Her Discussions by Dr Faye - How to Build a Relationship With Yourself, Especially If You Don't Like Your Body

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

What if everything you believed about your body was wrong?At 11, Nelly London started struggling with body image, eating disorders, and failed surgeries. But after years of shame, struggle, and healing, she is rewriting her story and helping hundreds of thousands of others do the same. In this chat, Nelly shares:⭐ How to forgive your body and release guilt once and for all⭐ The mindset shift that transformed her life⭐ Why peace with your choices is the ultimate freedom

From puberty, I just developed absolutely ginormous boobs. Ridiculous back pain, unbelievable self-confidence issues. The attraction from men when I was a literal child was disgusting. At 11, she learned to hate everything about her body. Today, after eating disorders, failed surgeries and a decade of healing, Nellie London is with her story and showing hundreds of thousands how to love theirs. One day me and my mum were on a dog walk. My mum just said, you know you could get a breast reduction.

Literally never even heard of the procedure always just thought right well one day I'll lose weight and I won't have big boobs anymore we saw a surgeon, we booked it in I think I've had seven or eight surgeries altogether so from the exact point of waking up from that initial operation everything that could go wrong went wrong

do you regret the surgery thank you so so so much for clicking on this episode if you could do me a huge huge huge favour and click the subscribe button just down there or leave a five star review If you are listening, this helps us spread the message of women's health and wellness even further and have even better conversations, hopefully coming back for a season two. Thank you.

Nellie, I want to take you back to a time before surgeries, before struggles with eating and before a life in the public eye. what was life like for Nelly all that time ago? I was quite a chronically anxious child, like always had been. So like I have memories of being really, really, really young. Sort of like your first ever memories, like days at reception, days in year like one, two and three, of having what I would now call a panic attack. But at that time, obviously, you're just a kid and you're acting weird or you're just pulling away or just being a slightly odd kid.

kid, I was so shy and I was so chronically anxious, which is really depressing because my whole childhood wasn't like that. But yeah, in general, I was not the happiest, like, carefree little gal. I was more like worried. I was always worried my parents were going to die. I was always worried my house was going to get broken into. I was always worried about things that, like I couldn't possibly even conceive of happening happening. God. There's a theme actually so far of people laughing at, laughing at semi-traumatic things.

One of our other guests said that she laughed when a man came up, she was running, and a man came up to her with a ligature, and she was laughing, and I looked at her and I said, I think that's terrifying. Like, are you okay? Laughing is a great, great coping mechanism. Sometimes if it's all you've got, something you've got. Literally.

Do you know anything that might have triggered you to feel quite anxious as a child? Well, there's a couple of theories, and it's so hard to not blame my poor old mum, because it almost automatically happens. But she was chronically anxious, in general, an anxious woman. and when she was she always says when she was pregnant with me she had one of her worst like bouts of anxiety that she's ever ever had the family business nearly dissolved and she thought they weren't going to be able to have anywhere for her and her family to live

like like proper crisis scenarios were playing out in real life whilst she was pregnant with me and she sort of a few times said that that could like because you feel that as a baby and then yeah I then grew up with a really anxious highly stressed like acutely stressed mum who she's still acutely stressed but like she just manages it better now and is in like a phase of her life where she can you know her stress doesn't tend to impact me anymore but that's only a theory it could be that it could be something

completely completely different because my brother's not the same at all my brother's three years older and she said she had a completely different pregnancy with him no stress no anxiety and he's he couldn't be anxious if you tried really yeah dead jealous i hate that got on me there's this incredible book that's it's like a green book with a red frame around the side and it's called um the book you wish your parents had read um it's difficult because your parents are just people who are living for the first time as well And it kind of talks about how all the unwilling ways that they kind of mess us up a little bit, but from like a forgiving angle, you know, from a not a blame, but from an understanding. So hopefully, you know, others can break that cycle.

Exactly. Yeah, I found it really, really interesting. And it gave me a lot of probably forgiveness for my parents. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know, it helps, it helps understand. guess all the ways. Yeah. That like impacts it. It has put me off, I think, having children though. Because I know my parents would love grandchildren. And I'm 30. I'm nearly 32. And I've never had the desire to have children. It's just never ever existed within me. And now a lot of my friends

have babies. I love them. Like I love their children. Like I just think they're the best things in the world and I get so excited to see them, which I always thought would be my turning point of like when I meet people who I love who have had children, I thought that would make me be like, okay, I understand it and I'm ready. It's almost done the opposite, because I'm like, I can see how much of yourself you've given up for this gorgeous little baby. I just don't know if I could do it. And when I think of my own childhood,

not as being this thing that was full of joy and love and the most carefree years of your life, that never happened, I just don't, I think that might be a part of the reason why. I just, I don't feel, I don't, I've never felt motherly. And I think that's so, so, so important to be open about because I think sometimes some women might even feel ashamed for not having that instinct to the point that they then maybe force themselves to have kids.

I know. And then that's not really fair on a child to bring them into the world if that's not something you're certain about. Yeah. And we'll definitely, I'd love to come back to the, to all the work that you've done with talking about your abortion and I think that's such an incredible conversation to have. Have you seen the thing, have you seen what Chapel Rowan got loads of hate for,

she got loads of stick because basically she said all my friends who have kids, they regret having kids. Yes, I love us. She got so much like stick for it. And I think, I don't know, we, we, we minimise the impact that kids have on your life. Yeah. Yeah. And I've always said, if I could be a dad, I would have seven.

Like, I would love to be a dad. But I don't have that option. And my partner is, we've talked about at length. We've been together for eight years. And obviously now at this age, it really is a topic of conversation. And he says things like, well, if we were to decide to, I could be the full-time dad, stay-at-home dad, all the things which he absolutely would do and he would do it amazingly

but the mother is still the mother like he can't carry this thing for me he can't breastfeed this thing for me he can do his best but that doesn't take away from how much work a mother still has to do even with the most supportive partner on the planet it still takes your whole

life and soul to have one and then I wouldn't want an only child so I would have to have two and I just I don't know. It's a lot of pressure, isn't it? It's a lot of pressure. Yeah. I don't know how women decide either way, to be honest.

But then I've got, like I said, my friends who've had kids, they've just sort of turned up to my house and been like, well, I'm pregnant. I'm like, is this good news? And they're like, yeah, I think so. I'm like, amazing. Congratulations. Having such a shit, there is this good news. It's a head fuck for sure.

Yeah. Going back to your life, being younger, you were pretty stressy, anxious child. And then at what age do you first remember body anxieties being part of that? Year six, how old are you in year six? 11?

Yeah, about then. So right before puberty, because it was when we started to get told about puberty. And for me, I remember my first ever PSHE lesson and they separated the boys and the girls and the girls went in a classroom and they had this horrific diagram of what a girl looks like before puberty and then after and it was like someone was reading me a death sentence they're like you are going to put on body weight you're going to be they'd call it puppy fat right then like you're going to get chubby weird but that's what

they said you're going to get hairy everywhere places you've never been hairy before you're going to be hairy. This diagram, I remember this woman had a bush, the size of her head. And I was like, I don't want that. No, thank you. And obviously the armpit hair. You're going to start smelling. You're going to have really bad, smelly body odour. You're going to get these once a month pains. You're all going to bleed. You're going to have to manage this blood. You're going to have to get on with your life whilst this is happening. You can't skip sports, even though you might be bleeding. And again, that was right before I actually started to hit puberty. Oh, and you're going to get giant boobs.

And at that time, it was all, like, Kate Moss and the skinny Victoria Supermodel was the body of the time. So I remember thinking, I absolutely do not want a single part of any of what you just said. That sounds awful. I remember the teacher who did it. She was awful. And it was like she was trying to scare us and she absolutely succeeded. So that is literally the day. I remember it, which is amazing.

But that's the day I decided that I was going to not go through puberty. The only way that I learned you could do that is by not eating. God. So I stopped eating that day. Oh, my gosh. Mad. Yeah. It's awful, isn't it?

It's presented in that that, to kids. I know. I think it just follows this theme of like almost a lot of women, I think older women, probably in a way to like prepare us for the struggles of being a woman to come. They treat, I don't know, they treat you very harshly. I think you see it with older women in the workplace being harder on younger women. Yes. Like sometimes the most sexist interactions I've had have been with other women.

And it's almost like that teacher was trying to. I know what you mean. Be really, really hard on you to. She also hated us all. But that was kind of her nature. Yeah. And yeah. And that stuck with me.

forever. Like you said, I have no idea what teaching puberty is like now in schools, but can you imagine how amazing it could be? If you taught these young girls, like all the incredible things that are going to happen during the next few years. And they'll absolutely be hard bits and bits you won't like. But A, every human being on this entire planet has or will go through this, you're all in it together. And it's going to make you the women that you will become. Like, it's an amazing thing. And it's hard enough anyway. I would have rather gone into it with the rose-tinted glasses, but no, the opposite. And did you say that the boys and the girls were split up?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So my mum was one of the school nurses who she always used to do these talks. Yeah, there was one particular time I remember when one of my friends went, oh my God, your mom taught me about bony's and amortified, absolutely mortified. But from all the people that I would speak to about it, So she would, they all just had such like positive things to say about her. Because she was the only school nurse who kept the boys and girls together.

She said, the boys need to know what the girls are going through. And they told us about each other. So they showed us the boy diagram and they showed the boys the girl diagram. Yeah. So I don't know why they needed to separate us. It's like a shame thing. My mum said we shouldn't be shaming. Like the boys need to know about this.

And likewise, the girls, we need to not have this shame associated with it. and my mum's Irish and she'd always say, it's all natural for me, it's all natural. And then she'd give the kids like giggle time. She'd say, right, you can have you giggle time. And then they all put in like a little anonymous question. And then she'd read out the questions. Some of them would be pretty stupid.

They'd get their giggle time and she'd answer, regardless of any questions they asked. So I think it's something I'm so, so, so passionate about because I think clearly it has such a huge impact. sure how we present that to kids honestly I mean literally an everlasting impact yeah and it's so mad that I remember the classroom what the weather was like what my teacher was wearing how I felt in that moment yeah like it was yesterday god and one crappy PSHE lesson potentially there were obviously other factors involved but such a large contribution

to like really significant mental health problems that last a lifetime How long were you restricting what you ate before you or anyone else wanted to try and get you some help? So I got help for the first time when I was, I want to say 18, nearly 19. Because I remember my 18th birthday. I was still pretending to be fine. And then I got help by asking my mum for help by, I think I was about 19. Yeah.

Yeah. So you asked you asked your mom for help? Yeah, it was this weird thing that we never talked. about so I literally stopped eating at 10 or 11 and then I kind of cycled not eating at all like really extreme restricting and throwing up and then in between those I had started binging and the binging disorder was what ultimately ultimately led me to get help because that was the thing that was all controlling all consuming by the time I was 19 and I was in this binge restrict cycle.

It was literally every other day. I'd restrict and then binge to extremes that now I can't even believe my poor body withstood that. And then, yeah, got more control of the binge eating after I got help. How was it telling your mum? Because I'd imagine it's quite a tough thing, a tough topic to bring up. Yeah, so because like I said, the binging had taken control, I was a lot heavier then than I was now. So I lost between four and five stone after getting that more under control.

So my mum could physically see me. And I was, I don't know, size wise, 16, 18, I've always been relatively short. So I just looked very, very different. I think she almost wanted me to get help because I looked overweight. She didn't have a problem when I was thin. And she is Scottish. Her mum was very religious. She's not, but her mum was very religious.

Classic Christian Scottish woman. Really, really strict ideas of what womanhood is, how a woman should be, look and act. And my mum isn't all those things, but obviously you absorb an amount of that. and it really, really upset her that I was overweight. Yeah. And that was, I think, the thing that would worry her the most. Because I wasn't, I was like a skinny, tall kid with long legs,

and then really quickly, as with binge eating works, I put on quite literally five stone in 10 months, 11 months, which is a huge physical difference. And I think that's what led her to get me help because she tried to get me help a couple of years earlier. and it wasn't help. She had heard a friend of a friend who'd seen a hypnotherapist who was this awful woman who I went to her house

and she laid me on a sofa, very film style. Yeah. I had to lay back on this shes-long. And she would hypnotize me. And she'd say, food does not control you. You can eat a normal portion of food and go on with your day. And I was lying there with my eyes closed, pretending to be sort of under whatever spell she was trying to car.

And then after the hours up, she said, open your eyes. She'd be like, how do you feel? I'd be like, great, thank you so much. Bye. I did four of those sessions before my mum realized she was wasting her money. Oh my gosh. And it was about a year or two after that that I got a proper clinical psychologist. I went to the priory, which is the priory.

A real qualified, incredible woman specialized in heating disorders who really actually helped. God bless our parents because also there's a lot of things that like I had a couple of issues with my mum and dads the way that they spoke about food which ultimately led to some disordered pattern in my own life but I don't

I love them to pieces they're incredible but it's they just that's what they knew you know that the attitude at the time I remember my dad I came home from uni once and we had dinner and then after dinner I had I was like I'm still angry had a bit of toast and my dad

what he thought was a joke said, remember Faye, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels and I literally, I just remember completely like flipping at him because it was at a time where so I was very binge restrict, binge restrict, binge restrict,

broke out with my ex-boyfriend and then decided, right, this is when I'm going to end it. So I stopped the restriction which was the floodgates open for the binging. So like I did put on a considerable amount of weight, because that's what happens, you know, you've suppressed, you've tried to suppress your appetite for so long and you're just absolutely, you've also fucked how your body would

naturally absorb food. You've completely thrown your natural cycle of absorbing basic nutrients out the fucking window. Yeah, of course you're going to balloon. And that was it, it was the, the very like inflamed, like, swollen sort of look. And my dad said that's me. And I was just kind of really battling with everything in my head and I just kind of flipped at him and I and I just run up to my room and cried and I was 20 like two at the time you know I was a grown adult then I um but you know you look back and you think God that was the message that they were fed all through when they were young adults but it's really difficult to understand that those two things are true I can love my parents pieces but oh my god they said some things that really fucked me up you know

it's hard isn't it yeah because like you said they're trying the best and the people living the well for the first time but I like to think like if you were I were to have children now and we saw something that could potentially hurt the feelings of our children we would think hmm maybe I won't say that yeah but then I'm not them and I wasn't there so yeah yeah and then you went to the priory so were there any like nuggets of wisdom that you took away from that experience that kind of really pulled you out of that situation it was so weird because I remember my first few sessions with this woman, we almost said and did nothing. And it was this hour of awkward silence and questions I didn't even understand what she was asking me. And obviously my parents were like,

how was it? How do you feel? Like how was things? And I just say, I don't know, weird. And this went on for a long time. I remember thinking, this is such a waste of time. And I knew how much they were paying for these sessions. And it was so much money. So I started to feel guilty of like, God, they're spending all this money that they might not have for me hoping I'll, you know, get better, but I'm just not because this woman's crazy. And then all of a sudden I just noticed that I was more willing to feed myself properly. So I was just waking up and being like, do know, I'll, eat breakfast today. Yeah. And I'll, I'll eat lunch and I'll maybe even have dinner. And it was such a slow and drawn out process. But it was the tiniest change.

changes and I couldn't even even told you what she said or recommended or what she tapped into in my brain. I think it was just the general making me realise my self-worth. Because remember one of the first questions she asked me was, tell me something you like about yourself. And I said nothing. And she said, no, I'm not accepting that. I need something. I said, there's nothing. Because obviously I was, like I said, I was very swollen. To me, I was in a new body that I didn't have the year before that I did not recognise. eyes. I didn't really wear clothes. I just went like big t-shirts and leggings because I just, I didn't want to physically have an appearance. She wouldn't accept my answer and I was really persistent. I was like, there's nothing I like. This is almost why I'm here because I hate myself.

And she literally stared at me. She had these amazing blue eyes that would pierce through my soul. And she just stared at me until I said an answer. I remember my answer ended up being my hair because I still was very lucky and I had very long, lovely thick hair. And it was things like that of forcing me to be a tiny bit kind to myself. More like, yeah, appreciate myself, even in the smallest ways. I remember that exercise. I remember how certain I was that there was nothing on this planet. You could make me say.

Yeah. But honestly, after 30 minutes of these blue eyes, I was like, okay, fine. Hair, it's the hair. Just to get rid of the awkward silence, I'm going to say something. Yeah, and it was true, and it was that. She somehow really slowly brought my self-esteem up, and I think she ended up spending many years, unteaching me things that probably my mum and the media of the time had instilled into me so strongly.

I think it's really interesting that you didn't feel like anything was happening with those therapy sessions and then suddenly, because really, really, maybe you disagree, but it's normally there's a deeper issue at hand, you know, that there's a deeper, yeah, the self-worth or I guess you probably expected maybe you'd talk more directly about the food, the eating, but she tries to really get to the root cause, which I think is really, really interesting. Yeah, I remember our very first session, she asked me what a binge looked like,

and I said, told her, and then she never asked that question ever again. That was the first and last time that food ever, ever came up. Really? So it just wasn't about food. Wow. Yeah. That's really, really interesting. And then how long did you see her for? Solidly for 18 months.

Yeah. And then I actually had a break because I had surgery. my breast reduction. Ah, yes. We shall come to that. Then again, a little bit after that, probably another year whilst I was healing. And then I had a break for most of my 20s, but I reached out to her five or six years later that, like, oh, must have been 27, 28. Obviously, it's completely different this time. Like, I was an adult, I had a job. I was a real working human being, and I didn't look anything like I looked when I first saw her. And I had about a year of weekly sessions with her in my late 20s again. I've seen other therapists since then that are more

specifically about anxiety post-COVID. But I was that that therapist was like a huge part of my life for a long time. Such a nice woman, even though she never said anything. I still love that. It's probably what, why it was so impactful. You know, it wasn't like she was telling you to do anything. It was she was bringing that out of you. And I think that's such an important point to say that recovery is not linear for you to have taken the lessons you learned in that first set and then to have held your hands up and said right actually do you know what I can see some of this creeping back in yeah exactly because I think sometimes you know especially as women you can be a perfectionist and once you or you're either failing or succeeding exactly

well then that was the difficulty because during lockdown when I started really making content full time. I then inadvertently built this brand of being this recovered woman who had an eating disorder but I no longer have the seeing disorder and it's ill in my past and this is only a positive place and it only took me in the last sort of six months to admit online that actually binge eating disorder is still a really active part of my life nowhere near to the extent it once was but I still experience it and now I've sort of overcome that of shame like you said. I make little TikTok vlogs about day post binge. And actually, it's a really healing, wonderful experience.

But it's still there. It's still something I live with. It's still something I hate. But in a completely different way to it was back then. And it's fine, like you said, maybe in 10 years, I'll go 10 years binge free. And then in my early 40s, you don't know. Maybe it will crop back up again. And if it does, I'll literally just deal with it.

Yeah. And that's fine. And you have the tools to deal with it. And it wouldn't devastate me. ruin my life or it's just like oh there's little things back sort out yeah you only work really really really hard to build up a good habit and then the good habit inevitably just fails course like you know as it does because life gets in the way and I always always used to take that as failure and then I'd go right well now I'm not going for a jog every morning anymore that that's out the window I'm a failure

do whatever my jogging career is over yeah jogging career is over delete all my videos where I have talked about jogging I'm a fraudster it's done it's done it's That part of my life is over. And then now when I start a new habit, I always tell myself, this habit will inevitably fail. And that is okay. And I feel like that's sort of similar to. Are there any things that you have in your toolkit in terms of when things get bad with binge eating,

that you pull out to try and manage it? It's really hard. And I don't always succeed at this. But I just try and tell myself that like tomorrow is a new day, obviously. but the difficulty with binging that I'm sure you probably know is if you've if you've been good quote-unquote good all I mean by that is not binging you feeling yourself well yeah and then you have a binge it's really really hard for me anyway to not then have a binge the day after a binge and sometimes even the day after a binge so if ever it goes wrong per se I will just say right in three or four days we'll rethink we'll come up to the surface and we'll essentially reset where we are don't worry about anything that happens in the next three or four days sometimes a week do what you have to do in life but food wise just don't worry about it because even if it's all goes terribly wrong a four days in your life is not going to make any difference to your health what you look like not that that's important but just try not to beat yourself up basically over the next week yeah because i will always come back out of it sometimes you just have to be in it for a few days and it's it's rubbish when it happens But the worst thing you can do is be like, well, for me, is be like, right, tomorrow, we're not binging. We're eating three square meals.

And then you get into that awful habit of like, right, I won't have any snacks. I'm just going to have my three meals tomorrow. And the day after I'm going to go for a run and then I'm going to feel normal. And that's just not how this thing works. Yeah. You just can't eradicate it one evening and wake up with it gone. Sometimes it just takes a few days to leave. And that's fine.

Do you ever notice a pattern with your cycle at all? Yes. in that when I'm due on I just need to eat everything and I always try my best to eat the things I'm craving but it's so hard for your binge brain to not take over

but that's the only thing I notice I don't track my cycle super closely yeah the reason I ask is because the times when I used to struggle a lot did seem to be around about the week before my cycle but I didn't understand my cycle and then when I realised that actually

because what would happen is I'd have a bin I'd feel guilty, which would mean I'd binge more. And then it would be that sort of downward spiral of catastrophizing and me thinking, well, I've ruined everything. So I may as well eat this entire loaf of olive bread from Tesco down the road. The only logical solution. The only logical solution. And I just, you know, eat everything to make myself feel better. And then when I understood the way the menstrual cycle works and how your lucile phase you could be using it more than an extra 300 calories a day,

when I had these, you know, these extra cravings, I gave myself permission and like, almost like this forgiveness of, you're actually, your body needs more energy. And that removed the guilt, which then removed the downward spiral. Exactly. But again, you know, you had your PSHE lesson. Where in that lesson we told, be kind to yourself. Literally. Yeah. And you're allowed to be hungrier at some times of the months that compared to others.

Yeah. If you want to eat two dinners on a Monday, you're allowed because you're an adult and you can make your own choices. Yeah. And like you said, the second the guilt is removed, all those negative thoughts that spiral in your brain are gone. And you just continue like any other day. Oh, cool. I had two dinners today. Yeah.

I didn't die. What did you look at that? So then you started therapy when you're 18 and then at 19, you had your first of how many surgeries? I think I've had. seven or eight surgeries altogether over ten procedures so smaller things like little scar revision injections, stereid injections

things that have happened while I've been awake seven or eight surgeries oh my god and talk me through what led you to getting that first surgery and everything that happened afterwards I had huge boobs as a kid

the binge eating didn't help I was always swollen but from puberty I just developed absolutely ginormous boobs. I was a double H. That's the brazo war, but the brazzo war were always a lot too small for me, so realistically probably bigger. Ridiculous back pain, unbelievable self-confidence issues, the attraction from men when I was a literal child was disgusting, I didn't understand them, didn't know how to process them. They hurt all the time, like my actual breasts were always in pain because when they're that big, they get

engorged. I feel like the best comparison is women who have breastfed and they get these unbelievably swollen boobs that are so, so, so sensitive. That's what mine were like, 24-7. I would sleep in a bra because even if anything brushed past my breast, it would send like almost

nerve pain through my body because they were just so uncomfortable. My nipples were so huge and so stretched because, again, my nipples pointed down. So the gravity of the breast then stretches them, which is natural and expected. Sort of hated my entire self, at that point, but at least the breasts were something like a pinpoint.

One day me and my mum want on a dog walk, I'd always wear two or three bras to leave the house, always wear baggy t-shirts on top of underneath baggy hoodies, underneath baggy jackets. But when they're physically that big, you can't actually hide them with clothes, they're just part of your frame. Yeah. And I cannot remember how or when or why it came up, but my mum just said, you know you could get a breast reduction. And I just said, yeah, okay, sure, you never mentioned that before.

And she said, yeah, no, me and dad would sort that out. And I was like, literally never even heard of the procedure, didn't know you could shrink boobs surgically. I always just thought, right, well, one day I'll lose weight and I won't have big boobs anymore. So really quickly from that, we saw a surgeon, we booked it in the procedure pretty much straight away. Had the initial procedure when I was 18, 19, sorry.

And from that point, so from the exact point of waking up from that initial operation, everything that could go wrong went wrong. And for the next 10, 11, 12 years, I've had surgery to correct the initial breast reduction. What went wrong in that first procedure? Four or five days after the first surgery, when I was at home, I was changing a dressing, and if you know about breast reduction, but you end up with an anchor scar. and at the bottom of my anchor so the T-junction of your breast

I could smell something that did not smell right and then I got a mirror to look underneath my breast and there was this big just hole just a hole and I could see breast tissue and it's obviously you've never had any surgery before I'd never seen bodily tissue

I'd never cut my hand to the bone so I'd never seen the inside of my flesh it was this big bulging flesh like trying like a breast was trying to come out a tiny like 50 p piece size hole. We went straight back into the surgeon. I called my mum like,

ma'am, something's wrong. Yeah. So she called the surgeon. We saw him, I want to say the day after. And he looked at it really casually and went, oh, well, that can happen. We'll just sew it back up. I was like, okay.

But it didn't smell good, did it? Oh, it was awful. It just smelled like, just nothing you ever smelled. Not like an infection, like just worse. Had an operation a couple days after that. And all he told me is that he literally just went in and restitched that exact point that had burst open, went home again, and then over the next

week, every single join on my breasts, so every single scar surgery line had started to ping open. And I say ping because I'd be sitting watching the TV and I would just feel this like drop of gravity in like my left nipple. And what I now know was happening was my stitches were bursting. And obviously the flesh around them was just then like dropping almost the thing that was meant to hold my new breasts together were giving way and not at all working so what was actually happening was my body we think can't really prove it but every doctor I've spoken to since says that this is what it sounds like my body was rejecting the stitches so the internal stitches that a lot of them are really deep into your chest wall every single one of them was pushing its way out because

my body didn't like them. So then over the next six months, six months to a year, I ended up with these huge open wounds. My breasts were significantly more open wound and scar tissue than they were breast. Scar tissue, that spreads like wildfire. Like it's mad how it like was eating my boobs. So my boobs were actually getting smaller

because the breast tissue was eating away at them. So we went, we obviously went back. during this time and we now know my surgeon was just not a very nice person he was ambivalent at best towards the situation he did not show an ounce of empathy or sympathy or your basic human respect he we asked him about three weeks later like we think you need to redo this like if these stitches are coming out on these dressings can you go back and take them out and he said well I'll think about it and then he sent us a quote for the same

nearly as much as the original surgery was. Oh my gosh. And my mum was like, we can't even afford it if we wanted to. Like we can't even pay it even if we wanted to let this man operate on you again, which we didn't. So he said, right, well, the best thing we can do then is let yourself heal. And when you're healed, come back and see me. The healing took over 12 months because the wounds are the size of like the palm of my hand on my breast. They were so large that I was healing like a couple of minutes. millimeters a week, like slowly trying to close these massive open wounds that were covering

like the whole of my breasts. And by the time I had healed, we didn't want to ever see that man again. So we found, who is my current surgeon, who specialises in reconstructions, mainly from people who have had cancer, mastectomies, and also burns. And yet I've been on this like 10 year journey with him and he's very, very slowly rebuilt, remove scar tissue and removed internal scar tissue and rebuilt my boobs completely touch word we're finished yeah that's like and then i'd imagine combine that with the eating the low self-esteem yeah add then gaping wounds into your boobs into the mix i can't imagine i'd imagine that just

complicated your relationship with your body even more yeah you do that awful thing thing of you start to not trust your body the thing you once did trust you no longer trust it at all like why aren't you healing you're supposed to be healing is it something that I'm doing is it just my body betraying me why is no one else helping me I feel like I should be being helped but I wasn't just head fuck is the best way to explain it yeah yeah do you remember the first time that you thought you know what I am gonna start loving my body I'm gonna start I'm gonna changed my relationship with with my body it was when I was fully healed yeah my boobs were now

really small a lot smaller than I ever thought they would be but through this like healing physically I was also healing like with seeing my therapist who I liked God bless her because that would be honestly honestly and I remember before before I had this surgery my mum when she dropped me off to this therapy session, she said, I'm just going to talk to her before you do. I was, oh, God, what are you going to tell her? And what she told her is we think we're going to get a breast reduction done for Nelly. So I then spent the session talking to my therapist about, like, right, you're going to have surgery. And literally, this is going to impact you on your brain and your body, and it's obviously important to know. And she wasn't very approving, which in hindsight,

she was absolutely right. What I should have done is waited until I was in a better space mentally to have a surgery. Yeah. But my mum won't mind me saying this. She has had a fair amount of cosmetic surgery herself. Yeah. And to her, it is a very quick in-and-out sort of problem come back. Oh. To a 19-year-old with incredibly complex mental health things going on.

Yeah. It's not. Even if it went well, it's not that straightforward. Do you regret the surgery or do you think that you just wished you'd waited until? It's so strange because even though everything went wrong and I've had, 10 years of surgery and like I said on my TikTok the other day, if I didn't have boobs, I'd have a house by now, but it's fine. I don't regret it. Because the general breast reduction was amazing. Having boobs that you feel like quite debilitating to having a chest that feels open,

you feel like you can breathe suddenly, you can do all those exercises that you couldn't do before. You can talk to people and they look you in the eyes rather than the tits. It makes a huge difference. You should, it's funny. But it does make a huge difference to who I was as a person. So even though it went incredibly, incredibly wrong, spent so much money, so many years of surgeries, I'm still very grateful that I was able to have that breast reduction in the first place.

Yeah. My best friend has got big, big boobs. And I remember when we were in school, we went to M&S, and she was getting a bra fitted. And she said to me before we went in, she said, if it's a H, I will cry. And at the time I had these little B cup boobies and I was, I was desperate for, I just wanted big boobs like my best friend. Like I was desperate for these big, big boobs.

And she went in and I saw her when the woman said, you've got H. And she just like burst in cities. And, you know, ever since then, she's had the back issues. She can't go running. She's hypersexualized. Like I've, you know, you realize that the very complex relationship she has with. a lot of men and not trust in a lot of men because of that hypersexualisation and I think it's really something we don't really

acknowledge and I remember the same in school my friends who had small boobs were innately jealous of my big boobs and I was really jealous that they were stuffing their school bras it was it's just you can't understand someone else's position if you're not them and it's the hypersexualisation and often with people who have big boobs, that's how they happen. Puberty hits and within months you have big boobs. You don't even have a little B cup stage because if you did

it would probably last about a week. So you don't even know and you can't help the way the world perceives you and often it is men who just see boobs before human and I can completely imagine how hard that would be to have a relationship and trust men

especially men you're potentially going to be intimate with to not be looking at you as just boobs. I remember I would be saved in boys' phones as tits. Oh, God. And then they think it's like almost a compliment. And oh my God, like your world sort of falls out of your ass when you see that. You're like, great.

I'm just a pair of boobs. When you thought, this boy liked you and you could have a little teenage relationship, no. And as an adult, obviously I've never experienced big boobs as an adult. Again, long-term relationships, that must be really confusing and difficult. and because they also can't ignore the fact you have big boobs. Yeah. Yeah, it's so tricky. I find that, yeah, it's even just commenting on physical features because everyone's got their physical features,

but it's, I don't know, I catch it doing it to my friends where I say, oh, this looks gorgeous or this, do-da-da-da, looks really nice, and then catch myself realizing, oh, but are you just putting their worth onto how they look? And I don't think there's a right answer, but... Well, me and my friends, I think, are really good at not, doing that and we don't mention people's

you know weight appearance the only thing we tend to talk about is if one of them's got new tattoos or something like that yeah but I went with a friend earlier this year to try on wedding dresses for her and I remember every single time she came out this dressing room the girl who worked at this bridal shop was going your waist

looks incredible where is your waist your waist your waist isn't even there this is amazing on your waist because obviously she's wearing these course to dresses and I'm saying there thinking shut the fuck up yeah she looks beautiful for so many reasons and yes maybe it's flattering on her waist yeah but jesus christ she's not being walking down the aisle going oh these guests are all looking at my waist and it's it's obviously it's rife in the wedding industry especially like fitting into the dress kind of thing but again that was an experience of seeing and

spending time with a woman who wasn't in my friendship group and we were all looking around like yeah why she keeps talking about there's a waste yeah hard job though because you want to compliment these women when they come out of the dressing room. And maybe the only way you know how is to tell them they look slim. Probably the case. And that's the environment, I guess, that is like completely normalised for you. And they probably get customers who walk in and say, remove my waist for me. Get me the most slimming dress there is.

Yeah. And then what was the first time you, I hate this word, but went viral? I don't know of one, but I was making content before Lock. down and it was very very much I was trying to fit in with the other influences so I was taking these embarrassing street style fashion pictures which I'd make my poor old mum stand outside on a February afternoon whilst I posed in a vest on the nice affluent streets of hove yeah and I'd face tune these things to death I didn't even look like a person by the end of my face tune session but I wanted to fit in and post-content and I guess be an influencer.

Yeah. I don't really know what the end goal was. And then lockdown happened and I saw Megan Crabb, Crabby, Megan Jane Crabb. I don't know how you spell her name. Yeah. Say her name even. I know her. She's lovely.

Yeah. Was one of the first people because she was one of these OG body acceptance creators post a beautiful photo of her in some really brightly coloured underwear, showing off a role. And now it wouldn't be seen as revolutionary, but at the time, it was like the first thing I'd seen on the internet of that style of content. Yeah. And it just like hit me. I was like, this is incredible. This is what I need. This is so refreshing and liberating and I just want more of this in my life. So followed all the people similar. All my feed became nothing but these glorious women doing glorious things,

unfollowed all the horribly toxic fashion influences. And my feed just became the most incredible place. And I thought, yeah, I could probably do something similar. So my first few posts that were more of the like, this is actually what I look like, style of content, did really, really well. And people really enjoyed them, especially after I'd been posting nothing but face-tuned, waist-snatched pictures for like two years.

when I did this more natural style of imagery, I think people were really surprised and they really liked it. And I did that for like six, eight months over the beginning of lockdown, not making money, just like really enjoying it. And also getting to speak to really lovely people online and lots of people would speak to me about my breast reduction and people would message me and ask for advice. And that back then is when I could reply to messages.

It was just lovely. and that's how I started. I think it's really nice that you didn't start out as self-loving. Like you started out being a face tune girly, trying to fit the mould. Because I think it's easy to look at a lot of your content and go, God, like, I wish I, you know, accepted myself and I was this authentic. But it really has been a journey to get to that point. Yeah. And I, like everyone else, my Instagram used to be an awfully toxic place.

That's honestly the first thing I would say if you were looking for advice on to how to feel that. Because some people, luckily I'm not one of them, but they exist in quite toxic, not toxic friendship circles, but potentially a group of friends, all have really toxic views, not their own fault, of course, on how they should look and act and be. So maybe the only place you can go to see these women being themselves

completely authentically, both in how they look and what they do with their life and their causes, if you don't have that in your actual physical life, you can find them online and they're almost just as impactful. Like it's incredible. You can fill your online world with just nothing but positivity. And trust me, it will seep in eventually. Even if you don't notice it, you will slowly absorb some of their good vibes. Yeah.

And I guess I was going to, my next question was going to be whether you ever felt a pressure to go fit more of mold after building this more of an online community but I guess if that's your feed you're that's not a pressure that exists or have you had that pressure only created by myself and not for a really long time yeah and I'm really lucky in terms of work and that I only work with brands who want to work with me I don't have to pretend to be a fashionista to get a you know fashion over deal. I used to. That was the dream. So career money, income, business-wise,

like I said, thankfully that's not an issue and I don't have to be something. I'm not. And also, I don't have to take up hobbies that aren't natural for brand deals. Like, I'm really grateful that all the people I work with and speak to are just really lovely brands who want to work with individual creators for who they are. Yeah. So it's a dream. You've done a lot of work with a sexual wellness brand, which I think is so, so, so incredible. That was fun.

Talk to me about why you chose to maybe speak about sexual wellness or why you thought that was important. Oh God, I don't know how I actually brought myself to do that. Because like I said, my mum, Scottish. she is so well to do. She is so, do not talk about clitorises on the internet. Please God. And there I was talking about my new vibrator. Nice.

It was just, I had worked with the brand before. Yeah. And just done some stories talking about, I can't remember what it was, whatever the vibrator of the time was. And I made a really conscious effort to not just talk about the product because ultimately that is what I'm paid to do. But they gave me the okay to address the taboo of master. as a whole on my stories and that's exactly what I did and obviously it went down so well

because everyone appreciates a taboo being kicked out like it was lovely and I remember my mum literally replied to my story like no because to her it's just like shut up I can't handle it it was a joke I'd then see her and she'd be like you mustn't do that you mustn't talk about that and I'm like I'm sorry mum you can mute me if you want but like I'm going to she thought it was funny but she also genuinely hated it and I remember she'd say like god my friend was asking me why you were talking about this I was like um I love you for that oh my god that is did it give you a little bit of a kick to like maybe I don't know yeah be a bit defiant yeah you know as we get older yeah we turn into our mothers it's almost inevitable

every now and again I catch myself doing something I'm like oh this is so something my mom would do so to do things and make choices that I actively know she would not approve of, quote unquote, approve of. Yeah. It is amazing because it just reminds me that I'm not my mother and I am my own woman and I'm not my father either. I really am who I am, which is a luxury that not everyone can afford. Like it's a really nice thing to be able to do. And she just had to get used to it, which she did. Now she does, I think she thinks it's a bit cooler than it than she did at the time, especially

when I did things like bring out my own vibrator with this incredible brand. I had this photo shoot, had this whole team there. We sold thousands of vibrators. I cannot tell you how many thousands of vibrators we sold. It was incredible. We sold out. That's amazing. And they couldn't keep up with the restock.

Yeah. And I was like, see, it's incredible. People love it. People appreciate it. And it's business. Yeah. It's all, it's amazing. But that was a really fun time.

It's such an important topic. You know, those studies coming out now about the impact. that sex has on our sleep and, you know, that isn't necessarily sex with another person, you know, that is, if we remove that shame, you are actually having a positive impact on people's well-being as well. Of course. The shame is so real. Yeah.

Like I said, I've got Scottish mum, Lebanese dad. My partner's mum is Jamaican. His dad is Nigerian. Yeah. We, as a couple, two individual peoples, were never ever talked to about sex. No one says in any way, even if it's in a good way, even if it's in a STI way, just sex was not discussed. Like I said, I don't know if I'd ever have children, but if I were to, my God, would we talk about sex as we would talk about dinner? Like, it's just, it's part of life.

A lot of people pretend it's not. Yeah. Like when people are celebrating their children's birthdays, it's like, you're celebrating the fact that you conceived and made a baby, by the way, is what's going on here. You're celebrating a shack. A really successful shag. And just own it. You made children. But there are people, especially people like my parents and his parents, who would pretend that, no, no, that's no, no.

Happy birthday, but no, no. But then, because if you don't, where do kids go? Porn. Literally, porn. Or their mates in the playground. Best case is they have terrible sex for the first few years of their sexual life. Fine. Most people do.

It's absolutely fine. worst case you're not taught about consent you make long-lasting damage potentially when you didn't even mean to or know you were that is really dangerous as well as really important for everyone

but yeah now I see clips online about college kids in America being taught not in great detail but the basic concept of consent amazing it's such basic it's so basic but none of the boys in my school were taught

by the way, if you're having sex on any level and any type of sex, you have to make sure that both of you are consenting. That's just not even on the list. Tell them they're going to get horrible pubs and they're going to stink. Don't tell them. Yeah. The most important things. Yeah. Scary. What keeps you being so authentic and unapologetic online when backlash happens? I got used to backlash really quickly and learned really quickly to not take it first. personally, because it's literally not personal. It never can be. The biggest time I felt backlash was last year when I talked about my abortion,

and I made a reel about literally having an abortion. And when I knew I was going to have an abortion, I thought about in the back of my mind like, God, I would really love to see, I would love to know what to expect. I'd love to see someone else who's been through this. I know a few of my friends have had abortions. And they can give me advice, like, I only a certain degree of advice, but I remember looking, literally typing into TikTok,

come get an abortion with me. And I found a video of one girl in America who was just so candid and open, and she talked through her experience of getting her abortion medication was delivered to her at home. And that didn't really help me because obviously I was going to the clinic. It was just a little bit of a different setup. But I thought, just seeing this woman online with no shame and no. nothing, holding nothing back, just saying, I'm going to get an abortion today and I'm going to let you know how this goes. I thought, wow, you're the only video like this I've seen and it's so important and then you read the comments and it's

nothing but women thanking her because they also needed that in that moment. So I decided to make a video about it and potentially my bad, but I didn't tell anyone I was going to make this video apart from my partner. Yeah. I didn't tell my mum who found. me. I didn't tell a cousin, didn't tell a friend, I just thought, I was too scared to, but I thought, sometimes before I post a video, I think, is this important and is this needed? And then if the answer is yes, I'll post it. But sometimes the answer is no, and I'm like, you know what, it's not worth the potential controversy. But with this one, I thought, no, this is

really important. Yeah. And I know, I know it's really important. And I know it's going to help someone. So, yeah, when I posted that, which was, it was just a very raw and real account of having an abortion at home, not only having the abortion, but my thoughts on why I wanted it, and I talked about never having the yearning for a child. So when I saw a positive test, I wasn't filled with joy and I wasn't excited. Yeah. Even though we're lucky enough to be financially stable, we've been in a very stable relationship. Yeah. I didn't get the joy. Anyway, I posted this real. And overnight, I lost over 10,000 followers. And I was kind of expecting that. And I was like, you know what, I chose to do this. Like, I chose to take the hit. I knew. I knew.

it would that that would happen but I was I knew it would help people so I knew I wanted to post it yeah I was worried about the impact on brands brands I worked with my literal source of income yeah as much as I think they're all really cool yeah I never know I could wake up to an email terminating one of my contracts is always possible and there was so many thousands of comments of support and even now in the street obviously people come up to me and it's lovely and Everyone's so nice and often people will have like an anecdote of like I loved your post when you talked about this or when you did this that was really cool The most common one is people were saying thank you for your abortion video I really needed it and I'm so grateful and I'm like God it was all worth it as much as there were some comments on it that were very

God says this is bad I'm on following you because I'm a mother and I think this is a disgusting choice There were so many other mothers commenting saying I have two children and I'm so glad you did this like this is incredible and so many people saying, I've had two children and two abortions, and I think you're amazing for posting this. So much support. And not one brand deal cancelled on me. Good. I know. Because I couldn't believe that it was one in three women will get an abortion at one point in their lifetime. At least one abortion. That's a huge portion of the population for it to be such a controversial topic. And also for the third of the women who get an abortion, let's not forget it takes two to tango.

you know there's there's a man who is also involved in the the reason for that abortion and I think the fact that you could only find one other video from someone on TikTok just speaks volumes it's such a taboo topic even though it happens and in the climate that we're currently in I think it's incredible absolutely incredible that you've you've done that and thank you walking in pride with MSI as well last week yeah just that's the lovely thing I didn't expect anything more to come from posting that other than me resting easy in the fact that like I am literally just being as honest as I can physically be on the internet but I then

MSI got in touch and they just said we'd love to share this and since then we've had this incredible relationship where they I've made content with them one of my pinned videos on TikTok at the minute is I'm going to show you around an abortion clinic and exactly what would happen if you ever chose to get one. Yeah. And they let me in and I showed like when obviously there were no clients there but showed them around and now if you were to ever type in what does an abortion sweet look like what's going to happen if I get an abortion? Where can I get an abortion? Like my video is going to hopefully come up and it might help. It might not. You might swipe. But like it could help to just ease that pain of like I don't know where I'm going. I've been to the GP a hundred times

I've never been to the abortion clinic. Yeah. Are they going to judge me? Are they going to going to be other people there. What if I see someone in it? I know. All these questions that we all have. MSI have since helped me make all these resources to help with all those questions. And yeah, and then we walked in Pride the other weekend at Brighton Pride and it was so lovely. And I got to hold my little sign that said my body, my choice. I was saying the other day I had to give the sign back about halfway through because I just couldn't stop crying. It was the second you make eye contact with someone who reads, they get what you're about. and they just start, some of them scream, some of them cry, some of them just hug you.

I was like, it's too much for me, I'm going to have to have a break from the sign. Yeah. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. Yeah. I'm a firm believer in there's so much bullshit on social media. There's so much, I'm sure it's come up on your feed before some of the anti-abortion stuff. And I've watched it as a doctor and gone, this is completely false. It's just not true.

but then it doesn't seem we're not combat. I don't think we're doing a good job at combating that with the real information. And I think that starts with taking people round an abortion clinic and saying this is what actually happens. It's not the dramatic, the dramatized, falsified, often version that you see from people who are anti-abortion. And you might need this one day and equally you might not.

Yeah. But it's just good to know. Yeah. Your friend or someone you know probably will if you've got this information. Like it's just education. What do you think? What are the next steps? Finnelli.

Oh, I don't know. I don't know because I know we mentioned it earlier, but at this stage of life, I'm nearly 32. For most people, it feels like it's kids and it should be kids. And I don't think that that's the path I'm going to go down. Yeah. But I know how fulfilled I am. from my work and my career and my friends and my partner and my home and my family

we're getting a dog oh my god this is what's next you're getting a dog getting a dog getting a greyhound it's finally happening I know so I am going to be a mother what am I talking about I'm about about to have a greyhound baby yeah that's actually next but in terms of life I just I'm just really enjoying seeing how it goes and I stopped a few years ago I would draw all my financial and all my social data and I'd put it together and I'd compare it to myself from the month before and the year before and I stopped doing that. And shock, as soon as you stop doing that, it starts heading in the right direction. Yeah.

It's like a miracle. Because I just found it so unhealthy and so unhelpful. And instead, focusing on that week, that month, I used to have a content schedule, fuck that. Sometimes I post once a month and I'm still here and it's still fine and I didn't die. I didn't fall off the face of social media. tells you you will. Yeah. I just removed all the pressure in sort of all areas of my life. That's amazing. I love that. I recommend it. I love that. Oh, I absolutely love that. I've heard Greyhounds are great for, they're quite like sleepy. They're so low-key. They're so low-key. People think you

need to like run and race them and give them loads of walks. They don't like walking. Apparently they need about an hour to an hour and a half a day and any more they tantrum. Apparently they're very similar to cats in their nature, but yeah, very sleepy, very mellow. They don't bark, like, it's not in their nature to bark. Yeah. And they also don't naturally put on a lead. You know, like most puppies you put on a lead and they just start dragging around. Not in great, greyhound's nature. Not all of them, obviously, but in general, they are very low key. I've always been drawn to them. And my friend asked me other day, like, why do you think you've always wanted a greyhound? I was like, I don't know, they're a bit funny looking. They're a bit skinny

and a bit awkward. She's like, do you think it's because they're really anxious? I was like, Oh, maybe. Maybe it's the anxious, awkward dog, which is why I'm drawn to. Nice. Probably a reflection of myself, yes. I do absolutely want to talk about your partner because I think all the videos where you just see him looking in the background at you or just the way he absolutely is so clear he's unbelievably obsessed with you. Are you comfortable talking about the when he came into your life? Yeah?

Yeah. Yeah, we've been together for eight years. I met him eight years ago this month. And we met on Tinder. We matched, but I realized I probably, like, I couldn't be bothered to chat because I wasn't chatting to anyone. Tinder was a soul-destroying experience in general. And then I happened to see him in real life, walking across the road, with his mum,

who was visiting Brighton. And he's really tall. He's beautiful and tall. But his mum is really, really short. She's four foot nine or ten or something. She's like really small. And because I saw them walking next to each other, I literally was like, who is this tall Adonis?

The tallest man I've ever seen in my life. I was like, I know him. I've got him on Tinder. And I was actually there like, hi, sorry, I missed this message. Lie. I've seen you in real life now. I know what's up for grabs. You can never tell from a photo.

And he had an awful first photo. His first photo on Tinder was him holding a snake around his neck in a resort hotel in his like early 20s where like you know they walk around he said he was in Sri Lanka he's like I didn't know any better he asked me if I wanted to hold it and I said yes I was like I can't believe I swiped yes for a man holding a snake around his neck and then he became him yeah then we started we started dating quite quickly and yeah besotted in a really short space of time he didn't ask me to be his girlfriend officially for four months which we joke about because he says he knew after the first date but he was just nervous and he was very nervous

The day he actually asked me, I was like, are you okay? I sure we have a little break. Which is funny because it's the same thing that he says about getting engaged. He's like, no, we'll get married. I'm just nervous and I need to get there. I was like, take your time. Also, for the first like seven years we were together, I was like, don't you dare propose? Don't you dare? Because all my friends were getting engaged.

I was like, don't you dare? Let's wait. Yeah. And now he's like, oh, so you're ready now. I'm like, maybe. Maybe now. You want to be either the first ones or the last ones. You don't want to be in that middle. Middle where everyone's getting married and it's a bloody chore. Every other week I was getting texts on WhatsApp.

I'm like, girls. I'm like, whoa, jeez, this is really happening. I've only got about six friends. So. Yeah. So you think maybe a proposal is on the cards. Do you have a like dream proposal or even like a, the worst possible proposal you could possibly think of?

The worst ever is anything in public, Anything with production. I hate it. The best ever is the one that I've seen on TikTok where the dog gets the zoomies while he's proposing. The best thing, the best thing I've ever seen in my life. Although Sophia Taxfords was pretty beautiful. Oh my God, even I cried.

And I don't really like, know about them. That was beautiful. Just low-key is what I would want. Low-key, doing what we always do. One of my best friends got engaged a couple of years ago. And she cries every time she tells her proposal story. And all it was was he rolled over one morning in bed and gave her a box with a ring in it and just said, I just love you and I just want to marry you.

And she said, oh my God, yes. He said, oh, sorry, do you want me to get on one knee? And she was, I know, I don't care. Yeah. Because again, the knee thing, it's invented. Yeah. If you want it, beautiful. Just low key is what I'm after.

Nice. Yeah. I think sometimes people can find it difficult to let someone into their life and love them how they deserve to be loved. Yeah. if they've struggled to love themselves as cliche as it is. That's true. How did you find that? It's hard because I feel like I have an unfair experience

because I'm just very lucky in that he's just such a lovely man and he's just so never even shown an ounce of judgment to me or to anyone else we've ever met. Like sometimes like I'm saying at these events, I walk away like like, gosh, she was awful. And he'll be like, well, maybe if she was having a bad day, I'm like, oh, you are very sweet. This is, and that's what he's like in general. So you kind of know when you're in the presence of just a good person. He's not a perfect person because obviously no one is.

But he's very kind to all the women in his life. Yeah. And all of my friends and my mum and just, he acts like he has a sister, but he doesn't. He's got a brother. He's quite like an effeminate, is he an effeminate man? He's just a soft. He's very... In touch with, like, he's in touch.

Yeah. Yeah, and he's not afraid. He's never pretended to be, you know, like a lad. He's just quite, like, he is who he is. So it's hard because he was always very kind and very sweet and very understanding. And when we did first meet, I was really closed off, like, intimately. And I remember we dated, and he always jokes about how long we dated before we did anything intimate. And he thinks it's funny now.

But he says now, he's like, oh, my God, I can't believe how long I waited. I was so impatient, boy things. I was like, God, you didn't. Like, at the time, I had now. idea. I just thought you liked a little pet good night. He was like, no. But I was trying to be respectful. I was like, well, you were. You were very lovely and respectful.

Yeah. But I get it. Being being naked with a stranger is essentially what you're asking women who are dating men to do. Yes. Terrifying. Yeah. Absolutely terrifying. Take all the time you need. That's what I would say. Like, seriously.

You can't, ooh. Good. Because also I think if you feel rushed in sweet, you just have that very icky, feeling. And sometimes you don't like that's what you do kind of just go with it don't you because it's kind of what we've been taught as women depressingly. So subconsciously that idea still exists that if we've been dating for a certain amount of months or done a certain amount of dates like intimacy is somewhat expected. But no man should make you feel like that's the case. No. Or woman, whoever you're dating. Yeah. I saw this awful, awful real the other day

by someone saying that Bonnie Blue is the end stage of feminism what feminism has brought us and it just really angered me because I was like Bonnie no like absolutely not because you're here and you're talking about proudly talking about your abortion but you're also here saying wait as long as you want but feminism is about the freedom to make all these choices and not yeah not be judged or maybe be judged you know you know everyone's everyone gets judged for everything but have the freedom to to make these choices and not be restricted. Did you watch the Bonnie Blue documentary?

I did. I did. Did you have any thoughts? So my main thought and the feeling when it stopped was this is so sad. This is all of it is so sad. I think the woman who made the documentary did it so perfectly in that she didn't push for awkward questions. She didn't say trying to make her feel good or bad. She just documented.

And we just saw it for what it was. which is sad in my opinion. I just remember thinking this is just unbelievably sad. What did you think? It was when her mum said, oh my God, the mum comment, I know what you're going to say.

Well, if you were making two million pound a month, wouldn't you wouldn't. To get your bits out? Yeah. Her, mum and Bonnie Blue believe to their core that every single woman or man would get their bits out for a million quid. And that's what they think is true.

Yeah. And I just want to think like, Jesus Christ, your perception on women is so fucked if you think all of us would do anything just for a million quid. Yeah. That was shocking. Yeah. We've got a question that we've been asking everyone. Oh, gone. On at the end of the podcast, Nelly, what do you wish every woman knew by the time they were 25?

Maybe this is... Because it's a current theme in my brain. at the minute, but there is no such thing as a timeline. Yeah. You are not supposed to get in a relationship by one age, engaged by one age, married by one age, children by one age, grandchildren by another age. A timeline is quite literally a made-up concept, much like Mariah Carey. I don't really believe in time.

Which I get from my dad because my dad doesn't know how old he is and he never has. If you were to ask him how old he is, he would say, ask my wife. he has no idea his age I was like that's what I want to be that's incredible it's just we as women we exist from the second we're born with so much pressure to achieve

certain things do be say certain things and you just don't have to do any of it if you don't want to if you don't ever want to marry anyone you just don't have to and these scary stories that we're told of you'll be alone and lonely forever

and you'll have no children to take care of you. It's just not true. My downstairs neighbour is a very elderly woman who has four children, not one of them come to see her. I'm the one who takes care of her, her upstairs neighbour. So there's just no... Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed.

And you can do whatever you want with the journey of your life. Yeah. I love that. I really, really love that. Thank you so, so, so, so. So much for coming on, especially after I publicly... Thank you. I loved it. It's just, yeah, it's just been an absolutely wonderful conversation and just thank you for being unapologetically and wonderfully yourself and showing up for lots of people who I think can relate to you a huge, huge, huge amount.

Well, thank you very much. So thank you so much. I've had a lovely time, honestly. Yay!