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GOLLY OLLY!
OLLY MURS today reveals the drama behind his emergency hospital dash when doctors feared he had potentially fatal blood poisoning.
The Voice judge was recovering from a knee op three months earlier but a metal plate that had been inserted got infected — and medics suspected it was sepsis.
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His surgeon told him: “You need to come into London now. We need to operate within the next couple of hours. Go and get a bag.”
Olly said: “They had to open me up again in case the infection spread. So it got nasty.”
Today the 36-year-old singer laughs at how, despite the drama last year, he didn’t instantly tell his stunning girlfriend Amelia Tank — because she was on a hen weekend in Ibiza “having the time of her life.”
And when she visited him straight off the plane as he recovered, 27-year-old Amelia was struggling with a nightmare hangover.
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Olly said: “All I could smell was the alcohol. She couldn’t even speak — she’d lost her voice.
“I think if anything she needed the bed more than I did. Bless her, she just looked like when you come home from a really heavy weekend.”
Football-mad Olly had the initial surgery in June 2019 to reconstruct a torn ligament in his knee.
He told how the injury had put an end to his dreams of becoming a professional footballer more than a decade ago.
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From 2006 to 2008 he played semi-pro for his local Essex Isthmian League team Witham Town, before he found stardom as runner-up on The X Factor in 2009.
He said earlier this year: “Back then I didn’t have any money to do the operation or get the physio afterwards. I needed to pay the bills.”
Olly is now confident he is over the knee trauma, which threatened to end his on-stage dodgy dad dancing.
He revealed he originally decided to go ahead with the painful operation after a doctor told him that otherwise he would soon need the joint replaced.
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He told The Sun: “That was quite worrying to hear. He said, ‘It’s either we take a chance, we do what we need to do and then you’ll be fine or you’ll have a knee replacement’.
“Imagine me on stage, trying to dance with a knee replacement. It was never going to happen.
“That’s my act, that’s me. I love singing, I love dancing and performing for people and that was the most important thing.
“So I was lucky that, fingers crossed, everything is actually fantastic. I’m very lucky.”
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And despite his girlfriend’s boozy bed side manner, Olly credits Amelia — a bodybuilder and fitness fanatic — with helping him to get back into shape after his weight ballooned during his recovery.
In February 5ft 9in Olly revealed he weighed 14st 3lb because his operation had stopped him exercising.
But thanks to the strict diet that Amelia put him on — allowing for the occasional indulgence — he shed more than 2st in a month.
He said: “It’s incredible. In the morning I get a fresh smoothie made for me as soon as I wake up.
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“It’s got mixed berries in it, protein, spinach, oats, peanut butter. She’s making me all these amazing smoothies every day.
"She cooks me great dinners every evening because I’m terrible at cooking.”
Even so, Olly is occasionally baffled at Amelia’s low-carb diet. He said: “She made me a chicken korma but with no rice. It was the most weird thing — it was just sauce and chicken on a plate.
“I was like, ‘Where’s the rice?’ She’s just been trying to keep me healthy. Obviously I’ve had my bad moments, eat sugar, eat my biscuits, eat my McDonald’s and all that sort of stuff.”
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But he may be unlikely to reach for the crisps after his snack habit got him in hot water during lockdown.
In May naughty Olly cut the bottom off a pack of Pringles and popped his todger in. When Amelia reached into the pack she recoiled in disgust — and Olly put the stunt on his TikTok channel.
He was forced to apologise after fans did not see the funny side, and he tweeted: “My intention was only to make people smile and laugh during these trying times.”
The fun-loving couple met when Olly saw Amelia’s Instagram snaps and messaged her.
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City high-flier Amelia — who is known as Tank the Bank — has competed at the Miami Pro World Championships for bodybuilding and for their first date she took Olly to an Essex gym, but the relationship fizzled out.
Then, after being single for four years, last year Olly decided to call Amelia while recovering from his op.
He said: “I was away from this world of showbiz and I was just at home.
“I had my hair shaved, I had one leg and a big belly — I don’t know why she’s with me!”
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Olly’s peak fitness has come at the perfect time, as he is back playing for England in ITV’s annual charity fundraiser Soccer Aid on Sunday.
After leading the England squad to victory in 2018, last year he was sidelined by his injury.
And watching last year’s defeat to the World XI team, managed by Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan, was just as painful as his op.
Olly said: “It was truly awful to watch the rest of the world pick up the trophy — and especially that idiot. I was mortified.”
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Olly was further devastated this year when coronavirus meant the charity match had to be postponed from June.
And with lockdown grounding non-essential travel, he was unable to muck in with Soccer Aid’s charity partner Unicef.
He said: “I was supposed to be going to the Ivory Coast this year to show the effects of plastic waste in Africa.
"I was all ready to go but the lockdown came in that week and a lot of countries were shutting down, and the airports, so we didn’t get a chance to go, unfortunately.
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“People in Unicef have come up with this amazing scheme where they can use the plastic with the bottles to actually build houses and build shelter for people.
“I was going to go over there to see that project and how it helped change families’ lives in some of the tough parts.”
Olly is also keen to help people struggling with the hardships of the pandemic here in Britain.
He added: “People forget Unicef don’t just work across the rest of the world, they also do fantastic work here in the UK.
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“That will be shown on the show on the night — the work they do, not just around the world but also here.
“The money’s really going to make a huge difference to people that right now, with this pandemic, are struggling.
“So everything we raise on the night is going to make a massive, massive difference. I really hope people get behind it and back it. Even if it’s just £1 it would help a kid so much.”
Olly says he may shed a tear when he finally steps out on the pitch at Old Trafford with team-mate Mark Wright and manager Wayne Rooney on Sunday.
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He said: “From a personal perspective I’ve worked so hard to get fit for Soccer Aid, and to get my life back.
“I’ll be quite emotional actually, doing Soccer Aid this year. It’s been a long, hard battle with training and getting my knee back to where I want it to be.”
Olly made good his promise to pose naked after mentoring Molly Hocking to victory on The Voice last year.
And he promises his victory dance will be just as outrageous if England take home the trophy this year.
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He said with a laugh: “If I win this year there’ll be some sort of photo after the game, for sure.
“I’ve got a good idea actually of what I’m going to do on this one, so be prepared.
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“I don’t want to jinx it but I’ve always got an idea of something to do that’s stupid and funny.”
- Soccer Aid is on ITV at 6.30pm on Sunday, September 6
Olly Murs makes a splash narrowly avoiding his girlfriend Amelia floating in the pool at his Essex mansion
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