Sam & Billie: “We’re like the Kardashians… but we want our show to be better!”
The showbiz sisters break their silence on the mummy reality show war with pal Ferne Mccann and reveal how their families cope with living in the glare of the cameras
They’re reality TV show veterans, launching their popular The Mummy Diaries back in 2016 and filming five successful seasons following their lives as busy working mums.
But after recent rumours of “tension” between them and pal Ferne Mccann after she released her show First Time Mum, Sam and Billie Faiers say that, while there’s no bitter competition, they want their show to be better. Sam says, “We were the first mummy show and other mummy shows were bound to come about. But instead of focusing on the other shows, we want ours to be better!
“I’m so proud of Ferne, though. She’s come along so well [since becoming a single mum after her former boyfriend Arthur Collins was jailed for an acid attack] and she’s a great mum to Sunday.” Billie, 29, agrees, “I take my hat off to Ferne! She juggles it all so well, being on her own.”
And the Essex sisters reveal they have set their sights on aspiring to reality show royalty the Kardashians.
Billie says, “We love them! Our shows are similar, but they’re on another level. They’re so close, like me and Sam.” Sam, 28, adds, “As a family, they’ve always stuck together. They’re outrageous, but through thick and thin they always support each other.”
The Faiers sisters are back in a new series of The Mummy Diaries, which focuses on Billie’s children, Nelly, four, and Arthur, one, with fiancé Greg Shepherd, and Sam’s children, Paul Tony, three, and Rosie, one, with boyfriend Paul Knightley.
This series follows preparations for Billie and Greg’s upcoming Maldives wedding – and Billie says she’s undergoing a strict pre- wedding beauty regime to make sure she looks fabulous for her big day.
She says, “I’ve got a personal trainer to get me in shape and I’ve been drinking healthy juices. I’ve been having skin treatments, too – I had loads of spots due to stress. It’s all coming together now.”
TANTRUMS
The sisters rose to fame on TOWIE in 2010, alongside the likes of Amy Childs and Gemma Collins, with Sam getting caught up in a love triangle between Lauren Goodger and then-boyfriend Mark Wright. And while the girls look back on the show fondly, they say they have thoroughly grown-up and have a different focus.
Billie says, “TOWIE was all about partying, romances, going out and drama. And that’s just not us any more. I was on TOWIE briefly after I’d had Nelly and I realised it was just not the same. When you have a baby, your priorities change, and what I used to think was important just isn’t any more.”
Instead of love dramas and fallouts with co-stars, the cameras now hone in on the sisters’ lives as mums, from toddler tantrums to spats with their partners. Sam says, “It’s the worst when you’ve just had an argument and you have to film together – Paul and I tend to ignore each other if we have a fallout until we get over it, so it’s not ideal. But we don’t argue that much, and when we do, we try to make up as soon as possible. When you have children in the house, you don’t want them to listen to arguments – they pick up on everything.”
OVERWHELMING
And while the girls love doing their own show and hope they get to do it for years to come, they do worry about putting their kids on TV and sharing their lives with the world.
Billie says, “I was worried when Nelly started school and came home one day and said, ‘Mummy, the children know me. They know my life and my family.’ Once she said, ‘They are talking to me and I don’t want to talk to them.’ And that’s when I thought that maybe it’s all a bit overwhelming for her. It does worry me, because I never had that and I don’t know what it’s like. I just want her to have a normal childhood.”
But they’ve always insisted that if their kids weren’t happy, they wouldn’t continue to film with them. Sam adds, “Little Paul has just turned three and I’ve noticed recently that filming is not for him. Nelly enjoys the cameras, but Paul is shy. And if it seems that he really doesn’t like filming as he gets a bit older, I won’t have a storyline around him.”
But even without her son, Sam has aspirations for the show to carry on. She adds, “I think the show will keep going for years and years – I hope so anyway!”
‘It’s the worst when you’ve had a row and have to film’ ● Sam And Billie Faiers: The Mummy Diaries Series 5 starts at 9pm, 6 March on ITVBE