Olympian Tom Daley discusses struggle with bullying, grief and body image (exclusive)

In the powerful new documentary 1.6 secondsOlympic medalist Tom Daley opens up his personal battles with bullying, grief and body image that shaped his experience standing on top of the 10-meter dive platform.

The 31-year-old offers a sincere look behind his five medals (one gold, a silver, three bronze), and revealed the emotional obstacles that he met on the road-in particular death of his father’s, the person he felt most linked to.

Despite the pain, Daley now reflects on its past with a sense of gratitude and acceptance.

“My whole life has been about diving. My whole life has been about perfect the 1.6 seconds,” Daley says in the documentary. “I spend four years training for something that goes on in less than 10 seconds in total. And I would not change anything. It has been the best 23 years that I can imagine.”

It is clear in the film how much of Daley’s early life and career was formed by his father, Robert Daley. From the beginning, his dad was always there, drove him to every training session and cheered him at every competition.

“He didn’t care how good I did. He didn’t care if I came last. He didn’t care if I bombed out. As if there was no concern for the result,” says Daley. “He just wanted to be there. … he just loved to see me dive.”

For Daley, his father was much more than just a supporter. “He was the person I could go to talk about everything and everything and feel that I had someone on my side,” he says in 1.6 seconds.

The deep connection made his loss the more devastating. On May 27, 2011, just a few days after Daley turned 17, his father died from brain cancer. “I didn’t just lose my dad, because he was much more than that,” says Daley. “He was my biggest cheerleader, my best friend, mentor. I mean, our entire life stayed.”

Never miss a story – register for People’s free daily newsletters Keeping up to date on the best of what people have to offer, from celebrity news to compelling stories of human interest.

Robert Daley had kept the seriousness of his illness from his children for as long as he could, decided not to let it overshadow his son’s growing success.

“Now that I think about it as a parent, it would be like trying to explain it to my oldest son. And, you know, if one of the children knew it, they would all know,” says Daley, who shares two sons with their husband, filmmaker Dustin Lance Black, tells people exclusively. “As a parent, you want to protect your children from everything that goes into it.”

“So I just think … that’s part of the cause of the documentary and as grateful I am for having all the archive films,” he adds. “All these moments … forever immortal by being able to have copies of the digitized.”

Daley admits that after losing his father, at a time he needed him most, he felt completely alone in the world.

“I think there was something about when he was gone that I think in turn, probably had something to do with everything I’ve met,” he reflects. “The feeling like I had to meet it alone because I didn’t want to upset anyone else or care someone else because they already went through enough.”

Not only did he handle grief, but the then teenager had also experienced bullying and struggling problems with body image.

Immediately after making its Olympic debut in Beijing 2008 at the age of 14, Daley began to feel insecure in school. The children would call him names and threaten to break his legs. The situation was so bad that Daley and his friends got a key to lock themselves in a classroom to escape other students at lunchtime.

“I don’t think people realize how much it affected me because I didn’t really talk about it,” he says in the documentary. “I was almost embarrassed by the fact that people were meant to me in school. I feel so sorry for the child who had to explain what was happening.”

When he looks back, Daley says it was harder to process his experience with bullying when he talked about it publicly at the age of 13. That everyone knows what he was going through made it more overwhelming and painful.

“I just think I would have been a little more conservative with what I would share when I was younger,” he tells people.

At the end of 2011, Daley, who was still in his teens, got from the performance director at British Diving that he needed to lose weight and look more like he had in 2008.

“It was the first time where I felt I was watching and was not judged for how I did in the dive pool but for how I looked,” he says in 1.6 seconds. “I took some rather drastic measures to make sure the food did not stay in my stomach.”

His body image was all he could think of leading to the London Olympics in 2012. Although he knew he was not overweight, Daley explains that it is much harder to ask for help when you are already in it and “feel that there is no way out.”

“Every time I made a decision about what to eat, if I would eat it and then get myself so hungry that I would end up so much and binging to the point where I was so guilty – that I then had to do something about it,” he says on the camera.

Daley also admits to struggling with internalized beliefs of masculinity in the documentary. “In my head guys had no eating disorders, guys had no problems with their mental health,” he says. “Guys were meant to be these macho things that go on with anything and you just continue.”

As a result, he often felt isolated. It was only after he met his husband, became a father and was beyond the pool that Daley became comfortable in his own skin.

“I finally found perspective, and I didn’t put everything my self -value and self -esteem based on how well I did in diving,” he says in the documentary. “I began to realize that I was more than just a diver. (I am) a man, a father, a friend, a son.”

When he looks back at his journey, Daley admits that the question of whether he would change anything if his past is not a simple one.

“You know, there is a lot of my life formed and format because of the experiences I went through – the good and the bad,” he tells people. “These things formed me and created the person I am today.”

1.6 seconds now flows at max globally and on Olympics.com In the United States