I’m up at about 6.30 in the morning. The first thing I do is check my website blog, MrPaparazzi.com. I’ll then see what’s happening at the offices I have around the world.

I make breakfast for myself: a couple of boiled eggs, or beans on toast. I’m trying to be careful about what I eat, because I looked shocking a while back — and what with the drinking and smoking, I’d have been lucky to get another 10 years. I also do an hour’s exercise at least six days a week. It doesn’t come easy and I’m in pain every day.

Most days I’m in the office for about 10. I no longer take photos myself, as my time is taken up overseeing the business. I have a management team to deal with the running of my agency and we have about 800 paparazzi working worldwide. People are surprised how many setups we do with celebrities to make it look like paparazzi shots. It goes on all the time. Many of our tip-offs come from people close to them — husbands, wives, family and friends. It’s all about the cash.

Many celebrities offer big money to stop pictures from being sold. I protect a lot of them but only if I’m friends with them. If I detest them, I don’t. The biggest problem with celebrities is that they forget where they came from. Tom Cruise is a classic example: desperate on the way up, hated the attention when famous, and now he’ll spend hours on the red carpet. He’s just cringeable.

The Cringeable Cruises. It’s reasonable to say that if you haven’t got more than three helicopters flying over your wedding in LA, you’re a nobody.

Celebrities use the media when they can to sell a CD or book, but scream “privacy” when it suits them. Princess Diana loved courting the press and, unfortunately, was involved in a tragic accident while being pursued. She made my agency a lot of money, as did David Beckham, Posh Spice and Jordan.

We’ve had a couple of years of nobodies, so it’s good that new celebrities like Amy Winehouse are emerging. Victoria Beckham is a favourite — the way she plays the game and gets it so horribly wrong at times. Tony Blair made us money, but Gordon Brown doesn’t.

I watch the fat content and try to avoid big business lunches. Work is hugely important to me, so I like to think I work my arse off. Dad was a big inspiration on that front. He was an architect, and at 78 still runs his own business today. He’s the most important man in my life, with morals and ethics that I certainly couldn’t live up to.

Growing up in Australia, all I ever wanted to be was a great photographer.

I left home at 17 and at 22 I came to the UK. I had $500 in my pocket. The day I arrived I walked from Victoria to Wapping for an interview with the News of the World. By chance, I was in the lift with Rupert Murdoch, and we had a bit of a chuckle. I don’t know if it was down to him, but the next day I started with the News of the World as a photographer.

People are surprised that I did two tours of Bosnia as a photographer for the Daily Mail: my legitimate journalistic credentials shock them. I was kidnapped and I’ve been close to death at least three times. I shouldn’t really be alive.

In 1992 I won the Kodak Photographer of the Year Award for a picture I took of Rudolf Nureyev — the last press photograph of him before he died.

I’ve had ups and downs. I went through a terrible time when I broke up with my wife, Melanie, in 1998. We’re best mates now and she’s the sales director at Big Pictures. I did the works: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. It was cocaine for me. I was depressed and the drugs made me worse. I got sucked into the showbiz world, chewed up and spat out. Then I woke up one day and said: “I’m over this shit.” Pulling myself out of that is one of my proudest moments.

People are scared of my straight-talking image on television, but I’m an extraordinarily sensitive and caring person. I have a close circle of friends and I’m very mistrusting about letting too many people into my inner circle. When I meet celebrities at parties now and they’re very quick to be my best mate, I’m more wary. I love spending time at home and I’m lucky to have places all around the world. I’ve a 600-year-old cottage in St Tropez, a beautiful place on the Palm Islands in Dubai, a couple of homes in Barbados, and several in England and Australia.

Most evenings I’ll watch television, exercise and cook — I love a good rib-eye steak or a roast dinner. Whatever I’m doing, my mind is always on the go, thinking about the business. I think my next step will be to become one of the biggest players in television. I tend to get a lot of ideas in the middle of the night, so I keep a notepad next to my bed just in case. I’m usually in bed before midnight, and since I stopped smoking I’ve been sleeping much better.

So far my life’s been a rollercoaster of a ride. I may have missed out on having kids or a regular partner — which would still be nice to find — but I’m really excited about the future. So it’s watch this space. There’s more to this man than his hairdo.

Darryn Lyons’s autobiography, Mr Paparazzi: My Life as the World’s Most Outrageous Celebrity Photographer (John Blake Publishing, £17.99), is out tomorrow

Interview by Anna Gizowska. Portrait by Big Rocket

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