ATHENS (AP) – Police said that a body believed to be that of missing British TV presenter Michael Mosley was found on a Greek island Sunday morning. A police spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation, said the body was found on a rocky coast by a private boat and that formal identification was pending.
Mosley went missing on the island of Symi Wednesday afternoon after going for a walk.
Lefteris Papakalodoukas, the island’s mayor, told The Associated Press he was on the boat with members of the media representatives when they saw a body some 20 meters above the Agia Marina beach a little after 10 a.m. “We zoomed with the cameras and saw it was him,” he said.
Emergency services on a boat at Agia Marina in Symi, Greece, where a body has been discovered during a search and rescue operation for TV doctor and columnist Michael Mosley, after he went missing while on holiday. Police and firefighters have been using drones to scour the island, which is part of the Dodecanese island chain and is about 25 miles north of Rhodes. Picture date: Sunday June 9, 2024. (Photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images)
Firefighters take part in a search and rescue operation for a missing British journalist in the island of Symi on June 8, 2024. Greek officials on June 7, 2024 said they had broadened a search for British journalist and television presenter Michael Mosley a day after he went missing on the Aegean island of Symi. Around 20 firefighters and police officers are searching on land, aided by volunteers, a drone and a sniffer dog, while additional coastguard units are assisting by sea. (Photo by Maria Panorma KONTOU / AFP) (Photo by MARIA PANORMA KONTOU/AFP via Getty Images)
The mayor said that the body appeared to have fallen down a steep slope, stopping against a fence and lying face-up with a few rocks on top of it. The body had a leather bag in one hand, said Antonis Mystiloglou, a cameraman with state TV ERT, who was also on the boat.
Mosley, 67, is well-known in Britain for his regular appearances on television and radio and his column in the Daily Mail newspaper. He is known outside the U.K. for his 2013 book “The Fast Diet,” which he co-authored with journalist Mimi Spencer. The book proposed the so-called “5:2 diet,” which promised to help people lose weight quickly by minimizing their calorie intake two days a week while eating healthily on the other five.
He subsequently introduced a rapid weight loss program and has made a number of films about diet and exercise.
Mosley has often pushed his body to extreme lengths to see the effects of his diets and also lived with tapeworms in his guts for six weeks for the BBC documentary “Infested! Living With Parasites.”
Mosley has four children with his wife Clare Bailey Mosley, who is also a doctor, author and health columnist.