Leicester Barber Tyler Smith Opens Up About Colitis Battle Before London Marathon Run

Tyler Smith, the 29-year-old Leicester barber who appeared on BBC’s The Traitors Series 3, has spoken publicly about his decade-long battle with ulcerative colitis — and revealed he is running the London Marathon on Sunday 26 April to raise money for Crohn’s & Colitis UK.

From BBC Traitors to the Streets of London

Tyler, who has worked as a barber in Leicester since his early twenties, was one of the Faithfuls in the third series of The Traitors, which first aired on BBC One on 1 January 2025. He was banished in Episode 5 after being betrayed by people he thought were friends — a blow he handled with characteristic good grace. The series was eventually won by Jake Brown and Leanne Quigley.

But while the cameras captured Tyler’s easy charm and sharp instincts inside the castle, they didn’t capture the full story. Behind the scenes, he was quietly managing a serious, lifelong condition — and relying on the BBC welfare team to source his medication during filming to avoid a dangerous flare-up.

Tyler was first diagnosed with ulcerative colitis after years of unexplained, debilitating symptoms. Ulcerative colitis is an incurable form of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes ulcers on the lining of the colon and rectum. It affects hundreds of thousands of people across the UK, and its consequences — relentless stomach pain, fatigue, and unpredictable flare-ups — can be devastating.

Tyler’s Diagnosis: Years of Being Dismissed

Tyler first developed symptoms aged 19: horrendous stomach pains and significant weight loss that left him struggling to function day to day. Initially, his GP dismissed the symptoms as a stomach bug — a frustratingly common experience for IBD sufferers, who often wait years for an accurate diagnosis. It was only after a colonoscopy that the true picture emerged and Tyler finally had a name for what he had been living with.

“Managing fatigue has been so difficult and I’ve never been this tired before,” Tyler told the Leicester Mercury. “But it’s kept me going knowing I’m going to be helping other people.”

The significance of that cannot be overstated. Tyler’s condition means that training for a marathon — 26.2 miles of sustained physical effort — is not simply hard work. It is a daily negotiation with a body that doesn’t always cooperate. There are days when getting out of bed feels like an achievement in itself.

Tyler has also spoken about the moment he called the Crohn’s & Colitis UK helpline after an especially painful weekend. “I just needed to talk to someone,” he said. “It really helped to let it all out.” It is a quiet, honest admission — the kind that matters far more than any television appearance.

A Local Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

More than 540,000 people in the UK live with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis — roughly one in every 123 people. That is not a rare condition. That is your neighbour, your colleague, your friend at the barber’s chair. And the East Midlands, the region Tyler calls home, has some of the highest incidence rates of ulcerative colitis in the country.

The Crohn’s & Colitis UK London Marathon 2026 team requires a minimum fundraising pledge of £2,500 per runner. Tyler has committed to that, and his fellow Traitors contestants — who were fully supportive when he disclosed his condition during filming — are no doubt cheering him on. Claudia Winkleman, the programme’s presenter, was also notably supportive after Tyler’s elimination, reportedly moved by his openness.

Tyler’s Instagram (@tyler.smithy_), where he has built a following of 18,000 people, has become a space where he shares both his Traitors journey and his health story — proof that his platform has always been about more than television fame.

Why Tyler Smith’s Story Deserves More Than a Round of Applause

Let’s be honest: it would be very easy to write a nice, warm piece about Tyler Smith, pat him on the back for being brave, and move on. He’s photogenic, he was on telly, he’s running a marathon — the story writes itself as a feel-good Friday filler. And that would be doing him a disservice.

What Tyler is actually doing is something much harder and more important than running 26 miles. He is choosing to be public about an illness that is still, in 2026, surrounded by embarrassment and silence. Inflammatory bowel disease affects your bowel. It is not glamorous. It is not the kind of health story people tend to shout about at dinner parties. And that silence has consequences — because the longer IBD stays in the shadows, the longer people go without diagnosis, without support, and without the basic reassurance that they are not alone.

Tyler was dismissed by a GP when he was 19 years old. He spent years not knowing what was wrong with him, quietly losing weight and enduring pain while being told it was probably nothing. That is a failure — not Tyler’s failure, but a systemic one. IBD is underdiagnosed, underfunded relative to its prevalence, and too often treated as something to manage discreetly rather than discuss openly.

The fact that the East Midlands has the highest rates of ulcerative colitis in England makes this a story that belongs specifically to this part of the country. This is not just Tyler’s personal battle. It is a reflection of something happening in our communities, in our GP surgeries, in our hospitals — and it deserves proper attention, not just a polite nod when a local lad happens to appear on a BBC reality show.

There are 540,000 people in the UK living with Crohn’s or colitis. Many of them are in Leicestershire. Many of them sat in a doctor’s surgery, like Tyler did at 19, and were sent home with nothing but a shrug. The Crohn’s & Colitis UK helpline Tyler called during that painful weekend is the kind of resource that exists because enough people recognised that silence isn’t good enough. His decision to run the London Marathon for that charity is a direct thank-you — and a direct challenge to the rest of us to take this seriously.

Tyler Smith made good television. But what he is doing right now, pounding the streets of Leicester in training, exhausted, managing his condition one day at a time, is something far more valuable. He is making it easier for the next 19-year-old with stomach pains to put their hand up and say: something is wrong with me, and I need help.

We’ll be following Tyler’s marathon journey and keeping an eye on IBD awareness in the East Midlands — because this story doesn’t end at the finish line on the Mall.

Have Your Say

Do you or someone you know live with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis? We’d love to hear your experience — leave a comment below and share Tyler’s story with anyone who might need it. And if you want to stay on top of health and community news from across Leicestershire, sign up for our free local news updates.