Jimmy Carr made a heartbreaking admission about his mental health as he opened up to Alison Hammond in a rare candid interview.

The comedian, 52, was the latest celebrity to spend a weekend with Alison Hammond on her new interview show. 

The pair enjoyed a hike and a boat ride before Alison drove Jimmy to one of his tour performances in Kendal - and the TV funnyman got unusually candid.  

'I was a bit depressed in my mid-20s,' he admitted to the Bake Off host at the beginning of the programme. 

'I didn't like my life, I didn't like where it was going. I left everything to become a comedian to tell jokes above a pub.'

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Later in the episode, Alison asked Jimmy about the death of his best friend and Eight Out Of 10 Cats co-star Sean Lock.

'It's a weird thing where you know it's coming but it's still shocking,' he said. 'I got sent all of the best bits of Sean and they all had me in them. It's a very privileged position.'

Jimmy also showed his emotional side as he spoke about another huge loss in his life, his mum Nora - who died from pancreatic cancer when he was in his mid twenties.  

He revealed that his mum had also been depressed when he was a child, and making her laugh was his favourite thing so it went on to inspire his love of comedy.

He said: 'She was depressed for a lot of my childhood… Making her happy made me happy, so the compulsion to be funny came from that.'

Speaking about her death, Jimmy said: 'I was very close to my mother, so her dying was the worst thing I could imagine. When I was a kid, my fear was this sort of separation anxiety of something happening to her.

'When it happens, there's a weird freedom, where that's happened and I'm still here. It got across to me what mortality really is. 

'This is it, this is your life, you don't get another go, so do what you want to do.'

'I don't believe in an afterlife,' he continued. 'But I carry her with me I think about her all the time. But there is an after life – the kids are the afterlife. 

'There's a theory that you die twice, once when you die and then again the last time someone says your name.'

Last year Jimmy admitted he is 'still not over' Nora's death. 

Speaking on The Development by David podcast with David McIntosh, Jimmy said: 'I lost her when I was about 26. I don't think I'm over it yet. Grief is the price we pay for love. 

'I was so close to my mother, I couldn't imagine anything worse than losing her. The benefit of losing her is a sense of freedom, pushing the f**k it button.'

Jimmy likened a person's death to the time before they were born, saying there isn't any difference between the two.

He said: 'You get mortality, in a way. We die and we're the lucky ones because we get to live. Mark Twain said it brilliantly, I wasn't alive for billions of years before my birth and it didn't inconvenience me in the least.

'This is why life is so special, it's this little shaft of light in the middle of it all. 

'It's not an easy thing to lose a parent. Grief, we don't talk about it enough. Society is set up to kind of hide it away.'

Jimmy's parents Nora and Patrick -  known as Jim - moved to England from Limerick, Ireland and raised Jimmy and his two brothers in Slough. 

The comic has been estranged from his father since Nora's death and said in November 2021 he hadn't spoken to his dad in 21 years. 

Elsewhere during the interview, Jimmy spoke about cancel culture which he jokes about in his new Netflix special Natural Born Killer. 

Jimmy is adamant that comedians should never apologise for jokes, no matter who may find them offensive.

He said: 'There's a bit on the new special. You can't go around apologising for jokes.

'So what I'm gonna do the next time I get cancelled, I'm going to say the day of the cancellation, I'm going to say, [mock childish voice] "I'm sorry." 

'The people who are offended will say, "You don't really mean that apology," and I'll say, '"So you're saying I can say something and not mean it?" Now you're getting it.'