Billie: “I don’t talk about diets in front of the kids”
The Mummy Diaries star Billie Faiers promises to teach her six-year-old daughter Nelly to be body confident, and opens up about having another baby at the same time as her sister Sam
She was forced to drop out of ITV’s Dancing On Ice early last month after suffering a dangerous head injury during rehearsals with skating partner Mark Hanretty, and Billie Faiers admits the toning effects of weeks of gruelling practice are “now reversing”.
And with summer holidays a not-sodistant dream away, the mum-of-two, 31, is feeling motivated to ramp up her fitness regime – but says she’ll never discuss weight in front of her six-year-old daughter, Nelly.
HEALTHY EATING
Billie, who is 5ft 4 and a petite size 6-8, tells Closer, “In our house, we don’t talk about body hang-ups or diets. Nelly sometimes sees me eating something healthy and asks, ‘Mummy, are you on that diet?’, so I know she just thinks a diet is a type of food! I’d never say, ‘I look fat’ in front of the kids. My mum was never like that with us. We would never obsess over putting on a pound – that is the opposite of what we are like in our house.
“I’m more about teaching them the importance of being healthy. So it’s more, ‘You have to brush your teeth after this’, or, ‘You’ve eaten a lot of sweets today’
– it’s about their health over anything to do with weight.”
Since joining the cast of The Only Way Is Essex over a decade ago, Billie admits her weight has “fluctuated” over the years.
Despite only weighing 9½st at her heaviest in 2012, she was the victim of cruel online bullying when trolls called her “fat” when she was pictured in a bikini during a girls’ holiday to Las Vegas.
Now, she says that getting older, as well as ditching her regular boozy nights out when she was on TOWIE, have helped her maintain her weight as well as boost her confidence. She says, “I’m sure loads of women feel the same – that we all have our flaws and parts of our bodies we feel could do with toning, or that maybe we could do a bit more exercise on certain parts. I am a lot more confident with my body now that I’m older.”
FEELING BROODY
But being a busy mum-of-two, as well as filming for her and sister Sam’s ITVBe reality show, The Mummy Diaries, hasn’t stopped Billie from wanting to add to their family.
She says, “Sam [who has Paul, five, and Rosie, three, with boyfriend Paul Knightley]
and I have always said we’d each like to have another baby, and we’d love it to be at a similar time, but at the moment there’s so much going on – maybe in 2022!”
And, as she has raked in an estimated £3million since starring in TOWIE – thanks to her fashion boutique, TV spin-off shows and now her baby clothes, Billie by Billie Faiers at George – she wouldn’t discourage Nelly from following in her reality TV footsteps.
“I would always support my children in whatever road they go down and whatever career they choose,” she says.
“But in say 15 years time, we don’t know how things will be – it’ll probably all change again! But if reality TV is still going, I wouldn’t tell her she can’t do that.”
By Lauren Hill-Roger
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Faiers at George is now available at george.com.
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