REALITY STAR VICKY ON KEEPING IT REAL ONLINE Yes, I’ll post the glam pics, but I also say when I feel rubbish and I’m about to eat an entire pie...
SOCIAL media stars often get a lot of flak for airbrushing their online lives – but reality TV queen Vicky Pattison makes sure her fans get the rough with the smooth.
“I always endeavour to be super honest on Instagram because I feel like if you have that platform and you’re not using it responsibly, what is the point?” she explained.
“So that includes the good days; the ‘Oh my God, please check out my new Pour Moi collection’, the ‘Oh my God, I’m in a new TV show’ and the ‘Oh my God, aren’t I gorgeous in this bikini?’
“But I’ll also post the ‘Oh my God, I’m on my period today and I feel rubbish, so I’m just gonna eat this entire pie’.
“Or the ‘Oh my God, I’m having a breakout and I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin today’.”
The 34-year-old influencer, who has 4.8million online followers, recently had one of her uncomfortable days.
It prompted a bleary-eyed, make-up free close-up, accompanied by an essay questioning the transparency of the manicured snaps on her Instagram feed.
The ex-nightclub hostess, who shot to fame in 2011 on MTV’s Geordie Shore, talked about feeling “low and unwell”.
She admitted she had slipped into the perilous pursuit of “chasing likes and validation from strangers online”.
So what triggered this soul-searching by the 2015 I’m A Celebrity winner?
“Nothing in particular,” said Vicky, who admitted recently she regretted having sex with former fiance Ricci Guarnaccio on the Newcastle-based reality show.
“It was an amalgamation of things and everyone can relate to getting run down and not putting their mental health first.
“I’ve had a really great summer and I’ve not said no to anything, whether it be work or holidays or parties or trips.
“That’s all nice, but what goes up has to come down and the truth is I’ve burned the candle at both ends.
“I felt burnt out and run down. When your battery’s low you don’t have the strength to fight everything else, whether it be trolls or a long day or a cold.
“Everything got on top of me and I felt if I’m feeling like this, I guarantee there are thousands or maybe millions of other people who probably haven’t verbalised it and have let it eat them up inside.
“I talk about stuff like this because I feel it encourages a healthy narrative.
“But I do worry about sharing stuff like this because I’ve got such a seemingly charmed life and don’t want to look like a poor reality star who is having a whinge and being ungrateful and self-indulgent.” To her credit, Vicky’s posts are as selfdeprecating as they are revelatory.
They include a video of her “orgasm face” during a dinner date with her boyfriend and TOWIE star Ercan Ramadan, who shares her Essex home.
The former Loose Women panellist, who appeared in the current series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, mostly has a positive interaction with fans due to her heart-on-her-sleeve attitude.
She said: “I’ve had messages saying, ‘This really helped me come to terms with this,’ or ‘You made me realise there was life after I was cheated on’ or ‘I realised it’s OK to not shave every day’.”
Vicky says she is neither the pin-up nor the double-chinned klutz she depicts
on Instagram, adding: “The truth is like most women I’m multifaceted.”
But her current positivity is in stark contrast to the depression and suicidal thoughts that plagued her in 2014, a year after she was convicted of a drunken assault on a female model.
She was sentenced to 180 hours of community service and sought psychiatric help to manage her anger.
The star will publish her self-help book Vicky Pattison: The Secret To Happy in January but freely admits she is still a work in progress.
Vicky, who broke up with fiance John Noble in 2018 after he was snapped with a mystery blonde, said: “There’s no point in expecting your life to be perfect. A couple years ago
I had this horrible run of luck. I was meant to get married and it didn’t happen. I lost my grandma, and I lost my best friend.
“Up until that point I’d been doing the most to make it seem like I was strong and together and slim, all of those things.
“But actually under the surface, I was in an unhappy relationship.
“I was trying to look a way that I thought was going to make me happy and I was foregoing so many things that would bring me joy.
“But life’s a journey isn’t it? You don’t just wake up one day when you hit 30 and go, ‘Oh, I’m lush’.
“It’s not like that. But I’m much more content and happy with myself than I’ve ever been.
“I’m finally in a place where I realise a number on a scale does not equate to happiness.
“I’m also in a place where I know having a boyfriend is lovely but I realise if I’m not happy with who I am, that’s not gonna make me any happier.”
Vicky is a feminist and is passionate about emotionally and sexually educating men. She said: “There are loads of misconceptions when you say you’re a feminist. Everyone thinks I’m being really hairy and burning bras.
“I consider myself to be a modernday feminist and just don’t believe in putting other women down.
“If you can’t encourage other women on their journey and can’t cheer loud when they do well then you have no right to call yourself a woman.
“It’s a really difficult time for both men and women. I put up a post recently about Sabina Nessa, Sarah Everard and Gabby Petito.
“These are women who have all been killed by men and you just can’t ignore that 93 per cent of women that are murdered are murdered by men. I got some very horrible messages from men saying I was making them the enemy but I made it clear that not all men are the problem.
“But there are still conversations where men say, ‘Was she gagging for it?’ and ‘Did you give it to her?’
“It’s never been right but now more than ever there is no place for it.
“I understand not all men rape women and not all men hurt women.
“But unless you stand up for women, hold other men accountable for the way they treat women, then you’re part of the problem.”
The Pour Moi x Vicky Pattison Edit clothing range is available exclusively online at www.pourmoi. co.uk.
The truth is I’ve burned the candle at both ends.. I felt rundown VICKY PATTISON ON HER RECENT HEALTH ISSUES