From noughties fame to making bread (with the help of Jeremy Clarkson): How ... trends now
To the millions watching him at home, George Lamb seemed to have it all.
He was one of the most famous (and fanciable) faces on TV in the noughties with lucrative presenting jobs on T4 and Big Brother's Little Brother as well as hit radio shows on BBC 6 Music and talkSPORT.
But fans were perplexed when he vanished from the limelight ten years ago, so much so that one of the top Google results when you search his name is still: 'What has happened to George Lamb?'
George told MailOnline today that despite 'really enjoying' the trappings of fame - he felt 'empty' working on TV and 'chasing money' so he walked away for a normal job.
The former presenter and model, 44, has swapped red carpets and boozy nights for agriculture and ancient grains - and has a new unlikely business partner in Jeremy Clarkson. His actor father Larry is also involved.
It is still hard to believe that it was something as humdrum as wheat that would help him find his happiness. A settled girlfriend for the past seven years and a close relationship with his parents also helps.
George's firm Wildfarmed has become a huge success and for the first time this morning the shelves of Waitrose stores all over the UK are being stacked with his £2.80 white sliced loaves, sourdough and rolls.
Pictured is George lamb, a former television presenter and now a bread maker
Fans were perplexed when he vanished from the limelight ten years ago
George told MailOnline today that despite 'really enjoying' the trappings of fame - he felt 'empty' working on TV and 'chasing money'
He now runs a National Trust farm near Swindon - after winning a prestigious tenancy there due to his work as a regenerative farmer
Big Brother Presenter Davina McCall and Big Brother's Little Brother Presenter George Lamb in 2009
The bread is made with wheat from 100-plus farms in the UK that use no chemicals and pesticides, including grain from the former Top Gear host's Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline today, George Lamb revealed that he and co-owner Andy Cato thought that they were meeting a local farmer to give advice when Clarkson turned up at Wildfarmed's HQ - a 300-acre farm near Swindon.
Cato is a former musician who sold the rights to his Groove Armada songs to buy a farm and is now considered one of the UK’s top regenerative farmers.
Lamb said: 'I got a telephone call from one of our bakers. He said: "Listen, I've been I've been supplying bread to a farm shop and the guy who owns it is a first generation farmer. He's really been struggling, just had his first year couldn't make any money. Can I bring him down to meet you?"
George Lamb arriving for the British Comedy Awards 2009
'Next thing you know, Jeremy Clarkson turns up on the farm. And it was amazing. Everybody's got a perception of what he is like. There was a bit of me that was I was just is he serious? Are and he Andy gonna get on? Then it turned out actually that they were from one day and away from each other in Yorkshire and Andy had gone scouting in Jeremy Clarkson's mum's garden when he was a kid. So immediately there was this bit of common ground and I found Jeremy to be really charming and he was really like listening to what we were talking about'.
'We're gonna be featured in series three of Clarkson's Farm, which comes out this Friday', George added.
Lamb is in a bulging group of celebrities who have turned to farming and agriculture, and admits that some stars can get 'out of touch' with the real world so many find farming as a way to become 'grounded' again.
He still lives in east London - but is passionate about biodiversity and soil health.
His bread is made with wheat from farms in the UK that use no chemicals and pesticides
With his business partner, they have founded wildfarmed, a regenerative form of agriculture
Lamb is in a bulging group of celebrities who have turned to farming in agriculture
He admitted celebrities can get 'out of touch' with the real world so many turn to farming
And he has no regrets about swapping fame for the bread business. He also admits that in his twenties his only interest in what he ate was out of vanity - code for staying thin - rather than caring about his health.
But turning 40 'flicked a switch' and focused his mind on eating good food.
Wildfarmed bans all chemicals from its fields and ensures fertility of soil is replenished by growing a variety of different crops in the same field at the same time as wheat, such as peas, clover and barley.
When he was at a low ebb he said: 'My mum said to me I should grow things. When you're young your don't really listen. But something obviously sunk in - she was right'.
But despite his return to TV on Clarkson's Farm - George says he doesn't miss that life at all, admitting that in the past he was 'chasing money' and fame.
'I used to be on television', he says innocently. 'And I got to a point where I was top of the middle, I used to say.
'It was all going quite well - I was living a charmed life. But something was going on in me. It just wasn't it wasn't making my heart sing. Basically, I couldn't really put my finger on it, but I just knew something wasn't quite right.
'I had a bit of an Eat, Pray, Love moment. So I told my agent. I'm gonna come back and do the next series [The Bank Job] I'm gonna go off and just have a bit of an adventure and try and figure out who I am, why I'm here and what I'm doing.
'I was really just searching for what's the purpose of me? Why am I here? What am I meant to be
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