Big John: How Family Brought Me Back from 350K Debt

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2:13And if you think you're not going to fuck up in life, you're not being truthful to yourself. French boss. Le Bosch. Spanish Bosch. El Bosch. German Bosch. Z Bosch. Irish Bosch. O Bosch. I think tonight's the night. Why don't you put the kids to bed early and I can show you just how much I love you. Whoa! You know, he's gone for it. Typing. Oh, fuck. Mine says a ****. Really? Is that genuine? Hello. Welcome to my office. This is Joe Marla with See You Now with me, Dr. Joe Marla. This is the show where I meet Britain's best loved faces and peel beneath their skin like it's an emotional onion. With me, as always, is my trusty research assistant, Jake.

2:59Love that. Wakey, wakey, jakey, snakey. That is a weird phrase. Why? Wakey, wakey, jakey, snakey. Yeah, it's like a new way of saying... Sounds like you're trying to summon me into some sort of state. What you... Yeah, I was. It was like a way of going, good morning, Jakey. Oh, fine. Okay, yeah, yeah. But rather than saying good morning, I thought I'd be a bit more, you know. Wakey, wakey, Jakey, Snakey. Yeah. How are you? I'm very good. Do you have nicknames? Do you have nicknames? No. I've got Jakey, Wakey, a lot. You've got nothing? Have you got a nickname for me? Boss Man. I'm... My nickname is Boss Man.

3:35Boss Man, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. It's whatever you use at... You sort of use that at takeaways as well. the guy who runs the takeaway. What is your favourite takeaway? I don't even know. What do you get? What do you eat? I like a chicken kebab. Okay. Donner? Not a chicken donner. I do like a chicken donner, but I go for a chicken sheesh with burger sauce. Oh, my God. And all the salad. Yeah. Especially the onions. Fuck, I love the onions. Oh, you had a little onion metaphor at the top as well? Yeah, onions on your mind? It's there. It's like Red Bears, Red Bears. I like onions. Yeah. I'll have cheesy chips.

4:12Oh, my God. I'll get a cheesy chip wrap. I'll have an extra salad, maybe a quarter pounder with cheese. Sometimes if I'm feeling peckish, I'll... Peckish. Sometimes if I'm feeling peckish... Oh, my mouth's getting all... Yeah, yeah, yeah, salivating. I'll order half a pounder with cheese as well. What's your go-to takeaway, please? No, not kebab. Your favourite takeaway.

4:39Gosh. Do you know what? I can't, probably something similar to the kebab shop. I have a soft spot for donna, and I know that's terrible, but you get a good donna. I remember the first time that I ever tried donna meat with burger sauce, it was like something that had been locked in me. I've never been able to go back from it. I do, I can't find any good Indians. I was at an Indian takeaway, well, an Indian restaurant yesterday. It was my granddad's 95th birthday. My granddad's 95th birthday, everybody. He's 95. 95. 95. What did you eat at this Indian restaurant? Oh my gosh. If you go to a good Indian restaurant and you get a tandoori mixed grill and it comes out on the sizzling plate.

5:19Oh, you hear it, yeah. And you can hear it. Comes on the trolley. The sizzling onions. It all comes back to onions, Joe. Oh my gosh. But we've started to allude as to who we might have on the show. Some might say we've started to food. Yeah, I wouldn't say it. Right. There are certain people that capture the imagination of the great British public and the sky is the limit. And it's happened, I mean it feels like it's happened fast, I think actually he'd say it's been happening for four or five years. It's not often we can introduce a guest with one single word. That word is... Bash. Shall we do it again so we're in time?

5:57That word is... Bash. It is... 3, 2, 1... Big John! Bash! I love Big John. I know people that know Big John and they all love the fact that they know Big John. It's a very exciting thing to be in his presence and I think we're going to have a very... I've met him briefly before. Oh, yeah? On the side of a rugby pitch. He'd come to a Quinns game with Johnny. Yeah. I've played paddle with Johnny before. Oh, wow. Fucking garbage. You're in all part of the family. No, well, they've invited me round for a Chinese. They have invited me round for a Chinese. I haven't been yet. I've got to muster up the courage.

6:31What's stopping you? Just timing, really. Scheduling. Sure. Not as fun of an answer as I thought it would be. How do you think he's getting on with Janet? I don't know. Because I know that Janet loves Chinese food. So I don't know whether they're in there sort of like putting an early order in and sort of banqueting. I have no idea. Let's get the Bosh Father in, shall we? The Bosh Father. The Bosh Father. Janet please may you send in the one the only Big John thank you Big John everybody woo woo oh oh oh now fuck off pleasure to meet you sir fuck off yeah that's it oh that's nice that's my hug and a half that's nice oh you smell gorgeous oh I smell gorgeous oh yeah good yeah thank you thank you for having me on this is Jake Jake how are you sir I'm sorry honestly I've been so excited to meet you I'm very very very very much looking forward to today calm down mate I can't I'm not gonna do you know what I thought to myself should I play it cool and be like yeah do you want to be right fuck it if you're any you want I'm gonna be gushing pleasure to meet you Janet was looking after you outside wasn't she yeah Janet was very friendly why'd you say it like that well I think she thought I was a good looking bloke understandable but you said it did she come on to you not come on to me as such but she gave me her number her Instagram and her Twitter so sounds a lot like coming on to someone yeah Well, for me, that is coming on, but her false teeth put me off.

8:00Her false teeth. You're lucky she had them in today. She turns up to work without bothering. Bless her heart. She's a lovely lady. Yeah, we need to have a word with her a bit later, I think. Yeah, I mean, three forms of communication is a bit much, isn't it? Number, Instagram, all of it is much. It is much. Shall we begin our session? Dr. Joe Marler. How are you feeling about it? Yeah, a bit excited, apprehensive, happy, all in one go. Wow, quite the concoction there. Quite the concoction. There's no negativity coming from me today. Great. All good. The first thing we get every guest to do is the intake questionnaire.

8:35Full name. John William George Fisher. Fuck off. Why, is it similar to yours? Your middle name's a William George. William George. My name is Joseph William George. Is it really? Marla. There you go, William George. See? See? Wow, what a start. I don't know where to go from there. Star sign. Libra. Libra? I think you're our first Libra. Libra. What is a Libra? Scales. You're very balanced. Do you think that reflects your character? Yeah, I think I'm quite diplomatic. You know, I pride myself on the fact that I can have photos with Glasgow Rangers fans on that arm and Celtic fans on that arm both at the same time.

9:21Yeah. So I think that's a good thing. Occupation I hate the word We've just done the thing on the Fury fight with Netflix And I was going all the influencers on the bus Hate that Hate TikToker Hate YouTuber Don't even really like content creator I'm a fat bastard That's my occupation Standard Chinese order Shredded chicken charming Special fried rice Egg fried rice Sweet and sour chicken balls Sweet and sour pork balls Sweet and sour pork Hong Kong style Sweet and sour chicken Hong Kong style Shredded chilli beef beef and black bean, roast pork Chinese style, roast chicken Chinese style, salt and chilli chicken, salt and chilli king prawn, cold pork prawn, crispy and mac duck, barbecue pork spare ribs, chips, prawn crackers, curry sauce and a pancake roll.

10:02Bosh. It's the fourth round of a full day. Without a foul. So that's your standard Chinese order. Yes. Standard Indian. Don't call me that, mate. Watch yourself. Mate, you can't say that. You can't do that to me. It's involuntary, involuntary. I'm so sorry. You fucking do it to me all the time. That is horse shit from you. Do you have a standard Indian order? I like a chicken ticcapaphyo, a little bit of sauce on it. But lately, because I've been cutting back, I've been having tandoori king prawn or a tandoori mixed grill, or I would go for a king prawn madras. What are you most proud of? My children.

10:40Most proud of that I'm a father, married. Proud of my wife, she's a wonderful woman. She's a great, great mum. We're 30 years this year. So to be married for so long... What is that one? Fuck those. Hang on. Jake, let's get him ready for this. He cannot fuck up 30 years. 30 years. It is the Pearl anniversary. Hang on, there's two. No, no, no, no. There's a modern one. We could go to Pearl Dragon Chinese. That's all right. Got it sorted. There's plenty of them about. Talk us through the different types of Boshes. I never meant to say Bosh. I said it once in a video because I was known for eating Chinese online, whatever you want to call it i was known for ordering chinese and then one video i just went bush didn't think nothing of it and then next video did me chinese and then i didn't say bosch i must have had thousands why are you not saying bosch why are you not saying bosch so i started saying it just because of that and then i brought in the the bosch you boss el bosch and that just spread it around the different countries how many we got we got well we got name me a country and and I'll see whether it's got a Bosch.

11:49French Bosch. Le Bosch. Spanish Bosch. El Bosch. German Bosch. Z Bosch. Irish Bosch. O Bosch. Yeah. Scottish Bosch. Mook Bosch. Is there a Welsh Bosch? Boyo Bosch. Yeah. Portuguese Bosch. Superbock Bosch. Oh, brilliant. The South African one is Bok Bosch. They like that. And Australia is G'day Bosch. New Zealand is Cher Bosch. American Bosch, actually. Yee-bosh. What's the best thing about being famous? See, I don't see myself as being famous. I know you don't. You've said that. I get it. All right, then. The best thing about having this is me sitting here talking to you now. Because if I didn't have that little bit of notoriety or following, I wouldn't be sitting here doing this.

12:36So it's the people you can get meat out of it. Love that. It's the people. It's the opportunities it throws up. Well, that's a nice segue into the final question. Right. Celeb crush. When I was growing up, it was probably Kim Wilde. Or the lady off Mannequin who was in... The Mannequin? Mannequin, the film, King Cattrall. Oh, from Sex and the City. Yeah, and Sharon Stone in King Solomon's Minds. That was when I was younger. You know, when you're a young man, when you're impressionable. Got a new celeb crush now then, or...? You.

13:14Look, John, you are known for loving your Chinese. Yes. Well established. But you're also so much more than that. I know that. Yeah. We need to let more people know that. You're a family man. The way you briefly spoke about it, about being what you're most proud of. Yeah. I could see it in your face. Yeah. Light up. Nothing matters other than family. I've also noticed that there is a reluctance to accept

13:44the influence, I know you don't like that word, I didn't use influencer, but the influence that you are having and can continue to have. But I need you to realise how big a role model you actually are. Yeah, it's hard to accept that. It's hard to hear that because you don't see yourself as that. But, you know, it's nice of you to say it. Thank you very much. Well, that's good, but unfortunately for you, it doesn't end there. We're going to dig into the session. That's fine. Are you up for that? I'm up for that, yes. You can say no, of course you can. No, that's why I'm here. As I mentioned, you're a family man, to your core.

14:18Yeah. So much so that you actually let them put you on TikTok and Instagram. Well, I didn't know. I didn't know I was on it. What do you mean you didn't know? My middle son, Henry. So that's how it started? Yeah. Henry went... I'll tell you exactly how it started, right back to the beginning. My youngest son, William, used to be a... He'd be like doing this thing called The Fish, where he'd put his arms and legs back. They could do it in the middle of a shopping centre and Henry would be filming him laughing. They'd be taking a piss. And then William got his first girlfriend and all of a sudden he'd become sensible, William.

14:50So they didn't have anyone to film. So then they went on to filming me, eating my Chinese, ordering Chinese without me knowing, putting it on TikTok and they got thousands upon thousands of views and I didn't know I was on there. I'd never been on, I was not even on TikTok. What happened when you found out? Well, I was in the CAF. I was in Cafe Royale. I remember it clear as day. I come out of CAF, going back to my van because I was working on the cheese. And someone shouted out, Big John. And I went, who's Big John? Because I was always Little John. Because my dad, God rest his soul. So you weren't always Big John.

15:23I was Little John. Because my dad was Big John. And he's not with us anymore. No, he passed away 2012. Yeah. So he was always Big John. So I was always Little John. But Emery and Johnny had been putting me on as Big John. Right. On TikTok. Yeah. And they said, Big John. I went, Who the fuck's Big John? And he came up to me. I went, who are you after, mate? He went, you, you're Big John. And I went, he went, can I have a photo? I said, what do you want a photo for? He said, you're on TikTok. I said, am I? So that was the first photo I had. And then I had, then I found out what they was doing. So then I played along with it a little bit when they asked to film me.

15:58And we had bad news from the bank after COVID that our bank account after 30 years was being shut. had to pay back an overdraft,£80 ,000, which we had to keep our business going, which I didn't have. Went out for a meal with Steve Potts and his family for their anniversary. He played 500 games for West Ham, best mate. He said, come out for a meal. I said, oh, I can't fancy it. But we went because it's their family time. So our family went, his family went. He paid for the meal. We went in a Prospector Whitby pub afterwards where my dad used to drink as a young man in Wapping, East London. We went in there, I said, Steve, you've paid for the dinner.

16:36I'll pay for all the drinks. Even though I didn't have the money, paid for it all. I spent more on the drinks than he spent on the meal. Got pissed. Went home, ordered a Chinese, come in with a box of Chinese. Went, oh, it's a fucking Chinese. And it done about 300 million views worldwide. Fucking hell. So it was just for that one video that made it take off. One video. And it's only because I went out and got drunk. So I'm not drinking now, but sometimes getting drunk can do you good as well as bad. so yeah it's just a funny it's just that's how it all started you mentioned that you weren't big John yeah you were little John yeah and your eyes sort of lit up a little bit when you were talking about your dad yeah love my dad love my dad was he a massive how big an influence was he on you then massive not only on me on Johnny like I used to take Johnny boxing a lot of the time because we had three other children so we used to he used to help us he was very very close to Johnny very and we were sitting in a restaurant the other day and we was talking and Johnny just burst into tears thinking about it.

17:31Yeah, yeah. And there's not a day goes by we don't as a family talk about my dad. Self-made man. He built up his own business. He worked really hard all his life. And yeah, he was a big, big part of my life. Good man. Very good man. A lot of love for him. A lot of love for him, yeah. And would you want to like be that role model to your boys as well? Do you want to have that same effect that he had on you? I don't think you can force being a role model or force you. You can just be yourself. And my dad was, at times was hard, you know, but we never went without and we never went without love. And I think, as a parent, people say to me, I get that all the time, what's the recipe for being a good parent?

18:07I say, there isn't one. You've got to be yourself because you've got your own life with your own conditions. So it's not that I want to emulate my dad, but he's put good things into me. Johnny's sort of carrying that on. You know, they all are, really, you know. But he was a big loss when he went. You spoke about your Chinese order. It's addictive watching you lot just sitting around eating. It is weird what people find addictive. Yeah, but... But I'll be watching stuff as well and think, why am I watching this? But you're watching it, you know? But what I find addictive is how close you all are.

18:39Like, how do you manage that? How do you keep your... It's so wholesome to be like, oh, my God. Just be yourself and never hold back. If you've got something to say, say it. Like, we'll be sitting there. We had one the other day. It was Easter Sunday, and we had a massive row over nothing. Massive row. And then we started filming the end of it, and it's still going on a little bit. But it was a massive rab. But then you'd be raring one minute, and the next minute, playing games or having a drink and not taking things personal. Don't take what your family says to you personal. That's what I think.

19:11What about how close you are with your wife? She was your childhood sweetheart as well? I was 18. She was just about a week before she was 17, we met. I met in Hollywood, and we've been together ever since. And it used to be like an 18 to 25 night. on a Thursday night, and I used to do my boxing training, then go up there, see my mates, never drunk, but just see your mates for a couple of hours, and we met there one night, after seeing each other walking through Romford a couple of times, because she was from Bredwood, I was from Romford, we see each other a couple of times, and then we met that night, and sometimes I think, why the fuck did I go there?

19:5035 years later, I'm still fucked. I'm only joking. It was meant to be. Yeah. Started so well. Yeah. So well. She'll probably say the same thing. How much love you have for each other. No, listen, there's nothing she wouldn't do for me, there's nothing I wouldn't do for her. And you have your ups and downs, everyone does. Do you know what I mean? And sometimes you think, fuck this, what, you know. But you're always there for each other. What's she made of your newfound fame, though? Like, how's she found it all? She's, like, she takes it in, listen, we were struggling money-wise, so it's helped you.

20:22Listen, you're not a rich person, but you're now taking that struggle of money away. Yeah. We're earning money rather than where we're going to get money from. So that's a good part of it, but she will not... If I say certain words, you've changed your head, what's the matter with you? Like if I say socials, what are you saying that for? So she keeps you grounded a bit. Oh, it keeps me grounded. What are you saying that for? Yeah, no, I'll be at a nightclub. You have photos with loads of young women. I always have photos like that as well. So my hands are up. So you can see your hands. So no one can say I've done anything.

20:52And then one day, because I'll put them on. Like whoever I have photos with, they put me on, I'll share it. because people like it. I like to share things. And my wife will get up in the morning, I'll be getting up, she goes, who did you have them photos with last night? And I said, Charlotte, I was just having a meet and greet. She went, I went, I went, I'm doing it all right. She went, your eyes were enjoying it too much.

21:17We've got a little experiment. You're both family men. You've both got four kids. You both manage your childhood sweethearts. We wanted to try something where you both text your other halves the same message. See what you come back with. You up for it? I'm up for it. What's the message we're saying? I think tonight's the night. Why don't you put the kids to bed early so I can show you just how much I love you. What I'm quite excited about with this, though, is that... We can't put our kids to bed, though. You can't put your kids to bed. 27, 25.

21:47I'll say when everyone's asleep. When everyone's asleep. When everyone's asleep. Yeah. Oh, I'm getting really sweaty. So how are you feeling about this? No. what oh I just don't know it's almost like I'm saying put the kids to bed early as if like well then why don't you why don't you spruce up she always puts the kids down I'm here with you all the time I'll show you just so much I love you winky face aubergine oh that'd be nice I think tonight's the night Charlotte when everyone is asleep I can come up and show you oh lovely yeah I can show you what this weight loss has done to me to bed early and I can show you I can show you Just how much I love you.

22:25Just. And I'm going to do just in capitals. Just. No? Is that too much? Yeah, exactly. Is that a bit creepy? No, that's perfect. It's romantic. Just how much? And I'm going to put the eyes. Love you. You're doing the eyes? Yeah. What ones? You know, like looking for the side. You've got to do those to camera, John. Which ones? Them ones. I think tonight's the night. Why don't you put the kids to bed early and I can show you just how much I love you. Aubergine, tongue, water. Whoa! You know, he's gone for it. Aubergine, tongue and water? Online. She's online. She's online? Typing. Oh, look, yours is typing.

23:05Oh, fuck. Oh, my gosh. It's a good experiment, mate. I fucking warned you this would happen. I know, I like it. You warned me with a winky face and a... Well, I'll leave that there. I'll wait till it comes through. Oh, here we go. Bit of suspense for the episode. Mine says, I'm pretty tired, but thanks. Really? Is that genuine? Not even like engaging it or not even like, oh, Alice, I'm pretty tired, but thanks. She's had this before. I'm pretty tired, but thanks. It's not filling her with much hope. Fuck. Cool. What shall I put back to that? I can't leave it at that. Cool. No worries. Yeah, cool.

23:40No worries. Fair enough. Fair enough. Oi, do you know why she's tired though? Why? Because of last night. Because of last night. You know what I mean? It wasn't. It wasn't. Clearly not getting any tonight. Hold up. She left me a voice message. Oh! What the hell is this? I mean, she's typed it, what the hell is this? It's voice note and typing, what the hell is this? I'll just, I'll say, I'll just feel fruity. Yeah, good. I'll just feel fruity. Good. This is good. What the hell is this? It's not a no, though, is it? It's not a tied. She'll never say no. She knows what she's getting. She's not going to say no.

24:18Who don't want to shag a big fat bloke? You tell me. Janet certainly does.

24:27Look, I just feel fruity she's typing. I just feel fruity. Eat an apple then.