‘Bigg Vinny’ Hickerson Has Lived a Life of Comebacks — but ‘Battleground’ May Be His Biggest Yet (Exclusive)

It’s official — “Bigg Vinny” Hickerson is living his best life.

But in the weeks following his 2011 appearance as a contestant on Season 12 of NBC’s The biggest loserthe Trailer Choir musician found himself in a very different place, facing a reality he didn’t want to face.

“I was in a marriage that just wasn’t working,” Hickerson, 40, recalled during an interview with PEOPLE. “[Married life] it didn’t go the way I thought it would. How can I make this person love me when I really don’t feel like they love me anymore?”

Ultimately, after two and a half years of marriage, Hickerson and his first wife, Lori Diaz, separated. “We ended up having differences in what we wanted in life,” recalls Hickerson, who lost a total of 211 lbs. during his time at The biggest loser. “We’re friends now, but at the time it was like, ‘I gave up everything and I lost weight and I did this and I did that. I tried everything in my power to be the great thing that I thought she wanted — and I’m just not that.”

Big Vinny.

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‘Biggest Loser’ couple went for weight loss surgery after gaining 368lbs. From the show

And it was in those dark days that he wrote his current single “Battleground”. “It was God putting me in the right place at the right time and telling me I had to go through this know what I really needed in life,” Hickerson says of the song that now serves as his final song. “But at the time, it was my battlefield.”

But unfortunately, that wasn’t the first Bigg Vinny had to contend with.

“As a child I was beaten badly,” Hickerson says quietly. “I watched my mom put the gun to her head and pull the trigger. Luckily, she lived to tell about it, but going through those things brought me to a dark place where I didn’t know how to fill the void inside my heart.”

Big Vinny.

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And then his troubles with food begin.

“I thought if I got bigger than my stepdad, he wouldn’t be able to hurt me,” Hickerson remembers. “If I grew bigger than my stepdad, he wouldn’t be able to hurt my mom anymore.”

But soon, the man who would eventually be known as Bigg Vinny found himself at 500 pounds, lying in a hospital bed in danger of losing his leg to diabetes. “I was 27, and they said I wouldn’t make it to 30,” he tells PEOPLE.

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And then The biggest loser called, and the rest is history. Over the years, Hickerson has struggled to keep his weight under control, but it can sometimes seem like a never-ending battle.

“Food addiction never goes away,” says Hickerson. “I have to fight every day of my life to not go back and be the 500 pound guy I was. I have to remind myself of my worth. Just because you’re going to get better at fighting doesn’t mean the fight goes away.”

And it is this struggle that he deals with in the lyrics of the song “Battleground”.

Big Vinny.

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“This is a song that would make you want to stand up, that would make you want to fight, that would make you want to be better and stronger at the things you’re trying to do,” he says of “Battleground,” premiering exclusively with PEOPLE. The music video brought him back to his old high school with fellow artists Jared Blake from Season 1 Vote and Jared Weeks from the rock band Saving Abel.

“As much as I’ve accomplished in my life and been blessed to do, I don’t think I’ve ever had that true sense of team and friendship that I had with my friends on that football field,” says Hickerson, who is now happily married to Jenny Goforth. Hickerson and a father of three. “But being a good husband without example is a process. I’m learning as I go.”

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Source: HIS Education