Mike Tindall had fans feeling sorry for him after he revealed how tough it was joining the Royal Family – with a key four-word revelation summing up his difficulties. 

The former England rugby star bravely opened up in the recent ITV documentary Grand Slammers as he explained how his new life as part of The Firm was “not that easy”. 

The bombshell four-word revelation came mid-way through the programme, as he candidly explained: “You need a job”. 

The I’m A Celeb contestant preceded this by saying “everyone thinks that just by marrying Zara that means it’s all fine and dandy… but that doesn’t stop the fact that you need a job”, reports the Independent. 

As fans reached for their tissues, he then went even further, saying: “It’s not that easy, you know – you get quite institutionalised into rugby, it’s a way of life and you leave the game and that’s not there”. 

He expanded on his retirement from the sport, by saying that it was almost impossible to replicate “going to work with 35 of your best friends every day”, and even told us Zara’s thoughts on how he coped. 

“Zara would say if she was honest it was probably a year it took me to figure out what I was, who I was going to be”. 

Since retiring in 2014 after a seventeen-year career, post-player Mike Tindall has branched into a challenging life of charity work and plenty of rugby-related media appearances. 

The Yorkshireman launched a podcast in 2020 called The Good, The Bad & The Rugby with public school chums James Haskell and Alex Payne – in similar vein to Peter Crouch’s hit podcast – and have even interviewed Kate Middleton to dispel rugby’s upper class problem. 

In the episode, Tindall – who won 75 caps for England – hilariously revealed he had watched Middleton play beer pong, and sarcastically confirmed she was very competitive.