Daily Star Sunday

Claudia: I owe it all to mum

- ■ by TAMMY HUGHES sunday@dailystar.co.uk

VANITY Fair star Claudia Jessie says her success is down to her mum.

Claudia, 28, who plays Amelia Sedley in the ITV mini series, said: “She was open to the idea that I could achieve anything.

“My mum has been incredibly supportive.

“We had a really difficult life. She was a single parent and was cleaning houses.

“She worked her backside off for my brother and myself and never gave up.

“It was down to her that I kept going.”

Claudia also endured lean times “doing anything I could to earn money”.

One regret is that her nan died and didn’t get to see her in Vanity Fair. She said: “She was proud of anything I did. But I think this is the one thing she would have adored the most.”

Claudia previously had the leading role in daytime drama WPC 56 and a guest part in Line Of Duty but Vanity Fair could catapult her to greater fame.

HOT TV – PAGES 30 & 31

THRILL-SEEKERS will be able to enjoy a tipple while being wowed by Star Wars entertaine­rs at a new Disney attraction.

Oga’s Cantina – run by “an intriguing alien” – will open next year inside Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland in California and Disneyworl­d in Florida.

The cantinas will be the first Disney sites to sell alcohol.

INSTAGRAM has been accused of “encouragin­g” young people to self-harm.

Hundreds of users are sharing images of themselves cutting their bodies on the social network.

Some have been online for several years without being blocked.

One, who calls herself depressive. selfharm.girl, has more than 20,000 followers. The 14-year-old from Germany posts about her depression and pictures of bloody arms.

Another troubled user called just_

another_depressed_girl_18 has posted more than 600 times. Most of her pictures show her bleeding wrists.

Her most recent image is of a gaping wound with the caption: “Finally got a good cut.” It has been “liked” 461 times with 95 comments.

One user wrote: “How do you cut like this?” Another posted: “I don’t want to sound like I’m encouragin­g it because I promise I’m not, but how did you get this wide?”

Last week a leading children’s charity revealed that a fifth of 14-yearold girls had self-harmed.

But Instagram – bought by Facebook for $1billion in 2012 and which has

800million active users – is still allowing graphic images and videos of limb-cutting on its site.

Users make the images easy to find by adding the hashtags #depression #selfharm #cutting and #suicide. One girl of 18, who self-harmed from the age of 12, said: “Self-harm is romanticis­ed on social media. It draws in the most vulnerable people. Instagram is teaching people how to self-harm.”

A Daily Star Sunday investigat­ion found that simply typing “selfharm” into Instagram’s search tool came up with 424,490 results.

Mental health campaigner Natasha Devon said: “Social media is not the reason young people self-harm. But quite often the internet has taught them how to do it.

“Sometimes it can be well-meaning news articles or it can be social media accounts of people doing it to themselves. What we are hearing from children who have self-harmed is that they saw how to do it from social media accounts.

“These graphic images of self-harm are very triggering for people who are vulnerable. If social media sites wanted to take these images down they could do it fairly easily.

“We know they have the technology because they police naked pictures.”

Instagram said in a statement: “We take our responsibi­lity to keep Instagram a safe and supportive place very seriously and have zero tolerance for content that promotes or glorifies self-harm or suicide.

“However, we recognise this is a complex issue and we want people struggling with their mental health to be able to access support on Instagram when and where they need it.

“Experts we work with tell us that communicat­ion is key in order to create awareness and that coming together for support and facilitati­ng recovery is important.

“Therefore, in addition to removing content that violates our terms, we take a holistic approach by offering people looking at or posting certain content the option to access tips and support, talk to a friend or reach out to PAPYRUS UK or the Samaritans to get the help they need.”

 ??  ?? PROUD: Claudia Jessie
PROUD: Claudia Jessie

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