This Morning' Star Reveals Little-Known Diagnosis That Left Him Weighing Just Six Stone

Long before he was ready to speak about it openly, a diagnosis had been reshaping his days, pulling him through exhaustion, fear, and the slow work of keeping himself alive.

“This Morning” star Jordan Cox has now revealed the devastating impact of that long-hidden illness, one that left him dangerously underweight and struggling to keep his strength.

Speaking on a health charity’s podcast, he shared that he has been living with the condition for more than a decade.

His illness had roots that stretched throughout his teens. He often struggled with stomach pain, though at the time he and his family didn’t think too much of it. Things changed when, at around 17, he became unwell after a bout of food poisoning, and his symptoms never fully settled.

Several hospital visits followed, and after months of uncertainty, he was eventually given the clear but difficult diagnosis. He had Crohn’s disease, a long-term inflammatory condition that can affect any part of the digestive tract.

Medication helped for a while, enough for him to regain some stability, but by his early twenties, it had begun to lose its effect.

Almost everything he ate caused pain, and even walking a few metres left him out of breath. As his symptoms intensified and his weight began to fall again, he was taken in for further assessment, where doctors found his bowel was severely inflamed.

He described the moment he was admitted, saying he weighed just six stone ten despite being more than six foot three. “I was literally skin and bone,” he said:

“There are pictures of me in hospital, and I still look back at them thinking, ‘What on Earth?’”

Doctors soon made it clear that surgery was unavoidable, but that his body was far too frail to endure it. He said on the Crohn’s & Colitis UK Podcast:

“They basically said to me you need some surgery to get rid of your diseased bowel, but we can’t do it while you’re so skinny.”

To stabilise him, he was placed on TPN, or Total Parenteral Nutrition, receiving round-the-clock intravenous feeding while being kept completely nil by mouth.

A small lift came when staff told him he could finally be given a hint of liquid again. Rather than offering a drink, they dipped a sponge on a stick into tea and brushed it across his tongue so his body would not be overwhelmed. It was only a trace of flavour, but the first he’d tasted in a very long time.

He spent more than three months in the hospital while doctors worked to bring him back to a safer weight. When he was strong enough, they carried out ileostomy surgery, removing around 30cm of bowel.

The adjustment period was substantial, but he said the procedure gave him a new sense of freedom, allowing him to eat without pain and restoring his energy.

About a year later, once his health had stabilised, the ileostomy was reversed. Now four years post-op, he describes his life as largely healthy.

Even amid the most difficult days in the hospital, he found himself searching for something that could anchor him. Looking for a way to stay productive, he launched his own money-saving blog and wrote his first book from his hospital bed. The book later became a best-seller.

In truth, this chapter was an extension of something that began long before his diagnosis. What started as a teenager’s simple attempt to help his mother through a period of financial strain eventually became the foundation of the identity he would build in the years that followed.

Today, he is widely known as the Coupon Kid, but the story behind that name began much earlier.

He was 15 when he began searching for ways to cut household costs, wanting to ease the pressure his mum was under. Coupons quickly became his tool of choice, and before long, he was sharing tips with others across social media.

At 16, he completed a shop worth £600 for just 4p by stacking coupons, an eye-catching moment that brought national attention and encouraged him to help others do the same. He continued even through setbacks, including a business attempt that didn’t work out.

Between the ages of 18 and 22, he worked at MoneySavingExpert alongside Martin Lewis, where several of his stories went viral — including the instance where he found it was cheaper to fly from Sheffield to Essex via Berlin than to buy a direct train ticket.

He later went self-employed, teaching people how to save money and track down the best deals. Today he runs a daily alert service, speaks at public and corporate events, writes for various publications, and appears on TV and radio.