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I think out of everything [Music] she was worried about me do you know what I mean like that was her last thought like [Music] Davina McCall she's a TV presenter a fitness fanatic multiple times best-selling author rarely off our televisions and what you see is what you get it's good to be back after big brother I thought what else can I do to get famous so I was always a bit of a show-off mum you made a mistake how great I am that's at the back of everything why I did cope with my mum at 15. I did it with my sister at 14. you were doing drugs yeah like all drugs all my problems I left my job no money I had nothing I will literally do anything to stop feeling like this I'm gonna find someone for help I'm [ __ ] ten years ago you lost Caroline your half-sister it was definitely the worst thing that ever happened to me I was just trying to be really strong for her and I kept saying to her I'm gonna be fine she'd put a fence around her and I thought I'm [ __ ] climbing over the fence and I'm gonna get in don't wait for somebody to say that you've got six weeks to live because the best seven weeks of my life with my sister were those last seven weeks of hers quick one at the start of these episodes I told you that 74 of people who watch this channel frequently haven't yet hit the Subscribe button and I told you that the bigger the channel gets the better the guests get and hopefully I've delivered upon that for you so there's two things I wanted to tell you the first is if you've ever enjoyed this channel could you do me a favor and my team here a favor which is hit that subscribe button because it helps this channel more than you know and as I say the bigger the channel the better the guest but also we're approaching 1 million subscribers and when we hit 1 million subscribers we've been working for many months to do something very big in which you're all invited to I'll reveal that when we hit a million subscribers enjoy this episode tavino [Music]
what was your first defining moment oh um definitely uh realizing the moment I realized my mum wasn't coming back to pick me up so I got taken to my granny's my paternal grandmother most amazing woman called pippy got taken to her house in the country which I knew really well I used to spend quite a lot of time down there with her and my mum wasn't with my dad she was with another man but I didn't kind of question that they'd spit up but I didn't I didn't know that or kind of understand I don't think in my head I realized what was going on and she said I'm going on on holiday and you know I'll be I'll be back and I was like okay great and I stayed with my granny and then after a couple of months I thought she coming back but then I thought I didn't want to this was such a different time you know I'm 55 so this would have been over 50 years ago it was such a different time that you didn't ask people children didn't go where's Mommy gone or when's mummy coming back I knew that I was a guest at my Granny's house but I wasn't it had all been planned my granny had been given my custody my dad was coming down every weekend to be with me um they were sort of sharing custody but my dad was trying to make money in London and my granny was taking care of me day to day and it had all been sorted but I didn't know that because they just thought well she's young she won't really remember or realize let's all just brush it under the carpet and it's so interesting because nowadays with my children everything that happens we're like how do you feel about that are you okay let's talk it through blah blah blah just didn't happen back in those days so I grew up thinking that my mum had left me um and had enough come back so at about probably four maybe six months after after she'd gone I realized that I wasn't gonna live with her again but I was left feeling guilty because I felt like my granny was looking after me
and she didn't want me in some way like not that she didn't she was so loving to me but somehow I was overstaying my welcome so I think that was a defining moment because it's set up a chain of events a fear of Abandonment that kind of made me make some really stupid decisions all through my teenage years into my twenties um and and something that I've worked diligently on since my early 20s to let go of why did your mother do that well my mum grew up in France with two parents who were very loving but didn't know how to um give her their time so I think my mum needed time and contact but they just gave her a lot of money they were they were quite wealthy and they just you know at 18 they gave her a lump sum of money she went spent the whole lot on clothes and each other on she got a food disorder she's very thin it was the 60s she was like a model she had a fade done away nose job she she was incredible looking lots of drugs quite a lot of drink like crazy fun lady met my dad my dad was super hot like young guy they were an IT couple he was so in love with her she was completely out I could probably a sex addict when I when I looked back at her life and unashamedly so the French very she's French French are very different about sex she was kind of you know she was it's only bodies that was her catchphrase like you know oh it's only bodies and you'd think no that's someone's husband like that is you know David so looking back she she wasn't well herself but she was so young like this was we're talking 22 23 when she met my dad she'd already had a child at 16 been forced to marry the father of that child they'd got divorced then she met my dad so she was troubled herself right and my Dad tried to help fix her but it just wasn't going to work and she ran off with someone else um having had several Affairs and everything and my dad was broken-hearted absolutely broken-hearted and the courts in the UK because I was born in the UK and had been brought up here gave my
granny and my dad custody which was so rare so um I I I'm not sure how hard she fought I'm not sure that she did but um that was what happened but I did go and see her in the holidays but that was quite crazy like what did you see I oh my God like what didn't I see I mean my mum would she would wear this was quite a Funny Story I mean in some of it makes me laugh now but it would be she'd go out with me like in a floor-length electric blue coat and we'd get out and then she'd go like that to someone and I'd think she'd flash my God she's naked yes like she'd be naked underneath her coat and she'd flash someone she'd think it was hilarious and I'd just be like oh God somebody please like make the world disappear but at times it's really hard to explain but I loved my mother like I really wanted her to pull some mummy business out the bag like I was like come on you can do this and sometimes she'd give me a hug and I'd think oh my God this is it like this is what it feels like to be hugged by mother but then other times you'd be reading her right it'd be like well I've got to be I've got to be a sweet little girl oh no I'm gonna have to take care of you well like now I have to be really good fun I've got I need to entertain you it's always weighing a thousand different hats to see how she was going and my granny used to say to me when we did start talking about it when I was older she said we'd have to like kind of it would be funny for a month when you came back from France you'd be a little bit on edge and we'd have to just really get you back into your favorite foods a routine at bedtime safety re-ground me so when I say I'm half done half Wild Child it's because of that life that I've had like drugs at 12 with my mum like you were doing drugs yeah like smoking weed at 12 Coke at 15 14. even I did cope with my mum at 15. I did it with my sister at 14
you know it was like it was there was no and then I'd get back to the UK and it would it would be back into your second-hand clothes and sort of safe small life like simple my life was very simple I mean I say secondhand clothes just to give you an idea I was in my grandad's jumper and an old pair of jeans and I get to Paris and they go what are you wearing his loads of money go and buy some Posh loafers and get your hair done and I'm 12 like I look like a proper Lolita but I and I'd quickly realized that my life in Paris and my life in in the UK they must never know about each other because if if they knew in the UK about my life in Paris they wouldn't let me see my mum and I didn't care how mad she was I still wanted to see her that does that make sense yeah so my sister also was my lifeline in Paris so my sister who's six years older than me even though we did do drugs together and I know that sounds bad but she was my rock like she was my she grounded me when I was in Paris so we stuck together we understood what mum was like we worked her together Caroline yeah Caroline yeah and then my mum you know but I I did like going to Paris and also because I was young and they didn't stop me from doing anything it's crazy having sat here with um stand-up comedians I remember Jimmy Carter said to me he said often it's assumed that comedians themselves are depressed and that they're cracking jokes to kind of cheer other people up in an attempt to cheer themselves up but he said to me you should actually ask them which one of their parents is depressed which one of their parents were they trying to please and entertain you said earlier you know did I have to be this one day or did I have to be a joker did I have to take care of her was your personality shape but that that desire to so to keep her in good spirits we'll win over her affection I think it taught me some amazing skills and reading people so um also my granny was unbelievably good at this as well so people used to think my granny was psychic because somebody would walk in the room and she'd go are you okay and they'd walk in
smiling but there would be a an eyebrow raise or a flicker of an eye or something and she'd go you're right and they go oh God like read me you can see straight to him I feel like being with my mother she could walk I could hear by the way she walked what person she was going to be when she walked through the door I could hear the steps coming and I'd think I know how to behave the minute she walks through that door it's an amazing gift and that's how I choose to see everything that's happened to me I am absolutely not a victim sure some of it's been hard and it's like you said I'm happy we were talking just before we started I'm happy and yes life throws me curveballs but I choose to learn from those and still be happy rather than cling onto the curveball and let it pull me down but I often wonder whether it's it was the hardship that made me when you know small wins or little winds in my life were massive oh yeah you know a hug from my mum that felt a little bit like a parental hug rather than a needy or an angry or that would be a huge like I'd done out on that for a month I'd be like but yeah but I got a hug two weeks ago that was epic you know so I think you hold on to these little things but I don't know some kids might not they might not see or feel that thing because they don't have that in them I wonder whether we are born with it it's such an interesting concept positivity can you make yourself positive if you aren't that have you ever spoken to the speakmans I remember going on this morning the speakmans are a couple Nick and Eva they're on this morning as kind of psychology experts they kind of they're like they help you train yourself out of patterns of behavior those guys said something that if you are a negative person at the end of you know it's raining and it's raining for the third day in a row you finish your negative sentence with but luckily and you have to say but luckily and then think of something but luckily
but luckily it was so dry in the summer it does mean that the reservoirs will be full and you finish every negative thought with a positive and they said it takes about two to three weeks to naturally start thinking but you know that's probably not a bad thing but it's just remembering to do that is so hard when you were when you were like 16 17 you know you said you'd started doing drugs with your mother in in France but what did you want to be when you were older if I'd asked yourself I probably probably need to clarify actually that me and my mum only did drugs twice okay I mean I know that's twice times too many in my book but I don't want to give this impression that she and I were taking tons of drugs together because that would be a false impression okay I just needed to plant so that put that there yeah but um what did I want to be when I was 16. yeah I was quite nihilistic I think in a way I wasn't thinking about anything except for the weekend and where was I going to go and what club could I go to and how could I go out and what how could I party and that was beginning I moved to London when I was nearly 14. and when I moved to London suddenly the safety of the country had disappeared and I started finding ways to go out and take drugs and find people that took drugs in London I was living with my dad my stepmom and they were very kind of solid straight people but my life did slightly change then so I wasn't really thinking about anything at that point really the time when I started forming an idea and I was basically just a show-off would have been 18. I was basically just a show-off yeah um because I think because I had this fear of abandonment if I was if I did look at me look at me enough look at me I'm here everybody don't leave me ah needy people pleaser everybody like me like that that's what that's who I was and actually what drugs did for me at that time was they made me feel safe
they made me feel like I was being hugged in that maternal way that they filled this hole that I had here and then as soon as the drug started running out the hole would feel like sort of the hole would be there again and I think oh my God where's the nearest thing I can get you know um man laughter attention drug like help fill the hole so I was always a bit of a kind of you know a bit of a show-off and at 18 you drop out of University nearly went to University um didn't go to university and this is always something that I want to say to to kids I didn't really know what I was doing I was an absolute car crash I would say until I was 23 24 . so when I was 19 I um I'd left school I went to Australia for a few months I came back and I thought I'm going to save up money I'm going to get you know go working I'm going to save up some money I'm going to try and get enough money to go back to Australia and live there I loved it out there I was clean I wasn't taking any drugs I was just driving to the beat I mean it was such a different me and I liked that me that was the nun like my nun was freed in Australia and I thought I quite like this person I like who I am and then A girlfriend of mine said I'm going to Santa pay for two weeks do you want to come and I was like yeah but I haven't got much money because I had all my savings and stuff and I didn't want to delve into that she had quite a lot of money and bless her she came on the coach with me from Victoria down to Santa pay and her parents had a house there and then I started dipping into the savings and then in two weeks I'd spunked 800 pounds that I'd saved up for my flight to go back to Australia and I never went back and that was a kind of you know that was the Wild Child me dancing on tables in the Capture One Santa pay until God knows what time in the morning hitching a lift off people in Ferraris trying to get back to I mean awful danger danger danger everywhere how I'm still alive I've got no idea um but hilarious you know it was just part of my path but that meant that I never
went back to Australia and I I got a job as a waitress I was a really really good waitress I loved waitressing did you ever do that well my mum had a restaurant when I was super young so I did did it a little bit but I was so young that it was I was more just of a gimmick you know he'll get loads of tips because he's yeah um but not not properly no I learned a lot I bet you did um I learned a ton from working in that restaurant yeah about people in customer service and stuff and then I worked in like you know there was a shop called Republic like retail a lot I worked a lot I did that as well what did you learn um well just people I mean people skills and what people want and that the customers the most important person you said people pleaser yeah I mean that's my natural that was my natural habitat so I'd go and I'd like make people feel amazing while they're having their meal and make sure that they had the best service ever and it felt like a win to me you know at the end of the night I thought I've done a really good job I've made loads of people really happy and that made me feel good about myself so it was a great job for me when did you first realize that you wanted to do something in media TV um or was it more yeah no so that that's quite a good story so I was working I got a job at models one after the after the and it was by chance it was complete fluke I got a job at models one working on Stephen the mail model section at models one I was a Booker for the male models I mean I'm telling you 19 or 20 year old me walking in there I was like this is the best of her all these gorgeous men okay I fell in love every 30 seconds for the first week um and then what was interesting it just became they just became normal I was like oh there's another good looking guy whatever um desensitized yeah it's fun it's so funny though how quickly that happens but I'm still friends with loads of them now again it was a great time in my life slightly car crashed lots of drugs lots of kind of Madness but also a very kind of good time and time in terms of work and having fun so I was at this
agency loads of beautiful models everywhere I get approached by this guy who knows I love music and he said you want to run a club with me at subterranea and I said yeah great and he said bring all the beautiful people so these club nights caught the attention of somebody at MTV who was going to launch MTV Europe and they needed to for the launch of MTU TV Europe and Amsterdam get loads of celebrities from the UK to Amsterdam but do it in a really cool MTV way so me and this girl called Sarah blondstein and um a guy called Graham we were in charge of entertaining the celebrities from Victoria train station to Amsterdam and back and it was like Duran Duran um zodiac mind warp I mean it was really really fun and I dressed up as a cleaning lady lipstick on my teeth curlers in my hair a tea earn full of champagne and it was riotous and at the end of that night when we were heading back um from Amsterdam on the plane I thought to myself I'm gonna work at MTV that is the best place those are the best people and while I was there at that night and this is what this is another defining moment that night when I'd gone I said to someone can I get your number because I'd love to kind of look at job prospects at MTV would it be all right and he's like yeah sure like I had the number and I thought I'm gonna I'm gonna call this guy and then I called him and I said you know would it be all right can I um to sort of send you a Show reel if I did a show will because I'd like to be a presenter on I didn't even know the word Vijay then on MTV and he was like yeah sure sure and I started making show reels and I must have sent him like three a year and relentlessly called him until he said please stop calling me after a couple of years he said could you just like I can't give you a job at the moment we only want European presenters and I said can you give me someone else's number and I'll call them instead and he went yeah you can take Mike Catherine's number so I took my Catherine's number
and eventually a year later Mike Calvin said there's a vacancy so I'm 24. I've just got clean I'm I'm six months clean and sober I'm absolutely radioactive I can't believe I'm sober I still can't believe I'm waking up with dry sheets that my pillow you know we're talking about small wins my sheets were dry in the morning and I'd know when I woke up and I saw daylight and I think I know this is morning this is amazing that's such a win I think it's so dry yeah sweating I used to sweat in bed withdrawing at night and my sheets were dry is this what what drug causes that so heroin so I I was um in the end um addicted to heroin for maybe the last three months of my using but the nun took over I think at that point and was like you are addicted now you have to stop what was that moment that where and what was can you really zoom in on that moment of you reach a point and you go this has to change [Music] so my best friend had said she was going to take me to Santana she didn't use or drink really she'd Had a Brain Injury when she was younger and she couldn't for 10 years so she didn't and she got me into her car and I was like I'm so excited about going to see Santana I was probably what Santana um it's a band ah Stephen Bartlett I know sorry go and do some revision okay can you just say something sometime I'm gonna like them really okay um and I got in the car and she shut the doors and she said I'm actually not going to take you to Santana I need to tell you some things I was like yeah and she said I know that you've been lying to me weirdly I'd been off heroin for a month at that point because I'd been away I'd done a geographical I've gone away looking after someone's uh nanny for someone for two weeks and got clean and then I'd I'd also been with my mum in Morocco so I had no heroin for a month but I had just come off the back of a 24-hour cocaine vendor which had made me realize that heroin wasn't my problem all drugs were my problem if I if I
wasn't taking heroin I couldn't take cocaine normally either I I couldn't just take it for four hours and then go to bed I had to take it for 24 hours I was an animal I thought oh my God I'm I'm not just addicted to heroin heroin's not it's all drugs I've got to stop she gets me in the car and she goes I know you've been lying to me we all know you've been lying to us all your friends and you are the topic of conversation at every dinner party I go to and this shame starts piling on and I I started feeling a bit well [ __ ] you to her and this is this is virtually my only friend I've got left and I do say well [ __ ] you like [ __ ] you I didn't really know what to say because I couldn't really argue with what she was saying and I said yo I didn't want to go and see something really childish like I didn't want to go and see Santana anyway get out the car I'm trying to get out the car she's slightly shut the doors it's all eggy awkward slam the door walk away from her immediately burst into tears and think I'm not gonna turn back around and let her see I'm crying you know get inside go straight to bed my parents you know I was um sleeping on a camp bed in my in my dad's sort of wardrobe I'd move out of my boyfriend's home his fault that I was using I'd got worse I'd left my job I thought that was the thing that was making me use I'd got worse I had a car but no money to put Petrol in the car I had not put nothing I was on this Camp bed and I was sort of walk into the like my room which wasn't really room it was a cupboard sit on the bed go to sleep and then an hour later I wake up and I think I'm gonna find someone for help I'm [ __ ] I can't do this anymore I phoned this woman who I knew was clean and it was as if she'd been expecting my call she goes oh hi Davina and I was like I was just wondering if you're going to a meeting um tomorrow she's like yeah yeah I'm going at six o'clock you know World's End come and meet me there I was like oh yeah you know I'm just interested to see what you know like what it's like it's just yeah great come along if you want
she didn't ask me what's going on she didn't ask which was exactly right and the next morning I woke up and I felt so full of Shame and I thought I'll go and see Sarah so I went to see Sarah at work at lunchtime sobbed I said I'm not expecting you to believe me and I know I'm gonna have to prove myself but I just wanted to let you know I want to change and I want to do something about it and I'm going to go to a meeting tonight and I could see a slight sort of are you really like is this really gonna happen I just thought I I don't know how much more I can give you tell you but I really really mean it so I went to a meeting that night just spent the next two weeks going to meetings every day well and for 90 days after sobbing just sobbing in every meeting of surrender I don't care what I have to do I will literally do anything to stop feeling like this and N A taught me how to live and how to change and how to heal myself I I owe an a my life literally but it also gave me my career and weirdly having tried to get a job at MTV while I was using all those years the the time they say come in for an interview we're going to finally screen test you after three years of trying I was six months clean and I didn't mess it up you know I turned up on time in fact I turned up a bit early that was new for me um I turned up clean and smelling like flowers and with a smile on my face and color in my cheeks that was new for me you said and I taught you how to heal what did you learn about healing and what did you learn about why you were addicted to narcotics hmm well I learned about fear of Abandonment I probably hadn't heard that as a phrase then I didn't understand from listening to other people talk about their experiences sometimes I think oh no that wasn't quite my experience I don't think that's why I used and then I remember hearing someone and thinking that's exactly me that whole and it never fills up and you're constantly trying to fill it with anything and then when they said here is where I'm learning to fill it myself and I thought
that's what I want I want to line the whole with something impermeable that means it will fill up and never empty again and there are steps in Narcotics Anonymous and any 12-step program and you know if you work through these steps and it is like people would go oh it's like a cult you know it's really bad but I did replace my addiction with addiction to Narcotics Anonymous but I know which addiction I'd rather have like I went all the time often twice a day because it was the only place where I felt completely normal I'd be around other people going yeah I felt like that oh yeah I did that oh God I messed up this or oh yeah I had um you know Liaisons with people that I didn't I didn't care about I didn't know but I thought it would fix me you'd think God these people are so honest it's I've I realized the power in honesty I mean that's your thing right Speak Your Truth yeah powerful yeah freeing oneself isn't it hmm so I learned I learned everything to help me I did have like another transformational moment when I got hypnotized um for a job that I was doing about eight years ago and that was like that was when the impermeable seal went on my fear of Abandonment and it was unexpected because I wasn't going to the hypnotist about that I was going to the hypnotist about not feeling anxious going in a submarine to a thousand meters under the sea tiny three-person submarine where you can't stand up and there's no loo and it takes 40 minutes to get to the surface again and I thought I don't get claustrophobia but I don't want to find out at a thousand meters under the sea that I am indeed claustrophobic so I thought I better go and get hypnotized just to make sure and that was have you ever done hypnosis no ah man I mean if you've got an issue that is something that you've worked on a lot and it's hard to let go of I mean I didn't even think really that my fear of Abandonment issue was still
there but I do think I do think it was and we did some regression work where I went back to me in the kitchen looking at my granny thinking my mom's not going to come back and I don't know what to do and I feel a bit guilty I think I've overstayed my welcome and the hypnotist said go get go get that Davina take it by the hand he said where's your favorite place in the garden said the oak tree so he said take her to the oak tree so I took her over to the oak tree little me four years old and he said okay sit her down and sat her down and he said you know Comfort I said she looks worried and he said comfort her I said I feel silly I don't know what to do it's me I it feels weird and he said imagine she was one of your own children comfort her as if she was your child so I put I put my arm around her and I thought okay this is easier and then her head went on my on my chest and I was stroking her hair I said I don't know what to say I kept thinking he's looking to me to say something profound and I've got no idea how to do this and he said well why don't you tell her it's all gonna be okay and I really started crying like really crying and he said the same thing it was up and I said it was not going to be okay I take drugs I make stupid decisions I put myself in danger it's bad and he won't but look at you now and it was like oh my God Look At Me Now I'm great and it was like everything went you know all the cogs and the wheels and my brain all went click I am gonna be okay I looked at her and I got like her head in my hands and I was like you are gonna be okay your life is going to be amazing and it will be full of you know ups and downs but you are going to be okay and he said you can take it back let's take her back so I went back to the kitchen
to down in the seat and she's smiling at me and then he says we can leave now but he said before before we leave I want you to just turn around and look at her one last time and tell me what she looks like she looks happy and he said great and then he brought me around I was like bawling this is amazing what's happened what's just happened and he said we've planted a seed and he said let's just wait and see what happens there he said this this was basically to stop you feeling like you're gonna be abandoned at the bottom of the sea but actually I think maybe we've done something bigger here it might be kind of amazing what happens and a couple of things happened after that that where I said actually it's not okay uh to treat me like that I would never have said that before because I was worried you'd abandon me if I I stood up to you and said not okay I'd think oh you might not like me anymore I I it was very important that everybody liked me and suddenly I was like actually I can stand up for myself in a non-aggressive way and not actually mind if you like me or not because I'm doing it for me oh my God it was and I feel like from that moment I've been a different person in all of my decisions in my outlook on life it's been Mega so your your career then in TV one of the things I read is that it was heavily fueled we kind of talked about this before we start recording by your desire to be famous yes I mean the the first MTV thing so I I'd wanted to be a singer another desire to be famous I wasn't good enough I was like I would be an amazing backing vocalist I my my nickname at home is the harmonizer I can't listen to a track without harmonizing to it I absolutely have to that's annoying at some point then isn't it yeah because all my kids are like oh my God in in the car I'm always like hmm and you know like if they're going oh my God like stop if I could have turned my family into the Von traps and I really
tried like that we all made them all do choir I all had to kind of do singing lessons they just weren't buying it at all and I'm so upset about that but if I could have had the Von traps that would have been my dream anyway failed singer what else can I do to get famous all of this obviously mum look at me you made a mistake look how great I am that's at the back of everything right and I mean for example when I was 15 or 16 and I I did quite well in my o levels they were o levels back then how old I am and um I called up my mum to tell her I'd done quite well on my own levels she was really angry because she felt like I was just trying to show her up or that you know don't think that you're she was drunk she was drunk she took it badly she's like felt that it was me trying to say that she wasn't good enough or that she'd done something you know I and I was so confused by that um that I thought I'm gonna show you like I'm gonna make you want to anyway my aim was I want to get my own show on MTV that's what I want and I got my own show on MTV and I presented the first show and I went up to the dressing room afterwards and I cried and I cried and I cried and I couldn't figure out why I was crying and I called my sponsor which is something you you have a Narcotics Anonymous who's there to help you decipher yourself and she said right you know we picked it apart and picked it apart and I said it hasn't fixed the whole it it didn't make me think oh my mum's gonna want me back and then to top it all off my mum did call me and say she'd seen it because you could see it in France because it was European and she said what you know you think you should stop pulling the faces you pull these faces and I was like that was not the desired effect I did not want you to think that I wanted you to think wow you're amazing you know and um so it was a really heavy moment and then I thought wow I need to warn everybody
you know being famous you've got to do it for the right reasons I did it for the wrong reasons and now I'm here and I've got this job and I'm on the wheel and I don't know how to you know I can't get off I didn't want to get off I mean I was enjoying my job don't get me wrong working MTV were some of the greatest years of my life my life but actually it was probably his life so I've had lived about 10 different lives in my lifetime and MTV was one of them but I think that that realization that the thing that I'd been aiming for that I thought was gonna fix me and it didn't was like again the end of something and the start of another phase of my life okay well you're gonna have to find it inside somehow and that that hole You referred to is that whole filled now filled yeah I mean I've 100 I've never been so happy like I can't even I sat oh do you know it was really funny because I said I said to my boyfriend this morning I said I'm going to do this thing with Stephen Bartlett this morning and he was like oh my God I said I am not going to cry I'm like I haven't done Piers Morgan specifically for this reason because I was like I am not gonna sit under but it's weird because it's the thing it's took I could talk about my pain until the cows come home and not feel a thing because it's so far removed from me and it was a long time ago and I've processed and processed and processed it but feeling happy like is so alien like a hundred percent like joyous sitting on the train and just feeling so good this morning and it's not like um Euphoria or a druggy happy or a fake high it's content oh my God it's like I can't I cannot quite believe it and I'd and I don't you know I've been walking forwards but I don't know how I got here just walked forwards you know but settling settling down um I feel like I've I've grounded in a way that I've never had before
and you know I think it's so important to talk about this stuff because at 55 if you'd have said to 30 year old me what's life going to look like when you're 55 I'm gonna say really sad I probably won't be doing TV anymore it won't want me and I'd be really boring and I won't be having fun anymore and so and I think I could be wrong or wrong like I've got to go and tell everybody quick tell everyone it's gonna be okay Stephen it's gonna be okay never had someone say to me that their feelings of Happiness make them emotional oh and when I think about it oh well because I'm grateful and I think because you know we were talking about what makes you a positive person I think it's because you think it it's been a roller coaster right it's it's for you it's been a roller coaster but like it's not about the lambo or the house or the Mansion it's about this and your roller coaster and your journey to money and making it and then realizing it doesn't fix you and then you fixing Yourself by being on a journey of self-discovery which you massively are by talking to all these different people you're like taking little bits from everything that somebody says to you and think I'm going to use this for me that was a great tool thank you very much I'm going to have that it's like you are healing yourself this is your n a meeting this is this is your this is your recovery yeah this is your recovery and how amazing is that great it's crazy privileged yeah but in you know and it's just gonna these are all seeds that are planted in you that just continue to grow so life gets better you know Mother Nature throws you crepey knees and crepey elbows and crow's feet that it also throws you a full heart and a peaceful mind your career your your career in TV that whole journey it's been one of the most incredible careers that I think most people could ever hope for in any industry ever you know you the top of your your game um I first came to learn about you
because of big brother but there's a career before that and there's a long long career after that when you reflect on what advice you would have given yourself or like why you made it to the very top of that that pyramid what is the answer Davina this is another thing that I Marvel at every day because I've been many times in my career where I've thought this is it it was interesting after Big Brother finished um I contacted a friend of mine who was like a tech attacked a techie person and I'd had this thought like after big brother I thought who am I and where am I gonna go and it could all end and as the person that was providing the roof and the food on the table it was on like me I had to think of my next step what was I going to do I'm not sure how long television is going to last I mean it's still going which is amazing for me but I thought I need to get into technology and the internet and I need to go online and I came up with an idea for I thought about it in terms of an Exhibition Center but you could put that online where you would have everything from money advice personal advice mental advice um kids advice I went and talked to a few people about it and for whatever reason it didn't happen but it wasn't meant to happen I tried to get it off the ground for like two or three years I tried to make it a TV program I tried to make it an exhibition I tried to make it an online thing and you know when you're swimming against the tide with an idea and at some point you've just got to take your hands off the steering wheel and go like that wasn't meant to happen but then I got offered long lost family now long lost family I've been filming that program now for 13 years wow it makes me feel so good that show and I've helped so many people on it which has been so wonderful to be part of that moment in their life where they learn something that's been a niche that they couldn't scratch for years and years and we can provide that scratch um so I always think well just start walking in that direction
and something else will come along but never just sit down and wait you know I've never sat down and thought Oh I'm just gonna I'm just gonna stay here and and wait for something to happen to me I've got no embarrassment or Shame about emailing a TV company or a head of a TV company and going have you thought about this what about this can I present that if it happens can I do this I've I'm literally begging ITV to let me present mid-life love Island I could fill a villa in love island with middle-aged people with the best backstories you have ever heard in your life they've lived a life they're widows they're people who have been through horrific divorces they are people who have split up with somebody and decided they want to try going out with somebody the same sex as them they're like interesting people I'd watch that's really interesting yeah and I was like I need to present it please what are they saying they said oh we're looking at something else that's quite similar we might consider you for that well if I hadn't sent them that email in the first place they wouldn't have thought about me for the other show Maybe you've got to make opportunities happen they never just come to you keep walking I'm always talking to my kids just keep walking something will come kind of form build the foundations and just keep walking as you're walking you're laying more and more path don't sit and wait for the path to be laid because it'll never come to you there's this word manifestation you've used in this conversation what role and what does that mean to you you know you're talking there about proactively like attacking the day I I almost liken it to um the analogy I've given before is when you get in your car in the morning you set the sat nav which is the manifestation but then you've got to drive if you just do one if you just drive you're gonna get lost if you just set the satellite if you're going to be in your garage all day you have to do both together you've talked about how you attack like send the email make the phone call pass to the person at MTV but then what role does like the manifestation play
in all of that it's interesting because you said you've got it's all very well putting it in the sat nav is the manifestation but then you've got to drive the car yeah but in in my mind I see that if you start if you know where you're going your car self-drives like you you almost are always walking in the direction because you can see it I know that at some point I will do this interesting so I've sent this email to this woman um and I've just told you about it because this this was a manifestation it's triggered my memory that I've told this I'm going to send a follow-up email today now is that is is my car self-driving it kind of is like because I've been telling you about a manifestation because I had it in the first place you've just reminded me I'm going to send the email that for me is the difference though because there's so many people and we all know them that have sofa ideas they'll turn to you while they're watching yeah I've got this idea for this TV show sometimes they're really good right fantastic but it doesn't matter because they don't have the the next bit which is I'm gonna get up and send an email and like you've just said I'm gonna send another one that for me is turning the key in the in the ignition yes maybe yeah some there's a lot of people that are going oh I've sat now for Tom Tom this is where I want to go someday and then they just relax back into the chair in the car and nothing happens and then there's some people I meet tends to be the people that sit here with me that took that weird kind of um nothing to lose first step and you go that was rude or you go oh really you just like all showed up there or you just begged them on email and those are the people that I tend to sit here with so Anita Roddick started the body shop and she lit kind of my um lit the wick of kind of interest in lit the fuse I mean of my interest in activism and she was saying um you know if you don't think that you have the power as one person then you've never been to bed with a mosquito she said be as annoying as a mosquito and I
was like I think that's me I am as annoying as a mosquito and that when I meet somebody and I bet you're the same Stephen when you see a kid and a kid comes up to you and goes Stephen can I have your number because I've got an idea and I want to come and Pitch it to you you would go yes absolutely whereas other people might think oh I can't do that because he's Stephen Bartlett or I'll have to email him or oh no I've seen him on the Telly I can't approach him but when you meet a bullsey kid yeah and they go can I come and Shadow you for a day or um uh give me a number I wanna you think yeah sure because I always respect the the tenacity and the asking I see myself in it a little bit exactly yeah I remember I was doing this podcast one day and um I was recording with a guest and then I got up to walk out and the the person they brought with them in their Entourage was their nepheus and she goes to me hi Stephen I know this is I know you're leaving and I know you've just interviewed my auntie but I have a podcast I've just started and I would like you to be on it so can we record it now did you say yes I was like of course I was like let's sit down and we sat down and recorded for like 45 minutes for her podcast stop isn't it she and she's killing it now like when I say killing it she's actually killing it she's like killing it now but I remember doing a post on LinkedIn about that moment tagged her in it and said I just respect the ask you know because my life has been riddled with moments as I saw in yours where I just sent the email had nothing to lose whilst sucking stealing pizzas on my own in Manchester what did I have to lose at that point by just sending loads of emails I remember Sam's I think it was Panasonic or Samsung gave me free cameras I sent an email they were like here's all the free cameras to start your business when I was 14 I sent these emails to this vending machine company they fitos secondary school with free vending machines that we made profit from so I I'd learned the power of just like asking nothing to lose maybe my ego might take an out but he gives a [ __ ] I've got nothing and what's the worst that could happen but I think also when the worst
has happened yeah you're not scared of it it's happened yeah yeah you know getting a no to me is just a yes that hasn't happened yet I'm always like oh you're saying No but you mean maybe you mean maybe give me an ask again quick one some of you know Intel are sponsoring this podcast and for me Intel has made the search for a premium laptop so much easier by creating the Intel Evo platform which is signified by this sticker here in the corner laptop designs only receive the Intel Evo badge when they have been tested to pass Intel's own very strict requirements so that they can actually perform as you need them to out in the real world and the result for me is a premium laptop that can perform everywhere even with my crazy schedule in mind and most importantly it can handle multiple tabs open and a battery that really lasts throughout the entirety of my meetings whenever you need your laptop for Intel Evo have you covered it's a game changer to find out more and to get your hands on an Intel Evo laptop go to intel.co.uk Evo and let me know how you get on quick one for many years people have been asking for a coffee flavored heel and quite recently he'll release the iced coffee caramel flavor of their um ready to drink heels and I've just become looked on it over the last couple of weeks I've been on a really interesting Journey with huel which I've described and talked about a little bit on this podcast I started with the berry ready to drinks then I moved over to the protein salted caramel because it's 100 calories and it gives you all of your essential vitamins and minerals but also gives you the 20 odd grams of protein you need and now I'm balanced between them both I drink mostly the banana flavor ready to drink I've got really into the iced coffee caramel flavor of heels ready to drink and now I'm drinking that as well as the protein make sure you try the new ready to drink flavors that the caramel flavor is amazing the new banana flavor as well is amazing and obviously as I said the iced coffee caramel flavor has been a real Smash Hit so check it out let me know what you think on social media I see all of your tags and Instagram posts and tweets about your
the podcast I sat here with Professor Galloway Scott Galloway and he told me about the Ark of Happiness where he says you know his idea was that our happiness kind of looks like a bit like a smile where kind of start happy at the start of our life it gets a little bit difficult in the middle and then at the end the kind of 50-ish age when we go into that second spring it's it's happy again typically again this is not the same for everybody it's kind of a generalization but at the bottom of the Arc of Happiness when things are most difficult is when we start losing people in our lives that we love and I know 10 years ago you lost Caroline your half-sister um talk to me about that that experience and also generally the process of how you've dealt with that grief hmm it was definitely the worst thing that ever happened to me still to this day like the worst so I told you a little bit about Caroline with my mum and that she she was six years older than me and she lived in Paris she was the result of my mum's pregnancy when she was 16. and she endured a lot well a lifetime with our mum and that was very hard on her and she was left with many Hang-Ups from that of um she was she she used to find it hard to be completely honest all the time so she'd tell big exaggerations about things or make up stories but this is because she'd had to lie to cover for my mum her entire life not all the time but just she'd make her life a bit more exciting by telling untruths and I I don't want to do her a disservice in her death because we talked about this when she was alive and I go is that a Porky and she'd start laughing she'd go well it did happen but this didn't happen you know but it was just trying I understood her and she understood me and all my defects of character and she knew exactly why I did things and she was an instiller person quite an insular person and her favorite thing would be to go she lived with me always we had six dark years when we didn't live together but she lived with me when I had a two bed flat in Hammersmith
and we were very friendly together like I just understood everything about her and she understood all my idiosyncrasies and I got all of hers and so her favorite thing in the evening you know I love socializing I'm a people person I like going out I am touch she would be TV dinner food on lap foie gras a ton of butter French bread gloss of red wine spliff if I would say to her do you want to come for a walk around the garden she was French fully French so her mum and her dad were friends and I'd say do you want to come for a walk around the garden she'd go no you know exercise not her thing absolutely hilarious person so funny but very secretive and I was blah I would tell her everything she would tell me nothing it was very annoying um I would walk around naked in front of her all the time I go come I'd find out I go Caroline come come and talk to me when I have a bath I mean I was so annoying I was an annoying little sister right until the very end so she'd come over to the house and she'd sit on the floor and I'd go like talk to me tell me everything what's happened at work blah blah blah and then I'd share something I'd talk about a problem and she'd help me iron it out she was amazing so good to talk to so kind of wise always a bit painfully honest with me yeah but you know you're overstepping the Mark or you know you shouldn't be doing this she's the only person that could do that with me but because she was so secretive things were going a bit arise so she just had her 50th birthday and she sort of walked into a door once a door was half open and she kind of walked into I was like didn't you see that I thought she's been um and then she was sitting at the table and she was talking to me and she had a glass in her right her left hand it was her left hand she had a glass in her left hand and now she was talking to me I was watching the glass her left hand was tipping further and further over to the side and I was watching the glass and the water was just and I went Caroline your hand and she went oh but
she had to look at it to tip it back up and I was thinking that's very weird and she became a bit clumsy and I thought too much weed or menopause or something she became a bit forgetful she kept going off menopause I can't remember what's going on she had a sore back and she'd fallen over we'd been in the garden and she'd fallen over and she kept going you know and I fell over my back's like still not right she used to cane the Advil I mean she was terrible with like painkillers she used to take sleeping pills you know she's slightly medicate herself weed sleeping pills Advil like all the time I just thought she's on another planet but it got to the point where I thought something is up and I'd invited her to come to France with us for half term she always came on holiday with us and she said no which was very unlike her and I was like are you sure she went I just want to stay here I'm so tired I don't feel just feel like I've got flu coming on I was like okay I got back she'd have flu all week she'd been in bed all week I was like whoa Caroline like but I think maybe you should go see something she said no I think I'm coming out of it then the next morning someone had been walking past our window and they said um to be nothing you should come I can hear Caroline shouting for help so I've got the key I opened the door she'd been on the floor all night um she was in her pajamas she soiled herself she couldn't move she was paralyzed down half her body and I was like it's a stroke quick call the ambulance the quicker we can get our scene the better the rat car comes the you know stroke X but he walks in he goes I don't think this is a stroke I was like but it must be a stroke because half her body's gone like this is what happens in a stroke they get her in an ambulance I'm now a bit worried I'm thinking if this isn't a stroke what is going on but I was just trying to be strong for her I just go it's gonna be fine we're going to get you to hospital and they're going to get it sorted it's probably
you know bit menopause bit of whatever maybe you're smoking too much we get out of the hospital test after test after test and I was thinking brain scan I understand and then they said we'd like to do a chest x-ray and I was thinking why are you doing a chest x-ray if it's clearly neurological or she goes to the chest x-ray and then about an hour later we get a doctor come in and he goes we've got something to tell you we're both thinking yeah we're in a e right and he goes yeah you have primary lung cancer in both lungs and you have two brain tumors it's metastasized to your brain and the pain in your back is where your lung cancer is then going into your bone so you probably have bone cancer as well I was like like that can't be right and she went lung cancer and then she looked at me and she went it's all my fault when it's not your fault like it's not your fault you've got lung cancer and she could see her just going tick tick tick smoking all those years smoking they're smoking the weed and I was like stop stop we need to think like what are we gonna do like okay what are we gonna do in the meantime I have to I just said I'm just gonna go and call um my mum and dad I'm just gonna go and call them and just let them know what's happening and I called them I couldn't breathe I was like in the corridor going I think I think I'm I think I'm gonna have like some kind of attack like I can't I can't process it I don't understand what's happening that I think they're telling me because they hadn't said the word die I think they're telling me Caroline's dying like she's got so much cancer that she's dying I said I'll I'll keep you posted I go freshen up my face I there was a nurse there that I've seen a couple of times since when I've taken my kids into a e and I always give her a bit of a special hug because she came up to me in the corridor
and she was like are you okay and I was like I'm not okay she's like what's going on I said well my sister's got this and this and she was like really sorry she just gave me a hug and that was it and then she went but I've never forgotten it you know that hug I needed touch I needed someone to I went back in kind of tried to dry off my eyes or what have you and we just sat there in silenced really and then lots of people came in and were looking at her one of the saddest things was someone lifted up her back to put the stethoscope on the on her back and listened to her and I saw another sign that sounds so weird but I saw a black head on her back and it was massive and it had grown into kind of a a saw it looked horrible and I thought no one sees you no one no one sees you naked no one you don't let anyone in like I am the closest and even I am not in because you are so protective of that painful child she'd never done the work she'd never got to na or AAA she wasn't really an addict I mean you know she smoked a lot of weed but I didn't I didn't see her as that she wasn't an alcoholic she wasn't but she she had she'd put a fence around her and everybody was at the fence and she had so many friends that loved her so much but nobody got inside the fence and I it made me so so sad and I thought I'm [ __ ] climbing over the fence and I'm gonna get in for however long you've got left because you are not shutting me out we had the best talks she was in hospital for a month we had the most amazing brilliant talks like I thought God why is it that when you're dying we get to do this why did we not do this a year ago like if anybody's listening and they feel like they've got a relative that they want to get into or get do it now don't wait for someone to die because the best seven weeks of my life with my
sister were those last seven weeks of hers and so she had a month in the hospital and then we I said I want to get her home to her Cottage I had to go around and find all her weed and it was everywhere I literally could have you know started dealing she had that much weed squirreled away I think she'd forgotten half of the places that she'd had it squirreled away I chucked it all away um I wasn't I didn't find that hard at all like I wasn't I was never interested in weed so it was easy for me I um set up her house got the plumber in put in things for her to hold um occupational therapy came and told me all the places where I need to put stuff harnesses hospital beds blah blah blah set up her whole Cottage got her back home and just hung out with her and we got a carer and she she had chemo booked in but the first chemo was booked in for two days after she died and we thought she had six months we wrote a bucket list and on the bucket list was um just the sweetest stuff like go to France one more time and um see the kids we tried to make as much of it happen get loads of her friends down a lot of the stuff we couldn't do again like why do people do bucket lists when they're dying like do Bucket List when you're alive and also I would challenge anybody listening to this podcast because this was a real thing for me if somebody said to me Davina you have got six months to live what's like the most important thing to you now like what what really matters don't wait for somebody to say that you've got six weeks to live say I love I say I love you to all of my friends all of the people that I love Non-Stop check in with people call people make sure they're okay spend time with people make the decisions where you think if I was to die tomorrow is this the decision that I'd be happy with equally if you've
got somebody very toxic in your life and they are really ruining your life you know if you had six months to live you would be the first thing I'd do is let go of this toxic person do not wait you know do it now and you deserve to be happy you deserve to not have this toxic person in your life and Caroline again I guess you know I'm always looking for lessons she taught me so much in her death she was so brave she never once complained she never once got frightened she never cried and she tried to look after me and one of my most I'm sorry Stephen I know I'm talking a lot but there was one moment I do want to tell you about so obviously no one had ever seen the naked and she had this amazing caracal Claire oh my God she was the best ever she was the most gentle she understood respect and dignity and she knew Caroline almost straight away she knew what kind of person she was and Caroline would not let me get her undressed or ready for bed it was like I don't want you to see me naked and the night that she went to sleep for the final time and then three days later she died she was doing this kind of knitting thing with her hands she was really uncomfortable you could see there was something something had changed a bit and I was like hey you okay and Claire didn't come until maybe seven or eight in the evening to to put her to bed with the district nurse and um and she said I I want to go to bed now I know Claire was there but she needed somebody else to put her to bed because there was hoists and everything and I said well look Claire and I could do it but it would mean that it would be me and she went okay but laughing and I was like are you serious and she went yes and I went oh my God Caroline thank you thank you but at the same time I was like well you know I'm gonna cry like this is the this is Mecca I've arrived you know this is my pilgrimage to my sister I've I crawled over the fence and I'm now at
her body and I said to her would it be all right if I did the dipra base because I needed to dip a base her before she got into bed so she didn't get bed sores and that's like moisturizing every inch of her body and she went yes but you're not gonna do it again like this is the only time I'm going to let you do it once and I said and I got to she had the softer skin I'm very furry my my sister had no hair like at all she was bald as a coot and her arms and stuff was so soft I got the difference I was like oh my God Caroline your arms are so soft and she was laughing away she's going oh my God you are ridiculous it's gonna this is amazing and I got to cream her whole body and it felt like she'd given that to me and it was hideous for her and even when she was dying she gave me a bit of herself that I had never had before and it was so nice and she went to sleep that night and actually in the middle of the night then they came and they gave her a bit more morphine he said okay she was really distressed she was calling me mummy and holding onto my hand she'd never been like that before and she that gave her some morphine and it calmed her down a bit and then for three days she just slept basically but I was with her when she went and it was really lovely and I kept talking to her the whole time because they say your hearing is the last thing that goes and I just wanted her to know I wasn't crying I was just trying to be really strong for her and I kept saying to her I'm gonna be fine because I think out of everything she was worried about me do you know what I mean like that was her last thought like are you gonna be all right because she knew how much of a backbone she was for me that's what I meant about it being a reciprocal agreement like it wasn't just me taking care of her she was taking care of me and she it was a reciprocal agreement and she wanted to
make sure that I was going to be all right and I kept going I'm going to be fine and I talked out all the time but in the last five years so I had a huge grieving thing seven years after she died I went like all summer she died on the first of August and all summer I couldn't shake off this cloud and as somebody online interestingly had said often seven years after someone's died it's like a bang and I was like this is what's happening to me seven years like so painful again since then you know and me being in a good place I keep telling her I keep going oh man like I wish I wish you were here like so I could show you how great it is she'd be living with me now and you know she'd be so happy we'd be good I imagine myself I always thought that I'd be willing her around I always imagined she'd probably get emphysema and she'd have an oxygen tank and um but I'd tell her that I'd go if you carry on doing that you're going to get employment I said but I'm happy to wheel you around I am we're going to live by the seaside somewhere and you and me can be a couple of old grannies and I'll you know I'll take care of you but I didn't never thought she'd die at 50. but she was a great person and um but her her passing my dad you know when he died he had Alzheimer's and I it was expected we knew it was coming we'd spent 10 years preparing for it it was still horrific but he was 78. and I knew he'd lived an amazing life but I still felt my sister had so much more to give you know foreign what is that process of grief like uh you know I ask these questions because I've been fortunate enough to not go through that Arc of grief yeah and I think about it it's been like I think it haunts me a little bit in my head sometimes um that process of grief what you learned from it what you would um what you might impart on me do you ever feel like an island in your
life like that your family all around you but you're not quite attached like you are slightly on your own 100 I always felt like that too so I'm sort of attached but not quite attached and other people are attached but I've never and it's not a bad thing it's not because anybody's tried to detach me I just feel like an island maybe you didn't in my case I feel like I didn't learn attachment I didn't learn how to you know I call my parents by their first names and I do you I don't know you know I feel like we're in a family of islands that's called archipelago is that what it's called yeah a group of islands all groups [Music] so I I don't so your partner I know you don't talk about personal life but is it like two islands have come together so you've formed a like a little it's interesting like I said to Michael like Michael's a beether and I'm Foreman Terror oh yeah I'm the like the really kind of gorgeous like hot beautiful unsport island next and he's quite a party island and we've formed like we've now formed a Beethoven Foreman Terror but we are two islands that have come together but I I I feel like as as just to talk about the grief thing I've my mum died my dad's died my sisters died I have an amazing stepmom who I love very much she's still with me um but I have a half sister out in Australia who I love very much but I don't speak to um as often because of the time differences and everything um and so now I really I feel like an island I've got very close family and stuff it's not that I'm not close to my family but I do feel but I've got all my kids are on my Island they're with me they're in me they're part of my DNA um but it's just an interesting concept that feeling you know but when you meet somebody and you really get on with them you can form a little Bond but you're still two islands but there's a bridge but there's a bridge funnily enough my girlfriend is the opposite which is funny because I sat here with a relationship matchmaking
expert and he talked about these three different types of attachment that we have one of them is like um evasive I think that's what he said were you kind of trying to avoid the prospect of connection you self-sabotage you're always trying to kind of run away from commitment the middle one was nervous where you're always very nervous about attachment and that makes you needy and then the third one he said was I'm gonna paraphrase basically a stable we all know those people all of their parents are together still they have you know that their parents seem to be best friends and work together they they end up being like best friends with their partner they just seem to have no problems and he says it's it's a risk when two adverses get together it's also a risk when an aversive and a nervous get together because you have someone who in my case is trying to run you have a girlfriend who wants attention and quality time and I'm trying to run and she's trying to he said you have to both together get to becoming a stable together and I thought that was interesting because she has helped me to become stable I don't run away emotionally open affectionate but we managed to get there together and maybe that's the bridge maybe when you feel you know does any of that resonate with you yeah totally yeah I mean I think I've prob I'm in a stable for sure yeah were you always a stable attachment type in relationships no because I had the fear of Abandonment yeah but then this this I feel like this hypnotist kind of transformed me to be able to form healthy friendships um change my whole outlook I think on relationships you wrote a book it's here in front of me called menopausing why why did you why did you want to write a book on it writing books is a lot of effort yeah you know so you have to really want want it and you're you're now in a very intentional phase of your life so this must have really from everything I've learned about you so far must have really mattered toasty I mean I think I did um I did two documentaries which were eye openers for
me uh the first one was a huge risk and I thought oh am I literally committing professional Harry Kiri here is is my entire career going to implode now that I am banging the menopause drum and telling everybody that I'm menopausal because I'd hidden it for so long I thought is this going to be a bad thing or a good thing I had no idea but my life was heading to in this direction where I'd been talking to doctors and learning things and I thought I've got a platform and I don't understand when it's something that happens to every single woman it's not even like it happens to some women items to every single woman and some trans men and we know nothing about it this is a crime to to Womanhood and it is also not good for society because women are behaving in a bizarre and irrational and over emotional way sometimes 75 percent of women have symptoms 25 of women don't those 75 are going to be behaving or going through things that either will affect their jobs their work certainly will affect their relationships certainly will affect their children's lives if they've got kids and yet we don't know anything about it neither did you or you or like anybody else know anything about what was going on and I thought I have got a platform and most of the people that follow me on this platform are women I I've got I've got to do something about it so I did this first documentary and I kind of watched that at home like that like oh my God oh my God then I went out for a dog walk the next day it's always on the dog walk stop three times yeah it's always on the dog but it always goes off when I walk the dog it's like amazing no and I got stopped three times and I was like oh hi yeah hi and they went oh my God we watched it last night I was like oh wow did you and then one person cried another was a guy that stopped me and said I watched it with my wife and then we called my wife's sister because my wife's sister's definitely you know she's been like lost for so long and it's so good and I thought God I think this is going to be great I think this is going to really help
people this could be seriously good but like page one of menopause questions I still get asked can I take HRT well I've still got periods yes that is exactly when it's the best time to take HRT oh my GPS told me I'm too young no 45 is a completely normal time you're thinking wow I'm not reaching as many people as I thought I was I've made these two programs and I've talked about it and I've shared about it and I've shared about it online and I've said you can watch it on all four and all of that but I just thought there needs to be something where it can be on a table or in a loo or in a library or in an office space where people can go and reference and look something up and know that they are getting 100 correct facts because the doctor that I wrote this with is unlike me extremely fastidious about telling the truth and about getting correct scientifically validated information out there so me and her make quite a good team because I'm all the kind of huge feelings and passion and anger and laughter and silliness and she's the science what are the symptoms and what symptoms did you experience in your life because there'll be people listening to this now that are thinking oh they might have seen they might know someone yeah you know I thought about people that I know when I first started learning about menopause from actually Gabby Logan who said she actually you played a huge role in in her journey and her sort of figuring all of that stuff out but what are those symptoms to be looking for and how much do they impact one's life and relationships so the symptoms can be varied they can you can just get one symptom and it can absolutely floor you or you could get five symptoms and they don't massively bother you or you might not get any symptoms at all so 25 of women go through it with absolutely like sell through don't even know that it's happened until their periods have stopped then 50 of women struggle a bit like I would put myself in that 50 I struggled quite a bit and then 25 of women it will be so bad that they will think extremely
dark thoughts often suicide um will feel complete hopelessness have to leave their jobs have to leave relationships or get left um it has catastrophic effects on their life so the the symptoms estrogen depletion and estrogen affects every organ in your body so forgetfulness brain fog I mean that is yeah where the [ __ ] my keys well done chapter in the book Thank you love that Stephen thank you um you know the the the forgetfulness is epic um and embarrassing and also another thing that makes you feel old overnight your body starts changing um a bit of extra weight around the middle because um Professor Tim Spector now explained to me that women metabolize sugar differently uh in midlife and estrogen and um the way that that affects your digestive system and your gut changes in menopause that's like fascinating so many changes happen and so I had night sweats I had the mood things I had um but all of the the the brain fog was the thing that was really affecting my work and I just thought I'm not even sure that I can continue working but I did end up through a long process and it's all explained in the book but end up seeing a private doctor and I'm sad that I had to go to a private doctor but I seriously thought I was going mad and somebody flagged up maybe it is the perimenopause but I said I've been told by my GP I'm too young they said well maybe go and you know paying go and see somebody so I did and they said immediately your perimenopausal I had I've got hypothyroidism I've had that since I was 28. where my thyroid is under active and apparently people who have hypothyroidism can start menopause early I didn't know that and they talked me through all the perceived risks and the benefits I didn't know there were any benefits to taking HRT either I thought it was only going to give me breast cancer I thought it might take away my symptoms which would be the only benefit but actually there are health benefits to taking it and I weighed it
all up and I thought I'm definitely definitely going to go on HRT you can take it for the rest of your life we get asked that a lot you get asked like does it postpone your menopause it doesn't postpone your menopause but if you stop taking it you've wean yourself off you can occasionally get nod flush even after your periods have stopped um it's just the estrogen depletion in your body if you keep taking the estrogen you probably won't have the hot flushes but some women have to stop because they do get breast cancer that's estrogen receptive and then um they are required but I met somebody the other day who'd had breast cancer and um she'd gone on HRT because she felt the quality of her life was so bad that she had sat down and weighed up look if it comes back how are we going to deal with it what would I do how many times do I get checked a year and she weighed that up herself but is a very personal decision someone would be like I don't want to take that risk I don't want to take the risk of getting cancer just to make myself feel better but for her she felt so bad that it was worth the risk so it's a very personal Journey for so many women but it is a journey that when you know about it and you know what's happening to you is an easier journey to take what about men you talk about men in the book yeah so they're like really important I'm going to tell you a story about a guy the other day sent me a tweet and he said I got your book and I went to the living room door and I opened the living room door I chucked in the book and I ran away and it made me laugh and I read it and and I thought oh you know banter hilarious yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm terrified and then I thought actually do you know what I'm gonna send you a direct message so I messaged him because he was following me so I messaged him privately I said are you okay and he went it's actually quite hard like I don't know what to do and I thought oh that was a bit of banter but actually you're struggling right so I was like Hey listen I've got a great tip leave the banter at the door of the
living room and why don't you go in and you can pick up the book and sit down and read it with her she'd absolutely love it I can't tell you how much it would mean to her if you said I'm I'm I don't know what to say or how to help you and I'm feeling tell her how you feel but in a non-comedy way like really tell her how you feel and then say what can I do to help can I can I read this book with you can we you know what can I do anyway the next day sent me another message and he went oh my God I did it and it was so good and we read a bit of the book together and I feel much better informed and I don't feel like it's me because I think he thought it was him you know and being it's hard to explain when you're being a [ __ ] that it's not their fault but that everything that they do makes you want to like run away or shout at them but it's not their fault how can that not feel like your fault when you've got somebody doing that to you and just knowing that it is a thing that happens and that there are things that you can do about it makes all the difference you know to a man so I think and to the woman you know for a man to then go oh I see it's like oh he gets it do you know what though there's um there's a fear I have about this because even in the case of him buying the book and then running in I know it was a joke running in there throwing it in there and closing the door as if it's a grenade or something there's a there's a fear as a man that if I was to approach my partner with the book it would be me saying there's something wrong with you yeah hmm I mean see what I mean that is why um an honest and open conversation about how you're feeling not like you've been a bit Moody recently I bought you this book to say look yeah like say if a man was listening to this and he thought that his partner was perimenopausal and they've maybe noticed three or four symptoms by the book read it or have a look at the symptoms if you're worried about what they might think hide it and
read it look at the symptoms do a little mental checklist I think you've got this this and this and then go look I've been feeling like this recently I've been feeling like you don't love me anymore and I really miss you say something nice say something about how you feel like we've Grown Apart a bit and I want to bring it back and I've been thinking and I've listened to some stuff and I heard something on the radio or you know how did you hear about this book so then you say well I was listening to the podcast Diary of a CEO and I like And subscribe and so I thought I'd buy the book and have a look at it and I think some of this is can I show you something can we sit down I'd really like to show it to you and if they get annoyed don't worry they might get annoyed and walk away and go I'm not perimenopausal and then come back and secretly read the book or they might come back and go I'm sorry I I was annoyed but I think I am and then they might have a cry it can work out a million different ways but it just needs a bit of patience bit of understanding and no banter banter is like bad in several situations banter is bad around periods do not do banter back periods you can do banter about haircuts clothing uh loads of things but banter about periods are not funny banter in childbirth not funny and this wife has given you permission to Banff uh unless you bounce at you then you can bump back and banter during menopause unless she bands first I always go by the womb because these are times of great vulnerability and sometimes a bit of banter can really hurt we use the word Omission earlier on we used it in the context of once you decouple from the need for validation or to fill that hole you can have a much more intrinsic internal mission to set your life um in a new trajectory what is your mission now as you sit here you said you're 55. um what is your mission I really like helping people so I think that's a general Mission if I
can help in any way like what can I do to help you I think I've got a platform you've got a platform you're helping people you know that's like I feel like that's your mission to spread spread good using your platform I guess like I've I've worked hard all my life to get a platform now I've got a platform what am I going to do with it do I want to make more money or get more followers really I'm not really bothered do I want to help people yeah so everything is like is this going to help anyone is this going to do any good even something is kind of you know lingerie to me is a is a superpower like lingerie is one of the most important Builders of self-confidence when I was single I used to wear badass lingerie because the First Act of self-love is what are you going to put on Underneath Your Clothes that's next to your skin that no one else is going to see that only you know what you're wearing you know I I see women who look absolutely amazing on the outside but they're wearing gray holy underwear and it's a Act of care self-care is looking looking nice only for you it's an amazing Act of love so I want to help people feel good about themselves I want to get the message out there and I also what do I want to do yes I just think that is my mission I'm always thinking about jobs like because of my sister thinking about a TV program I'd love to do called Legacy because my sister was a beautiful person and I never think she felt it but my God her funeral was amazing and she was loved so much and I kept thinking why aren't you here oh my God you'd love this you had no idea how much you were loved how what a huge impact you had on so many people's lives I thought wouldn't it be great to do a sort of this is your life type TV program where you bring all the people together but for somebody that is life limited somebody who has a year left and you do their funeral before they die have a have a living wake for them wow yeah it's like it's horrific but great at the same time and if you found somebody that was willing I would love that
yeah I was thinking about it from my TV the TV's perspective but wow what a range of emotions this is your legacy look all these people hmm and getting the Roses while you can still smell them yeah so that's kind of that kind of thing like I can do a job and and do something lovely I mean I'm not sure if I would find anybody to get that off the ground because it's it's quite extreme but this is yeah I've said it out loud on here someone might hear it you never know you are you're such a legend for so many reasons you have a real talent which I didn't realize until I really met you here having watched you on TV but there's just something really quite electric and and wonderful about you but that's probably why you were so successful on on TV in the public domain because there's this electricity to you and if anyone's ever told you that before this real just like brilliant engaging electricity so um it's been an incredible honor to meet you I've learned so much I felt a full the full range of emotions your podcast is fantastic which you do with Michael making the cut yeah can I tell you something funny please on Apple podcast they Michael my partner is called Michael Douglas and they've got a picture of actual Michael Douglas with me and I keep thinking Catherine Zeta Jones is going to come over and like love me go are you doing something with my husband okay no they've got the wrong picture up there I've written to Apple so many times I've gone yeah I have I keep writing to Apple podcasts going mate please swap Michael Douglas's photo for my Michael Douglas I'm going to get into trouble with Catherine okay fantastic podcast you sit there with your partner and you talk about life recommend things so we recommended in fact the specific episode and we were recommending your podcast in general but the specific one was the Jimmy Carr one which was he was a great such an interesting mind-blowing mind-blowing yeah yeah I saw that I think I dm'd you after yeah you did you did if it was straight after that no it was after that it was after you've done a story about it as well yeah so thank you for that we all freaked out a little bit because you're such a legendary oh my God
it is super surreal for me because you know I've watched you on screens and I've admired you for so long so to hear that you were listening it's like oh my God what did we say you know say thank you you say good things it's okay and your book is amazing we were talking before you um we started about how the way you've designed this book from the colors to the cover to the the structure of every page and how engaging and unintimidating it is and accessible it feels um is also intentional you've done it all for a reason I want it easy to read I was just saying earlier about the the hands on the front you know I wanted those two hands at the bottom to look like I'm gonna help you out of this and we're gonna do it together and that the messaging is positive because I think people um I had viewed the menopause as an incredibly negative thing um in my 30s and 40s and actually it's been a time where you're actually talking to me here and asking me how I feel and I'm saying happy Yeah I mean you know this is what menopausing has done for me I feel so happy so I wanted to kind of convey that in some way and make it a book that when you are feeling diminished and invisible that you can pick it up and it's easy to read and you will see yourself in every page when I do this podcast sometimes I have moments where I'm so grateful to get to do this because because I meet these amazing people but then I learn about things that I like like it's like I'm in a [ __ ] and I thought the room was fully illuminated and then I have a conversation about menopause and then another light goes on that I don't even know you know and it's like the rumors just got bigger because someone has turned the light on for me and learning about menopause over the last from you from this book from over the last from what Gabby said and what you'd you know the influence you've had on Gabby so maybe oh [ __ ] else so many things make sense now um I mean well my mum had a medical hysterectomy at 28 and would have been plunged into the menopause and didn't get HRT so I'm imagine what impact that had on her and her behavior and her
actions you know I I've I've forgiven my mum a little bit for some I mean not all of it but I've let go of it um but I it's explained some of it I actually did want to talk to you about that situation of forgiveness with your mother because many people can relate to having someone in your life that you fight to change you try your best and you know because they're your mum um and at some point sometimes we have to say listen we've done more than we can possibly do to the point that we're actually hurting ourselves now and we have to kind of cut ties as a bit of a drastic way of saying it but we have to kind of start protecting ourselves did that happen in your situation at some point so with my mum um she'd she was an alcoholic I then got into recovery and then came the thing of how long do I go along with my mum being an alcoholic without saying you're an alcoholic and you need to do something about it because it's getting really bad and after a few years of being in recovery talking to my sponsor going to meetings sharing about it I thought I'm going to confront her about it and I said you're an alcoholic you need to do something about it and then she got really [ __ ] angry with me and she didn't do anything about it and I saw another couple of times she was um stationed abroad with uh she'd married her somebody that worked at a an embassy moving around and eventually I just said look I can't I can't see you until you get sober and a couple of years later she went to live in South Africa with her husband and she got sober and I invited her to my wedding to Matthew and she came and she was sober and we went to an NA meeting together and we held hands and we shared and then uh Matthew and I went on honeymoon and we went to uh Paris afterwards saw my mum again it's kind of like
amazing like it it was kind of as I had hoped it would always be it was like a miracle and then six months later on my birthday on the 16th of October just in case you want send me a card next year um on the 16th of October I'm away in Edinburgh and paper comes upstairs and it says Mommy I need a meeting on the front page of the mirror and I'd never spoken about going to n a because it was an anonymous fellowship and the point of being an anonymous Fellowship is that nobody knows you go and she had sold a story to the papers about us going to that meeting and the papers had Twisted it so that it was like I was about to relapse before my wedding and that she'd taken me to this meeting and you know saved sort of saved me it was like that kind of tone and then inside because I'm like you I you know I've never printed pictures of my children ever that I've never even posted a picture of them on Facebook not even on my private Facebook page ever there's never been a picture of my kids anywhere now my kids are 19 and 21 the older ones they can choose I will never post a picture of Chester online there's pictures of our honeymoon I like I hadn't I wasn't posted I wasn't wouldn't I mean Instagram wasn't around but there was she in the newspapers of us like uh together with her as like somebody taken my heart and grabbed it and ripped it out and I felt the shutters coming down I thought I trusted you and I was you know I'd let you back into my life and I'm gonna put the [ __ ] shutters down because you're not gonna get back in again I called up and I was like what are you doing she said oh it was the celebratory thing you know that we'd gone to this meeting together I said nobody knew I was in the fellowship I said you go to the fellowship you know it's an anonymous Fellowship it's not like you you're new to it you've been clean for a year like what are you doing I was so upset and my sister who had always felt a bit invisible was not mentioned in the article once and my mum hadn't said I've got another daughter or my daughter lives with you
know Davina and Caroline live together or nothing she said nothing about a lot she she was invisible her so much she never spoke to my mum again ever from that moment she was going to go over and see her in South Africa they had a plain ticket books and everything and then she realized she probably bought the ticket with the money that she got because my mum didn't have any money I was giving her money for medicines and things like that she just was they didn't have much money and then I carried on giving them the money because I thought who do I want to be when I die or when she dies I want to have been the person that I respect so I thought I'm not going to pull the money and not give her her meds so I kept giving her the money and then every now and again she'd kind of reach back in I'd think oh my God this is different than she'd do something else so another story would come out or every time I kind of reached out another story would come out and in the end I found out she was dying of cancer um in South Africa and I lay in bed in England one night and Matthew's asleep and I put my hands out on top of the bed with my Palms facing upwards and I closed my eyes and I imagined shoots of light of forgiveness coming out of the palms of my hand going across the world to South Africa to Pretoria where she lived and straight into her heart in the hospital and I just kept saying I forgive you for everything I just totally [ __ ] forgive you I don't care anymore forgive you go and like be go in peace and then me my sister and my husband and our kids all went away for a wedding in America and my sister and I got the news when we were together that she'd gone and I looked at her and I said she's gone and she was like wow and then we both had a little cry and then Caroline looked at me and she went
relieved said I don't know and I said God it's it's please don't let and I said to her quietly then please don't let me be a person that dies and anybody ever feels relieved about don't let me ever live that life and Caroline said me either and Caroline definitely didn't we were [ __ ] broken when she died so she she achieved that and I hope that when I go I don't ever like leave anybody feeling happy that I've gone I'm not happy but but when she died she freed me up to remember funny times as well as all of when she was alive I could only remember the bad and what I was missing and when she died you know I was able to remember her being hilarious and arresting people drunk as the citizen's arrest or things that were just funny did you go to her funeral no and again will I regress it no we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest and the question left for you very good handwriting um is what makes you most angry about Society Council culture oh have you been on the receiving end of it yeah when um I wrote a tweet about Sarah everard's death when it was getting really nasty online about men yeah um and I said that um that abduction and death from abduction is very rare and we don't need to completely Panic about that situation I wasn't talking about any other kind of things that happened to women I wasn't talking about domestic abuse or any of the other things that happened to women I was just talking about abduction and death from that it is rare and we just have to not start blaming all men because and I was thinking about my son my son was
really cut up about it and he didn't know how to behave he felt like the enemy suddenly and I was trying to explain to him that he was I said you know we've got brothers and husbands and kids that are worried and what they want to help Let's Not demonize all men my God like I got 200 000 likes um but I didn't see any of those I just saw the 10 000 comments are asking for me to be murdered or burned at the stake or you know I'm a woman hater or I'm a hashtag Not all men person and you know don't understand about domestic violence they don't know anything about my life you know I've I've like I've lived a life and I've experienced a lot of really terrible things and many terrible things have happened to me but I just didn't feel that this was the moment to attack all men because in life I have discovered that we need to come at life together men and women segregating everybody into groups separate groups separatist groups I don't I think it's anti-society we need to all work together and alienating people an entire sex is is not a good idea well you know like we need you need to have our back and we need to have your back I know lots of men that really changed their behavior after hearing about how frightened women are in the streets and you know like if they're walking towards a woman just go I said go or cross over the road to walk on the other side and maybe they didn't do that before that's a good thing like we need to commend that rather than well you know if we went front of you in the first place you wouldn't have to do that as you guys you know I just think there's got to be a more open conversation anyway counts cancel culture so it's only happened to me once I didn't take take it down I went to bed for a weekend and um I was ashamed I was ashamed and frightened to go to go shopping in my local supermarket I didn't want to go out in town because I felt like everybody'd read it and hated me and then I read quite a few articles afterwards where they were saying no completely understand where she was
coming from she was right and I was thinking oh oh right and so I kept the comment up there because I do stand by it but I wish that I think my big mistake and the thing that I should apologize for is that I posted it three days after four days after she died and it was timing my timing was [ __ ] um and it was way too soon and I did again out of something that was really bad a bad experience for me I did learn something from it and I won't do that again but I don't I think canceling somebody doesn't let somebody learn something and ruining someone's life which happens a lot somebody's whole career gets finished you're never letting them learn the lesson they've got to you've got to let them learn the lesson come back and give them the space to say I could have done it differently and I've learned something yeah yeah so it's I think it's a sad thing that and also it means that often in the public domain I won't say something that I think or believe in because I'm really frightened I'm going to get canceled for it and it might be something quite mundane or small or topic but I think we'll best avoid that I don't know how we change that there is some people in our society you change that by stopping social media because for the for the 10 000 people that are verbalizing how much they hate it two hundred thousand liked it yeah so they agree but you only hear and there'll be a lot of people who couldn't even like it touch it yeah because of the fear of because of the fear of getting cancer that happens a lot none of us are saying yeah what we think or believe in or questioning something you know it's terrible when you can't question well why are you doing that like is that a good idea I mean when we stop this podcast I'm going to talk to you about a couple of things that happening at the moment which I think are interesting but I can't say anything I can't form an opinion about it because I can't talk about it anywhere I need to I need to find somebody I can actually air it with you know it'll get clipped and then it goes yeah it's terrifying
isn't it it's crazy because Shane comes from that debate to the conversation the questioning all of our progress in society has come from that a conversation Brave conversations with ideas that at their time were maybe denied or um not believed in but because of conversation progress because of the Fearless nature of some people in our society whether it's Martin Luther King or you know the suffragettes whatever things changed and we we can't do that anymore with the nature of the world so and how so how are things going to change there is there are some amongst us the brave ones who who seemingly don't give a [ __ ] and they are taking all the arrows as they go and we've got a like yeah it makes you ask questions for that yeah yeah there are you can think of those people I'm just wondering like at what point at what age am I because I've got a feeling I'm gonna get to an age where I'm gonna go [ __ ] it I feel like JK Rowling just kind of went for it at one point yeah but I feel like that is another story altogether I was just about to enter into it I thought nope yeah yeah yeah don't want to get canceled yeah okay well we'll finish there I want to thank you so much again it's a real honor to meet you and have a conversation with you and um I hope we do this again sometime because I feel like we've got so much more to talk about yeah me too yeah well we won't be canceled but thanks for having me I really enjoyed it and thanks for letting me in to a bit of your life as well it's been been a huge honor and I've really it's been a rare and rich in conversation because of your energy but also because of your wisdom so thank you hahaha [Music]