Leon and June are sweet, aren’t they? I loved Steph and Dom too. I was lucky enough to get to meet them. They lived up to expectations! They haven’t even been in the show for about four series, but they are so memorable because of their characters. They were super friendly, smelt how I thought they would (of rich mahogany and Creed cologne) and were about to go to the pub for a bottle of champers. But my favourites have to be the Siddiquis. They are by far my favourite family. They are so quick-witted. I think they are really underrated; they should be given their own show.
I still watch Gogglebox now even though we are not on as a family any more. People always ask, ‘Do you miss Gogglebox?’ The answer to that is, ‘How can we miss something we still do?’ We still all watch television together, we still laugh, joke and cry at the TV as a family, just the difference being nobody gets to watch us doing it any more. Basically, when I got asked to do I’m a Celebrity, the Gogglebox people gave me an ultimatum: ‘It’s either Gogglebox or the jungle.’ To be honest it wasn’t a tough decision to make; my family wanted me to go for the jungle and I just knew it was too much of an experience to miss. My family, the TV and our couch were always going to be there, the chance to go in the Outback with a bunch of celebrities wasn’t.
Honestly, I loved having a job where I got to talk non-stop for several hours whilst watching the TV. Apart from the dry mouth. What I don’t miss – it was the difficult part of Gogglebox – was when we had to watch a show we loved, because you didn’t want to chat, you just wanted to watch and enjoy it.
We also had to watch a hell of a lot of shite, mind. But all those agonisingly boring documentaries were worth it when I would read my tweets and see that people had made comments about being cheered up after watching Gogglebox, or the fact that people would take the time out to send me letters. The greatest letter I ever received was from a lovely lady who was in hospital. She was having radiotherapy. She could only have one person in the room with her at a time, and they had to stand in the corner. So she couldn’t watch telly with anyone. She was really close with her mam and dad, and she said to me that when she’d watch Gogglebox, she’d almost feel as if she was home and having that one bit of time where she was with her family. She’d put herself in my position and pretend that she was at home. I just think that’s so lovely. The woman is all right now. She’s in remission, which I’m so pleased to hear.
I think it’s just amazing that people have the power to do that without even knowing it. You’re just sat at home filming or in a studio filming and you’re helping someone through bad times. I’ve had other letters where people have said, ‘You helped me last Friday, I was so upset, I’ve just switched on Gogglebox and in that hour I just laughed and smiled.’ It’s not something I would have ever expected. When you start on TV, you don’t even think that you’re going to have that effect on people, but it’s so rewarding. I always wanted a job where I could help make people smile.
I love all the letters and tweets and Insta posts I receive. I can’t believe people take the time out to be so sweet. I also love a good natter with a randomer on the street. Sometimes when I meet people they are quite shocked by the fact I’m not this super loud, confident young girl. I often get ‘Eeeh, aren’t you quiet?’ See it depends what day you catch me on. Sometimes I have days where I am the Scarlett Moffatt I love; other days I am Scarlett Moffatt struggling.
Now I don’t quite know how to word this and I know that when you read it you’re going to be like, where the hell did this pop up from? But that’s the thing with mental health issues, they do just pop up when you least expect them. So now I’m going to discuss something I have never openly spoken about before because I feel ready to say it out loud. I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks.
Since filming Gogglebox I had been accidentally put into the limelight. And for the first time in a long time, well, since my Bell’s palsy, I felt a feeling resurface. I felt out of control. I was always slightly worried when I filmed anything in case I was going to offend someone with what I said and it did have me on edge sometimes. Even though I don’t purposefully ever mean to say anything bad, I’m only human and you can’t please all of the people all of the time. So I guess I started noticing in myself that I was a lot more
