Abi ever after?
As Abi Titmuss, she considered suicide. Now she’s changed her surname, moved to Hollywood and left the sleaze behind her. But can she ever be...
NOT a single head turns. There is no finger-pointing or whispering as she walks into the packed lobby of a fancy Hollywood hotel, no sneaked smartphone photos or furtive glances. In fact, not a single flicker of recognition.
And that is precisely how Abi Titmuss likes it. Today, the woman who was once a staple of saucy headlines for being what she now calls ‘a crass pin-up caricature’ is revelling in anonymity.
She has even taken on a new identity, changing her name to Abigail Evelyn in an attempt to shed her past and start a new career as a serious actress in the United States.
‘When you judge your self-worth by how many camera lenses are pointed at you then that is a recipe for disaster,’ she says.
‘I was thrust into a world I was ill-prepared for and while I thought I could handle it, it has taken me years to sort myself out.’
Today Abi admits that the arc lights of fame drove her into a suicidal depression that took years of therapy and a move to the other side of the Atlantic to break.
Did she actually consider killing herself?
‘Yes, many times. It took me years of therapy to deal with the depression. It was a traumatic experience. I don’t think it will ever go away.’
The smile, the charm and the curvy figure are just the same, but when she opens her mouth she is clearly not he woman who burst on to the scene as a glamour girl on the covers of ‘lad’ magazines such as Nuts, Loaded and FHM.
This is a modern-day morality tale of a quiet girl from a good Lincolnshire family who ended up starring in an infamous sex tape with Edinburgh-born TV presenter John Leslie and another woman. It was a tawdry episode, yet one which turned her into a household name.
At the peak of her fame she could command £30,000 for a single photoshoot. ‘I take full responsibility for what happened but my life quickly spiralled out of control,’ she says.
After taking her lifechanging decision, Abi, now 38, arrived unannounced in Los Angeles with four suitcases plus the fruits of wise investments. ‘I sold two of the four properties I had in London which I bought with my earnings from that time. Something good came from something bad. Without that money I wouldn’t be here.’
She knew only one person in Hollywood (‘a girlfriend who picked me up from the airport’) and had no clue about where to live in a town that is notorious for dashing the dreams of hopefuls.
Fame and fortune, though, are the last thing on her mind, she says.
‘Now I just want to do what I love, which is act. LA is like the Olympics of acting. Everyone is young, talented and hot,’ Abi continues.
‘I have to hone my craft. I sacrificed a lot to be here. I left behind loved ones and everything that was familiar to me. But I believe if you leap, the net will appear.’
In person there is still something of the naughty girl-next-door image which once titillated her admirers. A former nurse who met Leslie in 1998 at a London pub, she is impeccably made up and her hair still a glossy shade of pin-up platinum.
She wears a thigh-skimming red dress that shows off a body honed by hours in the gym and long walks with her rescue dog, Danny.
There is even a new love, a Harvard-educated musician whom she met walking to the gym. ‘He is the first man who loves me for me,’ she says. ‘He knew nothing about my past, he just fell in love with Abigail.’
Has she told him about her past? ‘He knows everything,’ she says. ‘My story has slowly come out in the months we’ve been dating. The great thing about America is that you can reinvent yourself.
‘In the UK, people were still judging me. I was constantly recognised. Here I am anonymous. I get work because of my acting ability.’
But there is clearly lingering damage from her encounter with fame. There is no joy in fame for fame’s sake,’ she states. ‘You have to be proud of what you do and feel some sense of self-worth.
‘I thought I was smart enough to handle what I went through but I wasn’t. It saddens me that our culture seems to embrace this “fame at any cost” idea. I went through it and, trust me, I paid a very high price. For years I didn’t sleep. I didn’t have peace of mind.
‘Girls come up to me when I go home to see my family and say, “I want to be like you.” I always reply, “Get an education.” My perceived exhibitionism was down to low self-esteem. I was getting my esteem from the outside, from a camera, and that never lasts.’
She is reluctant to talk about what she refers to as ‘the dark days’ but a simple internet search of her former name brings up thousands of ‘hits’ on her association with Leslie.
She was his girlfriend when he was charged with sexually assaulting another woman in 2003, and was still working as a nurse although she had trained as an actor and dreamed of working in film.
When the case against Leslie collapsed and she emerged with him from court, her combination of demure looks combined with a plunging neckline turned her into an overnight sensation. Abi was offered a job as a roving reporter on the Richard and Judy Show, a job rescinded after a lurid tale about her involvement in group sex emerged. There were also offers from ‘lad mags’.
‘Suddenly I was being offered a lot of money to do shoots,’ she explains. ‘I thought I could handle it. But I couldn’t. They created this caricature of a person that I didn’t recognise. I was always the same Abigail inside. I studied Latin at school, I’m from a good family. But the image that was created was nonsense.’
When the tape of her having sex with Leslie was leaked, her celebrity status exploded. She appeared on Hell’s Kitchen and Celebrity Love Island. There was a period as a sex columnist, lucrative personal appearances and two books. Not, as she now accepts, that any of it made her happy.
After Leslie, her consorts included comedian David Walliams, footballer Lee Sharpe and actor Marc Warren. ‘But my self-worth was shot,’ she says. ‘I knew I had to make a change.’
She slowly began to reinvent herself. ‘A former drama coach offered me a job in an Arthur Miller play,’ Abi reveals. ‘I got good reviews. That gave me confidence.’
Theatrical tours followed in roles including Lady Macbeth and she landed a role in Casualty in 2013. Since arriving in LA, Abi has had a handful of jobs, including a commercial for Samsung and a critically acclaimed short film, Lady Luck. ‘My first audition in LA was for a Disney family movie. I would never have even made it through the door for that in the UK,’ she says. ‘I gave up alcohol and these days I rarely go out. I have survived on my own for a year and feel proud of myself for the first time in my life.’ Surely if she succeeds in Hollywood she will have to deal with fame all over again? Abi smiles: ‘Hopefully I will be in a big house behind high walls. I would cope far better now. ‘I went to hell and back but I am still standing. I’m comfortable in my own skin. And that’s a great place to be.’