The brutal reason Roger Daltrey has always had a flat stomach
A good rule of thumb is never to take diet advice from rock stars. Sex, drugs and rock and roll have never been conducive to a healthy way of living. While lengthy rockers are the vision of slimness, their slender, skinny figures are rarely earned through a strict routine of exercise and vegetables. In the case of Roger Daltrey, the secret to his lean frame should come with a warning.
But out of all the old rock stars, there’s no denying that Daltrey has always looked good. While he still looks good for his age today, back in the 1960s and ‘70s, he was the ultimate heartthrob. With his long, curly locks, he appealed to the hippie crowd, but his body was more like a G.I Joe than a lanky stoner. Even back then, when femininity was in for the men of the era, his frame had always been hunky.
However, he wasn’t often caught pumping iron in the gym. As he toured with The Who, getting up to all their infamous antics and fully indulging in the lifestyle affording to a young, successful rocker, it feels doubtful that a fitness regime was on his mind much. Instead, he put his figure down to a pretty brutal childhood medical emergency, managing to find a silver lining in it at least.
“I had serious gut problems when I was young,” he admits as a low point in his life, warranting a slight cringe as ears prep to hear a nauseating tale of sickness or stomach bugs. Instead, the story is more hardcore than cross, as he seemed to fit the bill of a wild card way back in his youthful days.
“I swallowed a nail, like a two-inch nail [at] four years old. So they cut that out,” he recalled.
After heading into major surgery to retrieve the metal spike from his stomach, the ordeal was worsened by old-fashioned medical practices by healthcare professionals who were yet to know better. “In those days, they used to have talcum powder on their gloves and so talcum powder creates incredible amounts of scar tissue,” he explained.
For anyone keen on further imagery for this tale, a quick search for “Roger Daltrey topless” will reveal these scars in a series of oiled-up beach pictures of the musician. Across his stomach, sharp lines left over from the medical blunder still mark him today.
However, rather than being upset about the lingering imperfections, Daltrey has found that they actually come in quite helpful for his vanity. “So my gut, there, is just one big mass of scar tissue, so it doesn’t allow me to get a beer belly,” he laughed.
“Get the nails down you. You’ll never be short of iron in your diet. Off you go,” he said in a joke that should come with a serious disclaimer. Please, no matter how much you want to look like Roger Daltrey in his muscular prime, do not eat metal nails.
