Author of the week Georgia Kousoulou
The influencer and podcaster reveals the extreme pressures of motherhood, and why she wouldn’t want her son to do reality TV
In typically direct fashion, TOWIE star Georgia Kousoulou confesses she didn’t take to motherhood quite as expected. “When I became a mum I lost my identity a bit,” the reality show star reveals in her first book, I Wish I Knew, written after the birth of her son Brody. It charts her journey to motherhood and how she found herself again, offering advice on what she has learned along the way.
She dreaded nights and the prospect of 2am feeds, struggled to connect with her baby, and felt incredibly lonely.
But Georgia, 32, who is married to footwear entrepreneur Tommy Mallet, who she met on TOWIE, has found solace through her two million Instagram followers, asking questions, and finding kindred spirits.
“I love Instagram. I’ve used it as a tool to connect with people. I have a lot of questions and don’t know a lot of stuff, especially when it comes to [being a mum]. I’d never changed a nappy before Brody.
“I used Instagram to ask for tips and it’s become a community. I say how I feel and maybe I’m too honest, but then other mums have done the same and it’s become a lovely space.”
Happy snapshots of her life are played out on social media – cute pictures of Brody, her wedding in December, out on the town with friends and family – but in the book she also charts the tougher times – her parents’ divorce, the panic attacks she had on TOWIE, and the pressure her appearances on the show put on her body image, leading her to take up the gym obsessively. “I was 22 when I started TOWIE and very skinny, then I got obsessed with the gym, then it became a competition in my head about who had the best body. You think you’ll get more work if you’re in the headlines.
“I did any diet I could find. I did diet pills, every one you could imagine... I’d have done anything just to be skinny,” she writes.
Cosmetic surgery followed. She had breast enhancements and a nose job, although she says she wanted her nose done before she appeared on the show.
“I grew up in a Greek and Irish household where a lot of people around me had their noses done. I knew as a young girl I didn’t like my nose, then when I went on TV I knew I definitely didn’t like it. I didn’t like its angle. I couldn’t stand it.”
When she had the surgery, she was trolled relentlessly, she recalls. “I got so much slap for it. People called me Michael Jackson for about two years, so you can’t win with the trolls, can you?”
And the taunts took their toll.
Her surgeon told her it would take a full year to heal, but she started filming a month later even though her face hadn’t healed.
“It’s hard, you’re feeling sh** anyway, you’ve just had surgery and noses take a long time,” she recalls.
After seven years she left TOWIE in 2021 and today, she’s an influencer and podcaster, and stars in ITVBE reality show Georgia & Tommy: Baby Steps, charting the ups and downs of parenthood in their Essex mansion.
She says she is happier than she has ever been, and a lot of that has to do with being a mum to Brody.
In the book, she recalls her pregnancy, giving birth, the struggles of being a mother, mum guilt, baby loss – she had a miscarriage last year – trying for another baby, and how she is moving forward.
Georgia miscarried at 12 weeks and says it was one of the most painful parts of the book to write, and happened while filming series four of Baby Steps. For some time afterwards, her main focus was to get pregnant again, but she is now trying to give herself a break.
“At the moment I’m stopping all the pressure and enjoying life again because I think I got so lost in the process that I forgot to enjoy what I had in front of me.
“Trying for a baby is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I didn’t have to try with Brody. With the second baby, which I lost, I got pregnant very quickly.
“That’s affected me because I’m thinking, why hasn’t it happened a third time? But we’ve both had fertility checks and there’s nothing wrong, which is great to know. I feel like my body has gone into fight mode from a trauma. My body won’t allow me to get pregnant because I’m in trauma mode. I think the best thing for me to do is heal, get positive and just let it be.”
But she is confident she will have more children – maybe three or four.
Today, to help maintain good mental health she has a therapist.
“I think it’s very important when you’re going through things that you talk. If I don’t talk I’ll go downhill.”
The daughter of a millionaire property developer, Georgia says she’s grateful to TOWIE for giving her the life she has, but recognises the harm reality TV can inflict on some.
“Back then I was a bit more naive, TOWIE was new, there wasn’t a lot of reality shows, now it’s full of them. Now, young kids have grown up to say they want to do reality TV when they get older. To me that’s really sad.
“I love reality TV, but would I want Brody to do it? No, because it comes with a lot of pressure, and if it doesn’t work out for you, you then find yourself in a position of what are you going to do now? And that can be hard on people’s mental health.
“I’m very lucky I’m still working. I’ve been in the industry 10 years and that is rare. People are going on these shows so quickly then dropping. It can be damaging because one minute you’re high,then you’re low.”
She believes there is more mental health care in place for participants now although recalls: “I had a psychotherapist the whole way through TOWIE, especially when things happened to me, like I’d fall out with someone. I think mental health is a priority. It has to be.”
She hasn’t written off more reality TV for herself, though, and says she’d probably go on I’m A Celeb if asked.
“I always do things that push me out of my comfort zone. But when you have a child you have to work out if it’s worth it. It is different now, because leaving Brody would have to be worth it for me.”