Joey was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child and has admitted he still doesn’t know how to tell the time.
He wrote in his new book ‘Being Reem,’ that he thinks his learning difficulties became worse after his mum committed suicide when he was just 13-years-old.
‘Some people reckoned I stopped learning because of what happened to my mum. Almost like I froze in time.’
He recalls: ‘I was a proper mummy’s boy when I was growing up. I’d follow her about everywhere and snuggle up to her at night on the sofa.’
‘I was always confused about what was wrong with my mum. She was often in hospital and I never understood why.’
Joey said on finding out about her death: ‘He (Joey's dad) was bending down on his knees, crying ‘Mummy’s died’. I remember running through the house and putting my head into a pillow. I was screaming and Frankie shouted, ‘What’s happened?’ and she started crying. Everyone was crying.’
Joey and his sister Frankie didn’t know the real cause of their mum’s death until much later.
‘We didn’t know Mum had committed suicide for about two years.’
He reveals: ‘Dad didn’t tell us how it happened to start with, he just said she fell over in an accident.’
‘I guess he was trying to protect us and I don’t think he wanted to deal with it himself.’