Page 9

The stylist pulls back the curtain and I retreat into the corner, as I’ve taken my underwear off in the hope that it might shed a few inches off of me, allowing the dress to fit.

Unfortunately, this does not work as my bare ass is just reflected back, out into the studio, for the young camera assistant to see and quickly divert his eyes (out of politeness, I like to think, rather than disgust).

“The clothes, ermm, they just don’t fit.”

“Oh that’s odd, you sent your sizes, right?

” She pulls out her phone and finds the email, reading my message aloud.

They are all my sizes but, I realise with a slow dawning dread, my sizes from before I entered the house.

And I’ve probably eaten enough kebabs doused in garlic sauce to feed an elephant, and drank enough to fill the river Thames.

I can feel the redness travel up my body, itching at my neck and spreading to my cheeks.

I’ve probably turned the shade of beetroot as I say, “I must have put on a little weight.”

“Not to worry. We can order the next size up,” Tash says, breezily.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely hun, it’s no bother. Silly of me, really, I normally order a range to be on the safe side. We can have them biked over in no time.”

She’s making me feel better, but also worse, as I don’t want her blaming herself for what was definitely my mistake. “It’ll be about an hour though, so we can sit you in the chair with Verity, then we’ve lost no time at all.”

Verity waves me over, ushering me onto this tall chair, my legs dangling off it like a child. She talks me through all the products she’s going to apply, and begins by rubbing this incredible soothing cream across my still-blazing cheeks.

“So, tell me about your show,” she says.

She’s older than me and isn’t wearing a speck of make-up herself.

I like that. She’s so stunning she doesn’t need it, with these big wide eyes and a heart-pucker of a mouth, but she must also be pretty bloody confident in who she is, knowing full well that she could do her make-up if she wanted to, but that she doesn’t have to.

“Erm, it’s called North Stars and it’s reality TV, really,” I say.

“Oh so who do you play?” she asks, and I realise she must not really know what this newfangled reality TV is.

“Well, I guess, myself. They film us doing all sorts of things, like having romances and going to parties.”

“That sounds fun!” she says. “And I’ve seen you today, you’re a sweet girl, I bet people absolutely love you.”

We chat a little more and she tells me she’s been doing make-up for the past twenty years, how she at first used to specialise in prepping catwalk models, then spent a few years travelling around the world with pop stars (most of whom I haven’t heard of, but it’s exciting to know Verity is a proper MUA to the stars) and now mostly she does magazine stuff as it’s flexible so suits her family life, with two little girls waiting at home for her.

“I’ve seen what fame does to people,” she tells me, while dusting powder on my cheeks as I try not to sneeze.

“So, I hope you don’t think I’m being too pushy here, but because of what I’ve seen and the people I’ve met, I worry about people in this business, particularly people like you, who are new to it all. ”

I tell her I don’t mind and that I’ll take any advice I can get, so she carries on.

“There are a lot of cruel people in this world. It’s not necessarily their fault, they’re damaged or hurt, or have been bullied and, instead of using that as motivation not be bullies themselves, they decide they’ll take all that anger out on others.

They don’t like to see others living full, happy lives and, so, they’ll do all they can to tear them down. ”

I begin to think of all the nasty things I’ve read about myself lately, and how often they came from accounts that were either faceless, or, even worse, from women who had things like ‘be kind’ or Bible verses or motivational quotes in their bios.

Women who I looked at, smiling back at me from a tiny circle of pixels and thought “why do you hate me?”

“And the thing is,” Verity’s saying. “You’re just human and there’s going to be times in your life when you don’t feel confident in yourself, or your body is going to change, as that’s what bodies do.

They go up in size, and they go down in size and, that’s OK, it’s natural but, unfortunately, people tend to get angry at celebrities when they don’t match up to the impossibly perfect standards pushed upon them. ”

“How do the people you’ve worked with cope with that?” I may not be wise, but I’m wise enough to know that the answer isn’t always found at the bottom of a shot glass.

She shrugs. “The ones that cope well are the ones who develop a really thick skin, who only care what the people around them think, not random strangers. Have you got family, friends you trust?”

“My mam’s a legend,” I say. It’s true. She kept me going when I was mess after Robbie left, and I stopped singing in the pubs and clubs and then got the job at the care home while I tried to work out what on earth to do.

She told me she didn’t care what I pursued as long as it made me happy and didn’t hurt anyone…

but she doesn’t stand for any nonsense. Get working, get busy, get happy, she told me.

“And there’s Anika,” I tell Verity. It’s shit having a best mate working on a cruise ship.

She texts me pictures of when they get into dock at all these glamorous resorts.

But I don’t know when I’ll next actually see her – or even what time zone she’s in.

She says she’s running fitness classes for the passengers.

Aqua-aerobics in a pool with a swim-up bar doesn’t sound that bad, but I miss her.

“I’ve got new friends, too,” I add. “Layla, Madison – they’re other girls from the show, so they get what this mad thing we’re doing is all about. They’re my squad.”

“Well, keep them close,” smiles Verity. “They’re your real diamonds, true friends. Those kind of mates don’t try to twist themselves in knots trying to be what others want them to be. They listen to the voice in their heart, not the voices on the internet…”

“The voices on the internet are pretty loud right now, they’re quite hard to ignore.” I say to her and she looks me dead in the eye, and says: “I know, it’ll get easier, I promise.”

But it’s hard to believe her, as surely the more I chase my goals and the more famous I get, the more people will have their eyes on me and have something to say.

As it’s not even falling asleep in a club loo, or the sex on telly, I don’t really mind people ribbing me for those things, as I’m having so much fun.

It’s the comments on my appearance that are really settling in right now, digging at me.

It’s almost like the words themselves are pinching at my belly fat, jiggling my thighs.

It’s like the words have jumped out of the computer screen and crawl all over me, mocking me.

I need to learn to swat them like pesky insects.

Quickly. The stylist hauls in three more bags of clothes and gestures for me to come and try them on again, so it’s time to venture back into the mirror room.

The clothes fit! No more sausage-skin vibes.

Verity’s also done my make-up so nicely, I’m all glowing and tanned and the way she’s done my lip liner makes my lips look way more pouty than normal.

I feel myself standing taller. It’s fun being in front of the camera, moving from pose to pose and laughing with the photographer who tells me I’m a ‘natural’.

With each camera flash, I begin to feel better about myself, every now and then the mean words slip in but I try to just bat them away.

Tits, teeth and tan, baby! I’ve got all three and I’m feeling myself, strutting around the studio in these huge heels.

It’s then, out the corner of my eye, that I spot them.

Madison and Layla, all dolled up to the nines, their hair back-combed and high, sooty, spider-leg lashes framing their eyes and frosted pink lips.

Better still, they’re holding up a bottle of white wine each and whooping at me.

“What are you two doing here?” I holler, too excited by their surprise appearance at the shoot to consider the unflattering shots the photographer could be capturing of me.

“We wanted to celebrate your first big shoot and the girls from Flair said we’d be welcome to tag along!

” Layla yells back and the photographer beckons them over.

We end up doing an impromptu shoot with all three of us, plus the bottle, pouring wine into each others’ mouths and showing the photographer, stylist, and, of course, Verity, how to do all our famous moves.

There’s the slut drop of course, which the photographer finds he absolutely cannot do in his mega-tight Indie-boy jeans, he only makes it about a quarter way down.

We’re all laughing so hard and no one from Flair seems to mind at all.

In fact, they’re delighted: three North Stars girls for the price of one.

Having the girls with me on this big day really reminds me of why I want to keep doing all of this: because it’s such a laugh.

With my girls beside me, I really do feel unstoppable and as if we’re here for a reason.

I never used to see people like me on the telly, young girls who do stupid stuff like get tipsy and obsess over lads while still holding their heads high.

It’s not rocket science, sure, but it feels good. Like something’s shifting.

I drape my arms around my friends and we lean towards the camera on my phone. “Say ‘ moist ’, ladies,” I shout. I read somewhere that’s what Victoria Beckham always says in photos to get a perfect pout. I quickly upload it with one line: HERE COME THE GIRLS.

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