Raymond van Barneveld, 58, makes heartbreaking admission about his childhood in emotional interview

Now 58, van Barneveld is celebrated as a transformative figure in modern darts, helping to lift the sport’s profile in the Netherlands and breaking the long-standing dominance of English players.

Yet he explained that his public displays of emotion after major victories - or painful defeats - stem from deeper experiences that pre-date his emergence as a household name.

“I always felt like a failure. I had no friends around me,” he said.

“When you’re young and you have your mates, you learn things from each other. Hanging out, going out, going to the cinema. All of that passed me by. My whole childhood just slipped away, and nothing ever really worked out.”

The presenter, Özcan Akyol, suggested that setbacks are part of adolescence, but van Barneveld pushed back.

“Yes, but not everything, right?” he replied, insisting that he struggled with even the most basic tasks as a teenager.

His attempt to build a trade at carpentry school left him feeling defeated, too.

“Everything I touched fell apart,” he said. “I could never do anything right the first time.”

Those formative years, he suggested, cast a long shadow.

Even after claiming five world titles between 1998 and 2007, van Barneveld said that dips in form can still trigger the same internal monologue that troubled him as a boy.

“Then you slip back into that mindset -‘See? You still can’t do anything,'" he said.

His candid remarks arrive as awareness of mental health in professional darts continues to grow.

The sport, often played in high-pressure environments with long spells away from home, has produced a number of players who have spoken openly about confidence, isolation and psychological strain.

Van Barneveld’s willingness to revisit the more difficult aspects of his youth adds another dimension to understanding how sustained success and deep personal doubt can coexist in elite competitors.

Despite his achievements, including a celebrated rivalry with Phil Taylor, victories across both the BDO and PDC systems and a final major triumph at the 2014 Premier League, van Barneveld has never hidden the fact that his confidence can be volatile.

Supporters have become accustomed to the tears that occasionally follow his matches, and his interview on Dutch television helps explain why those emotions remain so close to the surface.

Now ranked world No 35, van Barneveld remains a fixture on the professional circuit.

He continues to attract some of the sport’s most passionate support and retains an ambition to chart one final deep run on the world stage.

His next opportunity arrives next month, when he begins his latest World Championship campaign at Alexandra Palace.