Davina McCall: “I was doing cocaine with my mum at 15!”

I think out of everything. She was worried about me. Do you know what I mean? Like, that was her last thought, like...

There'll be him a call! She's a TV presenter! A fitness fanatic! Multiple times, they're selling out there.

Rarely off our televisions and what you see is what you get. It's good to be bad. After Big Brother, I thought, what else can I do to get famous? I was always a bit of a show off.

Mum, you made a mistake. How great I am. That's the back of everything. Why?

I did hope with my mum at 15. I did it with my sister at 14. You doing drugs? Yeah, like, all drugs were my problems.

I left my job. No money. I will literally do anything to stop feeling like this. I'm going to find someone for help.

I'm fucked. Ten years ago you lost Caroline. You're half sister. It was definitely the worst thing that ever happened to me.

I was just trying to be really strong for her. And I kept saying to her, I'm going to be fine. She put a fence around her. And I thought, I'm fucking climbing over the fence and I'm going to get in.

Don't wait for somebody to say that you've got six weeks to live. Because the best seven weeks of my life with my sister were those last seven weeks of hers. Divina, what was your first defining moment? Oh.

Definitely realizing the moment I realized my mum wasn't coming back to pick me up. So I got taken to my granny. He's my paternal grandmother. Most amazing woman called Pippie.

Got taken to her house in the country. Which I knew really well. I used to spend quite a lot of time down there with her. And my mum wasn't with my dad.

She was with another man. I didn't question that. They'd spit up but I didn't know that or understand. I don't think in my head I realized what was going on.

And she said, I'm going on holiday. And, you know, I'll be back. And I was like, OK, great. And I stayed with my granny.

And then after a couple of months, I thought, she's coming back. But then I thought, I didn't want to. This was such a different time. You know, I'm 55, so this would have been over 50 years ago.

It was such a different time that you didn't ask people. Children didn't go, where's mommy gone? Or when's mommy coming back? I knew that I was a guest at my granny's house.

But I wasn't. It had all been planned. My granny had been given my custody. My dad was coming down every weekend to be with me.

They were sort of sharing custody. But my dad was trying to make money in London. And my granny was taking care of me day to day. And it had all been sorted.

But I didn't know that. Because they just thought, well, she's young. She won't really remember or realize. Let's all just brush it under the carpet.

And it's so interesting, because nowadays with my children, everything that happens, we're like, how do you feel about that? Are you OK? Let's talk it through. Just didn't happen back in those days.

So I grew up thinking that my mum had left me and had never come back. So at about, probably four, maybe six months after she'd gone, I realized that I wasn't going to live with her again. But I was left feeling guilty because I felt like my granny was looking after me. And she didn't want me in some way.

Not that she didn't. She was so loving to me. But somehow I was overstaying my welcome. So I think that was a defining moment because it set up a chain of events, a fear of abandonment that kind of made me make some really stupid decisions all through my teenage years into my twenties.

And something that I've worked diligently on since my early twenties to let go of. Why did your mother do that? Well, my mum grew up in France with two parents who were very loving but didn't know how to give her their time. So I think my mum needed time and contact.

But they just gave her a lot of money. They were quite wealthy. And they just, you know, 18, they gave her a lump sum of money. She went and spent a whole lot on clothes and each time around.

She got a food disorder. She was very thin. It was the sixties. She was like a model.

She had a fade-on-away-nose job. She was incredible looking. Lots of drugs. A lot of drink.

Crazy fun lady. Super hot. Like young guy. They were an it-couple.

He was so in love with her. She was completely out. Probably a sex addict when I look back at her life. And, unashamedly, so the French are very, French are very different about sex.

She was kind of, you know, it's only bodies. That was her catchphrase. Like, you know, oh, it's only bodies. And you'd think, no, that's someone's husband.

Like, that is, you know what I mean? So looking back, she wasn't well herself. But she was so young. Like this was, we're talking 22, 23 when she met my dad.

She'd already had a child at 16. Then forced to marry the father of that child. They'd got divorced. So she was troubled herself, right?

And my dad tried to help fix her, but it just wasn't going to work. And she ran off with someone else having had several affairs and everything. And my dad was brokenhearted, absolutely brokenhearted. And the courts in the UK, because I was born in the UK and had been brought up here, gave my granny and my dad custody, which was so rare.

So I'm not sure how hard she fought. I'm not sure that she did. But that was what happened. But I did go and see her in the holidays.

But that was quite crazy. Like... What did you say? Oh my God.

What didn't I see? I mean, my mum would... She would wear... This was quite a funny story.

I mean, some of it makes me laugh now, but it would be... She'd go out with me. Like in a floor-length electric blue coat. And we'd get out.

And then she'd go like that to someone. And I'd think... Oh my God. She's naked.

Yes! Like she'd be naked underneath her coat. And she'd flash someone. She'd think it was hilarious.

And I'd just be like, oh God, somebody please. Like make the world disappear. But at times, it's really hard to explain, but I loved my mother. Like I really wanted her to pull some mummy business out the bag.

Like I was like, come on. You can do this. And sometimes she'd give me a hug and I'd think, oh my God, this is it. Like, this is what it feels like to be hugged by mother.

But then at other times, you'd be reading her, right? It'd be like, well, I've got to be... I've got to be a sweet little girl. Oh no, I'm going to have to take care of you.

Well, like now I have to be really good fun. I've got Annie to entertain you. It was always wearing a thousand different hats to see how she was going. And my granny used to say to me, when we did start talking about it, when I was older, she said we'd have to, like, kind of...

It would be funny for a month when you came back from France. You'd be a little bit on edge. I'd have to just really get you back into your favourite foods. A routine at bedtime.

Safety. Reground me. So when I say I'm half-none, half-wild child, it's because of that life that I've had. Like, drugs at 12.

With my mum. Like smoking weed at 12, coke at 15, 14, even. I did coke with my mum at 15. I did it with my sister at 14.

You know, it was like, it was... There was no... And then I'd get back to the UK. And it would be back into your second-hand clothes and sort of safe, small life.

Like, simple. My life was very simple. Just to give you an idea, I was in my granddad's jump from an old pair of jeans and I'd get to Paris. And they'd go, what are you wearing?

Here's loads of money. Go and buy some posh loafers and get your hair done. And I'm 12. Like, I look like a proper Lolita.

And I'd quickly realise that my life in Paris and my life in the UK, they must never know about each other. Because if they knew in the UK about my life in Paris, they wouldn't let me see my mum. And I didn't care how mad she was. I still wanted to see her.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So my sister also was my lifeline in Paris. So my sister, who's six years older than me, even though we did do drugs together and I know that sounds bad.

But she was my rock. Like, she was my, she grounded me when I was in Paris. So we stuck together. We understood what mum was like.

We worked her together. Caroline. Yeah, Caroline, yeah. And then my mum, you know, but I did like going to Paris and also because I was young and they didn't stop me from doing anything.

It's crazy. Having sat here with them stand up comedians. I remember Jimmy Carr said to me, he said, often it's assumed that comedians themselves are depressed. And that they're cracking jokes to kind of cheer other people up in an attempt to cheer themselves up.

But he said to me, you should actually ask them which one of their parents is depressed. Which one of their parents were they trying to please an entertain. I said, I don't know. Did I have to be this one day?

Did I have to be a joker? Did I have to take care of her? Was your personality shaped by that desire to keep bring good spirits or win over her affection? I think it taught me some amazing skills in reading people.

So also my granny was unbelievably good at this as well. So people used to think my granny was psychic because somebody would walk in the room and she'd go, you're okay. And they'd walk in smiling, but there would be an eyebrow raise or a flicker of an eye or something and she'd go, you're right. And they'd go, oh God, she's your granny's psychic so much.

She can read me. She can see straight to me. People like being with my mother, she could walk. I could hear by the way she walked what person she was going to be when she walked through the door.

I could hear the steps coming and I'd think I know how to behave the minute she walks through that door. So that's an amazing gift. And that's how I choose to see everything that's happened to me. I am absolutely not a victim.

Sure, some of it's been hard and it's like you said, I'm happy. We were talking just before we started. I'm happy. And yes, life throws me curve balls.

But I choose to learn from those and still be happy rather than cling on to the curve ball and let it pull me down. But I often wonder whether it was the hardship that made me, you know, small winds or little winds in my life were massive. Oh, yeah. You know, a hug from my mum that felt a little bit like a parental hug rather than a needy or an angry or...

That would be a huge, like, I'd done that for a month. I'd be like, I've got a hug two weeks ago that was epic. You know, so I think you hold on to these little things, but I don't know. Some kids might not see or feel that thing because they don't have that in them.

I wonder whether we are born with it. It's such an interesting concept positivity. Can you make yourself positive if you aren't? Have you ever spoken to the Speakmans?

I remember going on this morning. The Speakmans are a couple of nick and either. They're on this morning as kind of psychology experts. They're like, they help you train yourself out of patterns of behavior.

Those guys said something that if you are a negative person at the end of, you know, it's raining and it's raining for the third day in a row. You finish your negative sentence with, but luckily. And you have to say, but luckily and then think of something, but luckily. But luckily it was so dry in the summer, it does mean that the reservoir will be full.

You finish every negative thought with a positive and they said, it takes about two to three weeks to naturally start thinking, but you know, that's probably not a bad thing. But it's just remembering to do that is so hard. When you were like 16, 17, you said you'd start doing drugs with your mother in France. But what did you want to be when you were older?

I probably need to clarify, actually, that me and my mum only did drugs twice. I mean, I know that twice times too many in my book, but I don't want to give this impression that she and I were taking tons of drugs together because that would be a false impression. I just needed to put that there. But what did I want to be when I was 16?

Yeah, I was quite nihilistic, I think, in a way. I wasn't thinking about anything except for the weekend. And where was I going to go and what club could I go to and how could I go out and what how could I party? And that was beginning.

I moved to London when I was nearly 14. And when I moved to London, suddenly the safety of the country had disappeared and I started finding ways to go out and take drugs and find people that took drugs in London. I was living with my dad and my step mum, and they were very kind of solid, straight people, but my life did slightly change then. So I wasn't really thinking about anything at that point.

Really, the time when I started forming an idea and I was basically just a show off, would have been 18. I was basically just a show off. Yeah. Because I think because I had the sphere of abandonment, if I was, if I did, look at me, look at me, look at me, I'm here, everybody, don't need me.

Needy, people pleaser, everybody like me, like that's who I was. And actually, what drugs did for me at that time was they made me feel. Safe. They made me feel like I was being hugged in that maternal way, that they filled this hole that I had here.

And then as soon as the drug started running out, the hole would be there again. And I think, oh my God, it was the nearest thing I can get. You know, man, laughter, attention, drug, help fill the hole. So I was always a bit of a show off.

And 18, you dropped out of university? Never went to university. Never went to university. Didn't go to university.

And this is always something that I want to say to kids. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was an absolute car crash, I would say, until I was 23, 24. So when I was 19, I left school.

I went to Australia for a few months. I came back and I thought, I'm going to save up money. I'm going to go working. I'm going to save up some money.

I'm going to try and get enough money to go back to Australia and live there. I loved it out there. I was clean. I wasn't taking any drugs.

I was just driving to the beat. I mean, it was such a different me. And I liked that me. That was the none.

Like, my none was freed in Australia. And I thought, I like this person. I like who I am. And then a girlfriend of mine said, I'm going to Sandra Pay for two weeks.

Do you want to come? And I was like, yeah, but I haven't got much money. So I had all my savings and stuff. And I didn't want to delve into that.

She had quite a lot of money. And bless it. She came on the coach with me from Victoria down to Sandra Pay. And her parents had a house there.

And then I started dipping into the savings. And then in two weeks, I'd spunked 800 pounds that I'd saved up for my flight to go back to Australia. And I never went back. And that was a kind of, you know, that was the wild child me dancing on tables in a cafeteria in Sandra Pay till God knows what time in the morning hitching a lift off people in Ferraris trying to get back to.

I mean, awful, danger, danger, danger, everywhere. How I'm still alive. I've got no idea. But hilarious, you know, it was just part of my path.

But that meant that I never went back to Australia. And I got a job as a waitress. I was a really, really good waitress. I loved waitressing.

Did you ever do that? Well, my mum had a restaurant. I was super young. So I did it a little bit.

But I was so young that I was more just a gimmick. He'll get into tips because he's a little bit. But not properly known. I learned a lot.

I bet you did. I learned a ton from working in that restaurant about people in customer service and stuff. And I worked in like, you know, there was a shop called Republic retail a lot. I worked a lot.

What did you learn? Well, just people. I mean, people skills and what people want. And that the customer is the most important person.

You said people, please. Yeah, I mean, that's my natural. That was my natural habitat. So I'd go and I'd like make people feel amazing while they're having their meal and make sure that they had the best service ever.

And it felt like a win to me. You know, at the end of the night, I thought, I've done a really good job. I've made loads of people really happy. And that made me feel good about myself.

So it was a great job for me. When did you first realize that you wanted to do something in media TV? Or was it more? Yeah, no.

So that's quite a good story. So I got a job at models one after the after the and it was by chance. It was complete fluke. I got a job at models one working on Stephen, the male models section, that models one.

I was a book of the male models. I mean, I'm telling you 19 or 20 year old me walking in there. I was like, this is the best job ever. All these gorgeous men.

I fell in love every 30 seconds for the first week. And then what was interesting, it just became they just became normal. I was like, oh, there's another good looking guy. What about you?

Decentatized. Yeah, it's funny though. How quickly that happens. But I'm still friends with loads of them now.

Again, it was a great time in my life. Slightly car crash, lots of drugs, lots of madness. But also a very kind of good time in terms of work and having fun. So I was at this agency, loads of beautiful models everywhere.

I get approached by this guy who knows I love music. And he said, you want to run a club with me at subterania? And I said, yeah, great. And he said, bring all the beautiful people.

So these club nights caught the attention of somebody at MTV who was going to launch MTV Europe and they needed to, for the launch of MTV Europe in Amsterdam, get loads of celebrities from the UK to Amsterdam, but do it in a really cool MTV way. So me and this girl called Sara Blondstein and I got called Graham. We were in charge of entertaining the celebrities from Victoria Train Station to Amsterdam and back. And it was like, Duran, Duran, Zodiac Minds Warp.

I mean, it was really, really fun. And I just have as a cleaning lady lipstick on my teeth, curlers in my hair, a tea urn full of champagne, and it was riotous. And at the end of that night, when we were heading back from Amsterdam on the plane, I thought to myself, I'm going to work at MTV. That is the best place that those are the best people.

And while I was there at that night, and this is what, this is another defining moment. That night when I'd gone, I said to someone, can I get your number? Because I'd love to kind of look at job prospects at MTV. Would it be all right?

And he's like, yeah, sure. I had the number and I thought I'm going to call this guy. And then I called him and I said, would it be all right? Can I sort of send you a show reel if I did a show reel?

Because I'd like to be a presenter on, I didn't even know the word VJ then, on MTV. And he's like, yeah, sure, sure. And I started making show reels and I must have sent him like three a year and relentlessly called him until he said, please stop calling me after a couple of years. He said, could you just, like, I can't give you a job at the moment.

We only want European presenters. And I said, can you give me someone else's number? And I'll call them instead. And he went, yeah, you can take my Catherine's number.

So I took my Catherine's number. And eventually a year later, my Catherine said, there's a vacancy. So I'm 24. I've just got clean.

I'm six months clean and sober. I'm absolutely radioactive. I can't believe I'm sober. I'm still can't believe I'm waking up with dry sheets that my pillar, you know, we're talking about small winds.

This is morning. This is amazing. That's such a win. Yeah, sweating.

I used to sweat in bed withdrawing at night. And my sheets were dry. What drug causes that? So heroin.

So I was, in the end, addicted to heroin for maybe the last three months of my using. But the nun took over, I think, at that point and was like, you are addicted. Now you have to stop. What was that moment?

And what was, can you really zoom in on that moment of you reach a point and you go, this has to change. So my best friend had said she was going to take me to Santana. She used or drink really. She'd had a brain injury when she was younger and she couldn't for 10 years.

So she didn't. And she got me into her car and I was like, I'm so excited about going to the Santana. I was probably. What Santana?

It's a band. Stephen Bartlett. I know. Sorry.

Go and do some revision. Okay. I'm so Santana. Okay.

Okay. Santana. Okay. And I got in the car and she shut the doors and she said, I'm actually not going to take you to Santana.

I need to tell you some things. I was like, yeah. And she said, I know that you've been lying to me weirdly. I've been off heroin for a month at that point because I've been away.

I've done a geographical. I've gone away looking after someone's nannying for someone for two weeks and got clean. And then I'd also been with my mum in Morocco. So I had no heroin for a month.

But I had just come off the back of a 24-hour cocaine vendor, which has made me realise that heroin wasn't my problem. All drugs were my problem. If I wasn't taking her and I couldn't take cocaine, normally either. I couldn't just take it for four hours and then go to bed.

I had to take it for 24 hours. I was an animal. I thought, oh my god, I'm not just addicted to heroin. It's all drugs.

I've got to stop. She gets me in the car and she goes, I know you've been lying to me. We all know you've been lying to us, all your friends. And you are the topic of conversation at every dinner party I go to.

And this shame starts piling on. And I started feeling a bit, well, fuck you to her. And this is actually my only friend I've got left. And I do say, well, fuck you.

Like, fuck you. I didn't really know what to say because I couldn't really argue with what she was saying. And I said, yo, I didn't want to go and see something really childish. Like I didn't want to go and see something on her anyway.

Get out the car. I'm trying to get out the car. She slightly shut the doors. It's all eggy, awkward.

Slam the door. I'm trying to get away from her immediately burst into tears. I think I'm not going to turn around and let her see. I'm crying.

You know, get inside. Go straight to bed. My parents, you know, I was sleeping on a camp bed in my dad's sort of wardrobe. I'd move out of my boyfriend's home.

His fault that I was using, I'd got worse. I'd left my job. I thought that was the thing that was making me use. I'd got worse.

I had a car, but no money to put petrol in the car. I had not put nothing. I was on this camp bed and I would sort of walk into my room, which wasn't really a room. It was a cupboard.

Sit on the bed. Go to sleep. And then an hour later I wake up and I think I'm going to find someone for help. I'm fucked.

I can't do this anymore. I find this woman who I knew was clean. And it was as if she'd been expecting my call. She goes, oh, hi, Devina.

And I was like, I was just wondering if you're going to a meeting tomorrow. She's like, yeah, yeah, I'm going at six o'clock. You know, world's end. Come and meet me there.

I was like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm just interested to see what you know. What it's like. It's just great. Come along.

If you want. She didn't ask me what's going on. She didn't ask me what's going on. She was exactly right.

And the next morning I woke up and I felt so full of shame. And I thought I'd go and see Sarah. So I went to see Sarah at work at lunchtime. I sobbed.

I said, I'm not expecting you to believe me. And I know I'm going to have to prove myself. I just wanted to let you know. I want to change.

I want to do something about it. I'm going to go to a meeting tonight. And I can see a slight sort of, are you really? Is this really going to happen?

I just thought I don't know how much more I can give you, tell you. But I really, really mean it. So I went to a meeting that night. Just spent the next two weeks going to meetings every day and for 90 days after sobbing.

Just sobbing in every meeting of surrender. And I care what I have to do. I will literally do anything to stop feeling like this. And NA taught me how to live and how to change and how to heal myself.

I owe NA my life. Literally. But it also gave me my career. And weirdly having tried to get a job at MTV while I was using all those years.

The time they say come in for an interview, we're going to finally screen test you after three years of trying. I was six months clean. And I didn't mess it up. You know, I turned up on time.

In fact, I turned up a bit early. That was new for me. I turned up clean and smelling like flowers. And with a smile on my face and colour in my cheeks.

That was new for me. You said NA taught you how to heal. What did you learn about healing? And what did you learn about why you were addicted to narcotics?

Well, I learned about fear of abandonment. I probably hadn't heard that as a phrase. Then I didn't understand from listening to other people talk about their experiences. Sometimes I think, oh no, that wasn't quite my experience.

I don't think that's why I used. And then I remember hearing someone and thinking, that's exactly me. That whole. And it never fills up.

And you're constantly trying to fill it with anything. And then when they said, here is where I'm learning to fill it myself. And I thought, that's what I want. I want to line the whole with something impermeable.

That means it will fill up and never empty again. And there are steps in narcotics. It's anonymous in any 12-step programme. And, you know, if you work through these steps.

And it is like, people would go, oh, it's like a cult, you know, it's really bad. But I did replace my addiction with addiction to narcotics. Anonymous. But I know which addiction I'd rather have.

Like, I went all the time, often twice a day. Because it was the only place where I felt completely normal. I'd be around other people going, yeah, I felt like that. Oh, yeah, I did that.

Oh, God, I'd messed up this. Or, oh, yeah, I had liaisons with people that I didn't care about. I didn't know, but I thought it would fix me. You'd think, God, these people are so honest.

I realise the power in honesty. I mean, that's your thing, right? Speak your truth. Yeah.

It's powerful. Yeah. Freeing oneself, isn't it? So I learned everything to help me.

I did have like another transformational moment when I got hypnotised for a job that I was doing about eight years ago. And that was like, that was when the impermeable seal went on my fear of abandonment. And it was unexpected because I wasn't going to the hypnotist about that. I was going to the hypnotist about not feeling anxious going in a submarine to 1,000 metres under the sea.

Tiny three person submarine where you can't stand up and there's no loo and it takes 40 minutes to get to the surface again. And I thought, I don't forget claustrophobia, but I don't want to find out at 1,000 metres under the sea that I am, indeed, claustrophobic. So I thought I'd better go and get hypnotised just to make sure. And that was, have you ever done hypnotises?

No. Oh man, I mean, if you've got an issue, that is something that you've worked on a lot and is hard to let go of. I mean, I didn't even think really that my favourite abandonment issue was still there, but I do think, I do think it was, and we did some regression work where I went back to me in the kitchen, looking at my granny, thinking my mum's not going to come back. And I don't know what to do and I feel a bit guilty.

I think I've overstayed my welcome. And the hypnotist said, go get that divina. Take her by the hand. He said, where's your favourite place in the garden?

I said the oak tree. So he said, take her to the oak tree, sat her over the oak tree, little me, four years old. And he said, OK, sit her down. I'll sat her down.

And he said, you know, I said, she looks worried. And he said, comfort her. I said, I feel silly. I don't know what to do.

It's me. It feels weird. And he said, imagine she was one of your own children, comfort her as if she was your child. So I put my arm around her and I thought, OK, this is easier.

And then her head went on my chest and I was stroking her hair. I said, I don't know what to say. I kept thinking he's looking to me to say something profound and I've got no idea how to do this. And he said, well, why don't you tell her it's all going to be OK.

And I really started crying, like really crying. And he said the same thing. It was up. And I said, it's not going to be OK.

I take drugs. I make stupid decisions. I put myself in danger. It's bad.

And he went, but look at you now. And it was like, oh my God. Look at me now. I'm great.

And it was like everything went, you know, all the cogs and the wheels and my brain all went click. I am going to be OK. I looked at her and I got like her head in my hands and I was like, you are going to be OK. Your life is going to be amazing.

And it will be, you know, ups and downs, but you are going to be OK. And he said, you can take her back. Let's take her back to the kitchen. And I put her down in the seat.

And she's smiling at me. And then he says, we can leave now. Before we leave, I want you to just turn around and look at her one last time and tell me what she looks like. She looks happy.

And he said, great. And he brought me around. I was like, bawling. This is amazing.

What's happened? What's just happened? And he said, we planted a seed. And he said, let's just wait and see what happens there.

He said, this was basically to stop you feeling like you're going to be abandoned at the bottom of the sea. But actually, I think maybe we've done something bigger here. It might be kind of amazing what happens. And a couple of things happened after that, where I said, actually, it's not OK to treat me like that.

I would never have said that before because I was worried you'd abandon me. I stood up to you and said, not OK. I'd think, oh, you might not like me anymore. It was very important that everybody liked me.

And suddenly, I was like, actually, I can stand up for myself in a non-aggressive way. And not actually mind if you like me or not because I'm doing it for me. God, it was mega. And I feel like, from that moment, I've been a different person in all of my decisions, in my outlook on life, it's been mega.

So your career then in TV, one of the things I read is that it was heavily fueled. We can't talk about this before we start recording, by your desire to be famous. Yes. I mean, the first MTV thing, so I'd wanted to be a singer, another desire to be famous.

I wasn't good enough. I was like, I would be an amazing backing vocalist. My nickname at home is the harmonizer. I can't listen to a track without harmonizing to it.

I absolutely have to. It's annoying at some point, isn't it? Yeah, because all my kids are like, oh my God. In the car, I'm always like, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm.

You know, they're going, oh my God, stop. If I could have turned my family into the Von Traps, and I really tried, like that, or made them all do choir. I all had to kind of do singing lessons. They just weren't buying it at all.

I'm so upset about that. But if I could have had the Von Traps, that would have been my dream. Anyway, failed singer. What else can I do to get famous?

All of this, obviously, mum, look at me. You made a mistake. Look how great I am. That's at the back of everything, right?

And I mean, for example, when I was 15 or 16, and I did quite well in my old levels, they were old levels back then, how old I am. And I called up my mum to tell her I'd done quite well in my own levels. She was really angry because she felt like I was just trying to show her up or that, you know, don't think that you're, she was drunk. She was drunk.

She stood badly. She felt that it was me trying to say that she wasn't good enough or that she'd done something, you know, and I was so confused by that that I thought I'm going to show you. Like, I'm going to make you want to, anyway, my aim was I want to get my own show on MTV. That's what I want.

And I got my own show on MTV and I presented the first show and I went up to the dressing room afterwards and I cried and I cried and I couldn't figure out why I was crying. And I called my sponsor, which is something you have in narcotics anonymous, who's there to help you decide for yourself. And she said, right, you know, we picked it apart and picked it apart. And I said, it hasn't fixed the whole, it didn't make me think, oh, my mum's going to want me back.

And then to top it all off, my mum did call me and say she'd seen it because you could see it in France because it was European. And she said, you know, I think you should stop putting the faces, you pull these faces. And I was like, that was not the desired effect. I did not want you to think that.

I wanted you to think, wow, you're amazing, you know. And so it was a really heavy moment. And then I thought, wow, I need to warn everybody, you know, being famous, you've got to do it for the right reasons. I did it for the wrong reasons.

And now I'm here and I've got this job and I'm on the wheel and I don't know how to, you know, I can't get off. I mean, I was enjoying my job. Don't get me wrong, work at MTV, worse than the greatest years of my life. But actually, it was probably his life.

I've had lived about 10 different lives in my lifetime and MTV was one of them. But I think that realization that the thing that I'd been aiming for that I thought was going to fix me and it didn't was like, again, the end of something and the start of another phase of my life. Okay, well, you're going to have to find it inside somehow. And that whole, you referred to, is that whole field now?

Yeah. I mean, I've never been so happy. Like I can't even, I sat, you know, it was really funny because I said, I said to my boyfriend, this morning, I said, I'm going to do this thing, Stephen Bartlett this morning. And he was like, oh my God, I am not going to cry.

I'm like, I haven't done Piers Morgan specifically for this reason because I was like, I am not going to sit under. But it's weird because it's the thing, I could talk about my pain. So the cows come home and not feel a thing because it's so far removed from me. And it was a long time ago and I've processed and processed and processed it.

But feeling happy, like, is so alien. Like 100%, like joyous. Sitting on the train and just feeling so good this morning. And it's not like euphoria or a druggie happy or a fake eye.

It's content. Oh my God, it's like, I can't, I cannot quite believe it. And I don't, you know, I've been walking forwards, but I don't know how I got here. Just walked forwards, you know, but settling, settling down.

I feel like I've, I've grounded in a way that I've never had before. And, you know, I think it's something important to talk about this stuff because at 55, if you'd have said to 30 year old me, what's life going to look like when you're 55, I'm going to say really sad. I probably won't be doing TV anymore. It won't want me.

And I'll be really boring. And I won't be having fun anymore. And so, and I think, well, I could be wrong. More wrong.

I could go and tell everybody quick. Tell everyone it's going to be OK. Steven? It's going to be OK.

I've never had someone say to me that their feelings of happiness make them emotional. Oh, when I think about it, well, because I'm grateful and I think because, you know, we were talking about what makes you a positive person. I think it's because you think it's been a roller coaster, right? It's for you.

It's been a roller coaster. But like, it's not about the Lambeau or the House or the mansion. It's about this and your roller coaster and your journey to money and making it and then realizing it doesn't fix you. And then you fixing yourself by being on a journey of self discovery, which you massively are.

By talking to all these different people, you're like taking little bits from everything that somebody says to you and think I'm going to use this for me. That was a great tool. Thank you very much. I'm going to have that.

It's like you are healing yourself. This is your enaming thing. This is your recovery. I'm going to blow my cover.

Yeah, because you're recovering. How amazing is that? It's crazy. Yeah.

And it's just going to, these are all seeds that are planted in you that just continue to grow. So life gets better. Mother nature throws you creepy knees and creepy elbows and crow's feet. But it also throws you a full heart and a peaceful mind.

Your career, your career in TV, that whole journey, it's been one of the most incredible careers that I think most people could ever hope for in any industry ever. You know, the top of your game. I first came to learn about you because of Big Brother, but there's a career before that and there's a long, long career after that. When you reflect on what advice you had given yourself or like why you made it to the very top of that pyramid, what is the answer to Vina?

I mean, this is another thing that I marvel at every day because I've been many times in my career where I've thought this is it. It was interesting after Big Brother finished. I contacted a friend of mine who was like a tech, a techy person. And I'd had this thought like after Big Brother, I thought, who am I?

And where am I going to go? And it could all end. And as the person that was providing the roof and the food on the table, it was like me, I had to think of my next step. What was I going to do?

I'm not sure how long television is going to last. I mean, it's still going, which is amazing for me. But I thought I need to get into technology and the internet and I need to go online. And I came up with an idea for, I thought about it in terms of an exhibition centre, but you could go online where you would have everything from money, advice, personal advice, mental advice, kids' advice.

And I went and talked to a few people about it. And for whatever reason, it didn't happen. But it wasn't meant to happen. I tried to get it off the ground for like two or three years.

I tried to make it a TV program. I tried to make it an exhibition. I tried to make it an online thing. And you know when you're swimming against the tide with an idea and at some point you've just got to take your hands off the steering wheel and go, like, that wasn't meant to happen.

But then I got offered a long lost family. Now long lost family, I've been filming that program now for 13 years. It makes me feel so good, that show. And I've helped so many people on it, which has been so wonderful to be part of that moment in their life where they learned something that's been a niche that they couldn't scratch for years and years and we can provide that scratch.

So I always think, well, just start walking in that direction and something else will come along, but never just sit down and wait. You know, I've never sat down and thought, I'm just going to stay here and wait for something to happen to me. I've got no embarrassment or shame about emailing a TV company or a head of a TV company going, have you thought about this? What about this?

Can I present that if it happens? Can I do this? I'm literally begging ITV to let me present Midlife Love Island. I could fill a villa in Love Island with middle-aged people with the best backstories you have ever heard and you're like, they've lived a life.

They're widows. They're people who have been through horrific divorces. They are people who have to protect somebody and decided they want to try going out with somebody the same sex as them. They're like, interesting people.