Scarlett: “My boyfriend stops me worrying about trolls”
Scarlett Moffatt reveals how she’s learnt to brush off the body bullies, thanks to her policeman boyfriend – and why she’s happy to hold out for a proposal
She was reduced to tears last month, breaking down in an emotional Instagram video after a vicious troll wrote her a letter calling her “atrocious” and “fat”. But Scarlett Moffatt reveals that her boyfriend, policeman Scott Dobinson – who she has now been dating for 18 months – has helped her to put things into perspective.
Scarlett, 29, says, “I show [Scott] the negative comments and he’ll say, ‘Look at all the nice comments.’ And if I’m having a bad day, he’ll go, ‘Yeah, I had to deal with this murder today.’ On the grand scale of things, it’s not that bad.
“He has a little motto, which is, ‘Will this matter in five years’ time? If not, why are you worrying?’ I use that in everyday life a lot now and I feel like my stress levels have gone down.”
Scarlett is no stranger to heartache. In 2017, her ex Luke Crodden dumped her on her 27th birthday, and she split with Lee Wilkinson at the start of last year after claiming he’d cheated on her. But it seems she’s finally got the relationship she deserves with Scott, and the pair moved in together in Durham this summer.
“I can’t say he is going to propose, or that we are going to get married, because then he will read it and get freaked out!” she laughs. “Everyone is always asking if he is The One, but I feel like whenever I say that it really changes it. But I really, really like him. We live together and we are very happy – him, me and my little dog.”
DREAM JOB
Despite having had a rocky time with her presenting work, Scarlett is positive about Adam Thomas and Emily Atack taking over from her on I’m A Celebrity: Extra Camp. She says, “This is Adam’s first presenting job, and I said to him, ‘Just be yourself and everyone will love you.’ Emily [Atack] is an amazing presenter and she is lovely. I like it when good things happen to lovely people.”
She is also full of praise for her former Saturday Night Takeaway co-host Ant McPartlin – with whom she was forced to deny rumours of a romance in 2017.
And after it was confirmed last week that she’d been axed from the show, which she previously dubbed her “dream job”, it seems Scarlett is still on good terms with the presenting duo. She says, “When I’m A Celeb! started, I texted Dec and said, ‘Good luck!’, and he replied, ‘Thank you’. It’s great to have Ant and Dec back together, and I think that Ant is on sparkling form. He was so funny – I feel like I was really lucky to work with two of the best people on TV.”
BODY HANG-UPS
Scarlett has had a roller-coaster ride with her weight over the years – after transforming herself from Gogglebox couch potato to Queen of the Jungle in 2017, she shed over 3st in just a few months, going from a size 18 to a tiny 8.
At the time, she claimed her new figure was down to her fitness DVD, Scarlett’s SuperSlim Me Plan, but the weight gradually crept back on, and last year she was hit by claims she’d actually lost the weight at a Swiss boot camp where she exercised for six hours a day and ate only 700 calories.
Reports surfaced that she was in tears over the claims, but Scarlett is now at peace with her body. She credits filming recent Channel 4 documentary The British Tribe Next Door – which saw her and her mum,
‘I look in the mirror when I get out of the bath now’
dad and sister living with the Himba tribe in Namibia – with helping her to appreciate her figure.
“Being on the show did make me focus on my looks less,” says Scarlett. “We must look at ourselves in the mirror a hundred times a day, whereas in the Himba tribe it just wasn’t a thing – they don’t even have mirrors.”
She was also intrigued to learn how fat is prized in Himba culture. “Kandisko [from the Himba] was my best friend, and I was a bit offended at first when she said, ‘I wish I had your rolls of fat’. But it’s nice, because no one has ever said that to me before.
“They really embrace their bodies and I’m envious of that. I don’t walk around with my boobs out [like Himba women do], but when I get out of the bath, I do look in the mirror now, whereas before I would run past. Now, I’m like, ‘Yeah, that is what I look like,’ which is nice.”
By Olivia Buxton and Ricki Power
● Scarlett was speaking at The National Lottery’s 25th birthday party