We did hard-hitting items like ‘What’s in Craig David’s fridge?’ and got to interview amazing people (over the phone) like Tinie Tempah. My favourite part of the show was the throwback where people would tweet us to play songs like ‘Breathe’ by Sean Paul, or ‘One More Time’ by Daft Punk. I honestly would love to do radio again – it was one of the best years of my life. The only downfall was the fact there was a Gregg’s next door and it’s very easy to eat a whole packet of chocolate digestives with a cup of tea whilst listening to a four-minute rendition of Justin Bieber’s ‘Sorry’. I didn’t feel bad eating them, I enjoyed them – although my waistline didn’t and I did notice a lot of my clothes were having to be unbuttoned when I sat down to make sure I didn’t implode on myself.
Now I had just moved in with my boyfriend Luke when I started the radio show. We had been dating a while but as I like to keep relationships private (as I don’t like to jinx them), we didn’t make it official until 19 February 2016. So to my friends it looked like we had just met and he moved in with me straight away. I had actually met Luke years before at university through my uni friend Craig (Luke was visiting him at York) but he wasn’t my normal type. I don’t know how he wasn’t my normal type at the time, because nowadays this is completely my type. He is ginger, has got a pubey bushy beard, over forty tattoos and is as obsessed with aliens and conspiracy theories as me. It was a few years later that we met up again and we decided to go for food (shock) and cocktails at the Botanist in Newcastle.
When he rocked up on our first date wearing a fitted blue suit I got butterflies. I could see his two sleeves of tattoos poking out of his crisp white shirt. Throughout the date as the gin cocktails were rolling, he showed me his tattoo of Jesus (not the baby Jesus, adult Jesus) on his arm. Who would’ve thought I would end up waking up every morning saying, ‘Good morning, Jesus.’ I knew pretty much straight away that he was a good egg, which is why I moved more hastily than I ever had before in letting him move in. Again I don’t want to use phrases like ‘he’s the one’ because honestly I will bloody jinx it.
Now one of the things I especially love about Luke is he loves cooking food, which was great for me as I loved eating. But I got to the stage where after I would eat a large meal I would feel really lethargic and I knew that although I was happy with my shape I was not happy with my health. Now I honestly believe you can be whatever shape you want to be. You can be pear-shaped, apple-shaped – hell, you can even be trapezium-shaped. But I think it is really important that you are happy and healthy in yourself.
Women are always made to feel bad about their shape. Look at any women’s magazine, no matter whether it be for young girls or older women, you’ll see examples of women putting themselves down. You’ll see headlines like ‘Fit Turned to Fat’, ‘How to Be Beach Body Ready’, ‘How to Drop Two Dress Sizes in Two Weeks’, ‘Hot and Not on the Red Carpet’. We focus on what women are wearing, how their hair looks, how fit they’ve got after giving birth. Why aren’t we bigging women up? Yes, being healthy and feeling confident is an accomplishment but we aren’t just aesthetically beautiful empty vessels. The women that are portrayed in these magazines are amazing and talented. Whether they are singers, comedians, actresses, authors, reality stars or simply great mothers, let’s celebrate their accomplishments, not just how they look. If you look at any magazine made for men you can see how different their approach is. They have headlines like ‘How to Get Rich Quick’, ‘Ten Tips on Being Successful’, ‘Why Your New Suit Should be Tailored’, ‘What Watch to Buy Guide’ or ‘Most Influential Men of the Year’.
What upsets me the most is half the time it’s women writing the articles in women’s mags. We are constantly bringing ourselves down and making ourselves feel shitty. If a guy is a little overweight he has a ‘dad bod’ or he is ‘comfortable in his own skin’. Jesus, if my jeans mark my skin even slightly I’m branded ‘fat’, ‘chubby’, ‘muffin top’ … I’ve ‘let myself go’.
I strongly believe every woman – no, every human being – should be a feminist. Now to be a feminist doesn’t mean you have to go around burning your bra. Nor does it mean you have to go around wearing cardigans made from your own pet cat’s hair (as I said on I’m a Celebrity, ‘You can be a feminist and be a strong woman and still like fake tan’). It simply means that you want equality. If you don’t want woman to be equal to men, then frankly what is wrong with you? Don’t you want women to have the right to have equal pay, or do you think we all deserve less because we aren’t walking around with meat and two veg in our pants? Don’t you want women to be able to have the right to wear trousers to work instead of a skirt? The freedom to vote? To play sports? To marry who
