Boy George’s vocal coach reveals his deepest medical secret.

Christopher David Mitchell, 33, who was a former model and signer – or more notably the voice coach for singer Boy George – had his life saved at St Mark’s Hospital, located right near Northwick Park Hospital.

In 2013, Mr Mitchell kept his medical condition of secret from his friends, agents and any colleagues. He had Ulcerative colitis, a long-term bowel condition where the colon and rectum develop small ulcers and can bleed.

As a result, the Boy George vocal coach had a stoma and ileostomy bag to help with his condition.

The medical condition was kept close, only his family and medical staff knew about it. But now he hopes to raise awareness about the life-threatening disease as his way of coming to terms with his condition which he kept secret for so long.

Mr Mitchell called St Mark’s Hospital “the hospital that saved my life” as the help of doctors helped him continue his life today and become comfortable in talking about stomas.

In a video to raise awareness, he recalled when he first discovered his condition. He said: “I went to the toilet and I saw blood on the toilet tissue. At first, I thought nothing of it but then I was bleeding up to 20 times a day.

“Within a few months I was losing so much weight, I was in agony, and I went down to 8 stones.”

The doctors at St Mark’s Hospital gave Mr Mitchell his first life-saving operation, when his entire colon was removed and was given an ileostomy bag.

Despite this, the vocal coach was devastated with the stoma and a series of unfortunate events spiralled as his career as a model and signer had gone and his agent and girlfriend left him.

He added: “It was pretty quickly that I sort of slipped into depression really. I wasn’t talking to anyone about what I was going through.”

Surgeons initially told Mr Mitchell that a J-pouch surgery, where a pouch is created from the small intestine as an alternate way to pass stool, would take nine months. The surgery instead had complications which took three years.

After the surgery in 2017, Mr Mitchell only had a temporary moment of enjoying his new J-pouch, as he felt ill after six months. Due to a puncture in the pouch, he required another operation as he could have died.

After the two surgeries, he is now grateful of given another opportunity at life. During the surgeries he managed to learn play the piano and develop his singing. From this, he was able to become a vocal coach, which includes him training Boy George.

Mr Mitchell said: “None of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for the difficult time I went through.”

Since recovering, the successful vocal coach has not forgotten about the help received by St Mark’s hospital, as he continues to hold activity sessions and tries to help other patients find optimism.