'Former World’s Fattest Man' Who Once Weighed 70 Stone Is Leaving the US

Once the fattest man in the world, a Brit plans on moving back to the UK from the US so he can claim benefits.

Originally from Suffolk in the UK, the 59-year-old Paul Jonathan Mason announced his plans on returning home on Monday. Since his life-saving gastric band surgery in 2010, Paul almost doubled in size and went from his lowest weight of 275 lbs to 500 lbs.

“Looking forward, I need to return to the UK where I will be eligible for the assistance I need to get my life back on track,” Paul said.

The former postal worker moved to Massachusetts in 2014 and moved in with his vegetarian fiancée Rebecca Mountain. After they split in 2018, Paul relapsed and have since almost doubled his weight, which puts him at risk of several health complications.

Apart from Paul’s alarming weight gain, he also let his visa expire, which leaves him with no choice but to leave the States.

“Over the years living in the US, I made some wrong decisions which have led to some bad consequences. Some of those being letting my visa expire, moving in with someone who was a bad influence and because of these and other choices I made, I’ve put on weight,” he said.

Paul weighed 980 lbs at his heaviest and spent his days bed-bound before the NHS granted him gastric bypass surgery in 2010. While in the US, he also received two operations free operations at Lennox Hill Hospital in New York to remove about 60 lbs worth of excess skin.

Because of his weight and overeating, Paul needs to have a herniated stomach staple fixed and also requires a double knee replacement, which he hopes to get done through the NHS once he returns to the UK.

Paul once consumed up to 20,000 calories a day, and in 2002, the fire department had to hoist him out of his house by forklift and take him to hospital in a five-ton ambulance during a medical emergency.

Over the past year, Paul suffered a few health setbacks. In January he suffered from cellulitis in both legs while he lost a toe last summer after he contracted MRSA.

In November last year, The Sun reported that Paul got charged with theft at a Walmart close to his Massachusetts home. He used his mobility scooter to sneak out $225-worth of phone chargers, earphones, aftershave, and perfume.

"Store security advised the male party, later identified as Paul Mason, failed to pay for the items he had in his basket totaling approximately $225. I was further informed that they having (sic) been watching Paul as he has done this in the past, as he fills up a basket and then leaves the store utilizing a motorized cart," a police officer’s report read. The 59-year-old got fined $50.

Before Paul moved to the US in 2014, his care cost the British taxpayers $127,000 per year while the estimated total, including his surgery, amounted to $1.9 million.

While heartbreak made Paul pack on the pounds, it did just the opposite for a woman in Idaho. After the 28-year-old got dumped by her boyfriend, she lost 124 pounds in what she referred to as her “heartbreak diet.”