CHARLOTTE’S TOUGHEST YEAR
CHARLOTTE CROSBY The reality star tells Lucie Cave about her breakdown, a recent pregnancy scare, and how excited she is to be moving in with Stephen Bear…
he last time we spoke to Charlotte Crosby back in March, she was in the early stages of her romance with Stephen Bear (ie lots of public tongue touching) and admitted to us that she’d fallen for him hard. Now, in her second book Brand
New Me, Charlotte opens up about the moment she fell for him (she made him wait a week before they had sex), how different he is to the person we see on TV, and how he broke down in tears when he told her that he loved her in an emotional moment during a holiday in Barcelona.
Charlotte, 27, also relives the scary details of the ectopic pregnancy she suffered in April last year, while dating former Geordie Shore co-star Gary Beadle, and reveals she had to go to therapy as she felt “at breaking point” over her self-image.
In classic Charlotte style, she is searingly honest throughout the book – she drops the bombshell that she had sex with Made In Chelsea’s Alex Mytton on a wild night in Cannes, and also gives readers a helpful guide to what to do when you need a poo in your boyfriend’s parents’ house.
Luckily, she doesn’t need to worry about that for much longer, because, as heat told you last week, Stephen has bought his own house and the pair are officially moving in together in a few weeks…
Have you and Bear actually spent any time apart?
No, today is the first time in two months. I’m going home
to Newcastle for the weekend to see my dogs and get a change of clothes. I’ve been wearing the same red top and underwear for the last three weeks – I can’t wait to get home. I think I’m taking it better than him, though. How’s he handling it? He’s been hugging me all day and putting his arms round me really tightly. If I get up to get a drink, he’ll say, “Put that down, I don’t have much longer with you.” And you’re definitely moving in together? Yes, he’s bought his first house in Essex and asked me to move in. He doesn’t get the keys for a few weeks, though. What about your amazing place in Newcastle? You spent the whole of last year getting it built… Me mam and dad will live in there while they get their own house built, so I will still be able to visit. I will have the majority of stuff at Stephen’s, but I’ll go back to Newcastle for a long weekend twice a month. At the moment, I’m in London 60 per cent of the time and Newcastle 40 per cent, but when he gets the house, I will be at his 85 per cent of the time. Will you move your dogs in? I want to, but I don’t think I can take them away from me mam now, because she has such a big bond with them. They will have to come for long weekends. What will Stephen be like to live with? Stephen is really, really tidy and does all the washing. He’s much cleaner than me and empties the dishwasher, but he doesn’t mind too much. Six months in, how do you feel about your relationship with Bear now? Right at the beginning, I had a bit of worry about whether he would break my heart, but now I feel so secure, and I know this is for keeps. I know that for sure. I’m 27 now and I have done everything in life I want to do. I’ve found The One. What have you learnt about him since you got together? He’s so supportive of everything I do. Sometimes I think he can’t be real, because he’s so perfect. Do you have arguments? Oh yeah, we argue all the time!
‘I feel secure with Bear – I know this is for keeps. He’s The One’
We work together, live together and socialise together, so we’re constantly bickering. Can you tell us what a typical argument is about? [Thinks.] It’s usually about work. Like, for example, when we were filming the second series of Just
Tattoo Of Us, and he wouldn’t let me speak. Or he might say something and I’ll tell him it’s a rubbish idea, and he’ll get in a mood. In your book, you talk about a trip to Barcelona where he cried and said he loved you. Was that a turning point in your relationship? Yes, because he was crying and saying he couldn’t believe how nice I was to him and that he’d never felt like this before. That’s when I knew it was different. He was embarrassed about his tears, and that’s what made it sweeter. You talk very openly about the ectopic pregnancy and your relationship with Gary in the book, too. What was it like re-living that again? It was really hard when I went over it for the book, but now when I read it back, I don’t feel anything, which I find more strange. Do you still worry about not being able to have kids? No, because I’m patron of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, and I’ve had a lot of support from them and from other women. Loads of people with one fallopian tube go on to get pregnant, so I know it can happen to me. Have you had any pregnancy scares with Stephen? Yes! It was when I was on my boot camp in France recently, and I was really late on my period, so I bought a pregnancy test in the airport. When I took the test, I got really scared. But I wasn’t pregnant, so it was all fine. Would you have gone ahead with the pregnancy? Yes, definitely. I want three kids. You also admit in your book to having some low times, and how therapy helped with your body anxieties… I wasn’t able to train or keep fit
for a few months after the ectopic pregnancy happened, and I became really down and felt like I looked fat all the time. I felt like I had to constantly look a certain way and be a certain size, and it was getting me down. I would question my body all the time. I had to feel I had the best body, otherwise I was awful. But really, I was so skinny. You had a breakdown over it, didn’t you? Yeah I did. I was crying, stressed and anxious, and my agent was so worried about me that she booked me in to see a therapist. She helped put a lot of things into perspective, about being healthy, and how being skinny isn’t the be all and end all. At your worst point, what did you think when you looked in the mirror? I would be about 9st and I’m 5ft 7in, and that’s really thin. But I would look in the mirror and think that was fat. How do you feel now? I’m so much more confident and happy. I don’t get stressed to the point where I don’t want to eat or go out, or am worried about being photographed. But I still have times when I know I’m going down the path of getting too big and have to rein myself in – but in a healthy way. You talk about having a “uni-boob” in the book, and how you can’t wear low-cut tops. Are you considering having surgery to fix it? I have been to see a few surgeons about it, yes. It does bother me. I can’t wear anything with a deep-v or certain types of swimwear. I have researched it loads – there’s a doctor in A merica who can do the surgery. I don’t think there’s anyone in England. [Pauses.] But I don’t know if I will ever go through with it. Do you get upset when you see negative comments? I don’t get bothered if people are mean on my Instagram, but when Stephen puts a picture of us on his, there are a lot of bad comments about me – and they’re the ones that get to me. I don’t care if it’s just me who sees them, but I think that if he sees a girl saying I look ugly or something, he might start thinking it. That gets me down. Do you get jealous of other girls? I’m a very jealous person. I’m not paranoid, but I am jealous. If a girl went to make a move on Stephen, I would hate that and I’d do everything to stop that. Who says “I love you” more – you or Stephen? We’re both very soppy – it’s quite sickening, really. We’re all over each other all the time. Brand New Me by Charlotte Crosby (Headline, £16.99) is out now