen competing back in March 2014 at The Ultimate Fighter: China Finale when he took on Dong Hyun Kim in the main event. The Englishman was returning from an 18-month layoff on the sidelines that evening and he suffered a devastating knockout loss when Kim landed a flush spinning back elbow. Hathaway then disappeared from the scene for another extended period, before being booked to face Gunnar Nelson at UFC 189 in July 2015. Unfortunately, Hathaway never made it back to the Octagon and he pulled out of the fight citing an undisclosed injury.

Since then, Hathaway has laid low in the public eye, but speaking on Alex Blackhouse’s ‘Whiskey & Barbells’ Facebook Live show on Jan. 19, he explained that he’d been indefinitely sidelined by illness.

“I can tell you that sadly I suffer from UC which is Ulcerative Colitis,” Hathaway said. “It’s a form of Chron’s just in your lower colon. “This is why I’ve taken so much time out now because it would kill me every time to have to pull out of the fight. Because it’s an autoimmune disease, the closer I got to a fight, the more intense things got. It would normally trigger it to flare up and then again my body was just kind of attacking itself and I could barely keep anything going or at least be in physical shape to actually compete.”

UFC fans will know that two weight UFC champion Georges St-Pierre is also currently suffering from UC. Hathaway went on to explain that he’s still trying to figure out how he can manage his body correctly in order to get into fighting shape, but given his current state, it looks incredibly likely that his fighting career is a closed book.

“I’m still at the moment trying to find the right balance for my body,” Hathaway said. “I’ll look to compete in something that isn’t so drastic or where I need to cut weight, something like a grappling competition or at least try to pick up my sparring to at least a level where it’s similar in intensity to what a fight would cause. “So yeah, I’ll take it from there really. It used to kill me to have to pull out of something so big.”

Best of luck with the recovery John.