How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S10, Ep1 How to Fail: Jameela Jamil

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

[TW: contains discussion of eating disorders, including references to calorie-counting and body dysmorphia]We're back, baby! So much has changed hasn't it? Last year, I released a new series in the grip of a national lockdown and a global pandemic. This year...well, I'm releasing a new series in the grip of a national lockdown and a global pandemic. I hope Season 10 of How To Fail brings you some much-needed cheer in these strange times.And WHAT a guest I have for you to kick off with. Jameela Jamil started out as an English teacher, fell into TV presenting, subsequently became an actress, starring alongside Ted Danson and Kristen Bell in The Good Place and is now well-known for her activism. In 2018, Jameela launched I Weigh, which has grown into a radically inclusive global movement against shame and now has its own YouTube channel and podcast. Along the way, she's come in for her fair share of criticism - perhaps unsurprising when you consider her habit of calling out of media hypocrisy on Twitter and Instagram where she has a combined following of 4.4 million.Jameela joins me to talk about her failure to be a 'good' female celebrity, her failure to be kind to her body and her failure to get a handle on her finances. If you are a woman, a parent of a daughter, or simply a sentient human being trying to do this thing called life, you will find this episode full of mind-expanding truth bombs. Enjoy!*My book Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong contains 7 Failure Principles developed from two-and-bit years worth of accumulated podcast wisdom and is out now.*How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email [e-mail]*Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Jameela Jamil @jameelajamilofficial    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. This episode of How to Fail is sponsored by Don't Buy Her Flowers, thoughtful gifts for any occasion that are all about encouraging the recipient to take some time for themselves. And we all need a bit of that right now, don't we? I love Don't Buy Her Flowers. I can talk about this completely objectively because way before they sponsored this podcast,

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there's someone on your mind who needs some TLC or there's another lockdown birthday coming up, please head to don'tbuyherflowers.com. They are absolutely brilliant. Thank you very much to Don't Buy Her Flowers. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Jamila Jamil describes herself on her Instagram bio as a feminist in progress,

but it has to be said that at the tender age of 34, her achievements are already so notable that the progress part seems to be going pretty well. Born and raised in North London, Jamil was at first an English teacher before a chance encounter with a TV producer in a pub led to a stint as a presenter on Channel 4's youth strand T4. She went on to become the first solo female host of Radio 1's chart show. A 2016 breast cancer scare precipitated a move to Los Angeles, where she landed a role as the narcissistic socialite Tahani in the hit sitcom The Good Place. For all her success on screen, Jamil is arguably best known for her activism. In 2018, disturbed by a photo of the Kardashians on social media that listed what

each of the sisters weighed, Jamil launched an online movement called iWeigh, which rapidly became a global revolution against shame. People were encouraged to submit photos of themselves listing their weight by the things they were grateful for or proud of, rather than by pounds and ounces. Now the community has grown to encompass all aspects of allyship and radical inclusivity, and has its own YouTube channel, which provides a platform for other young activists. She is also the host of I Weigh with Jamila Jamil, one of 2020's breakout podcasts, which has seen her interview everyone from anti-racism expert Ibram Kendi, Therese Witherspoon and Demi Lovato. And yet, for all the good work she does, Jamil has come in for

her fair share of criticism. Perhaps that's the occupational hazard of being a woman with an unapologetic public voice who does not seem to fear calling out media hypocrisy and double standards and who claims to require only three hours sleep a night. As she put it in an interview for The Guardian last year, I would rather start the fights that I start and sometimes get into the trouble that I get into then sit here silently and be complicit. But, she also said, I am a human prone to error. Jamila Jamil, welcome to How to Fail. Hello. I may be the greatest failure you've ever had on this podcast. Hi, how are you? Well, you could succeed at that. If that were actually true, that would be a massive success. I'm very good. How are you? I'm all right. I'm all right. I love that quote that I ended on, that you are human prone to error, because it is absolutely

what this podcast is all about. I know that you're a big advocate of progress, not perfection. Can you explain why? Well, yeah, I mean, it was funny when I first asked to do this podcast, I just thought, I don't know how I feel about this because I love failure. And I wasn't sure quite which angle you were coming at failure from since I've learned and therefore was really keen to come on and chat to you. But I look at failure as something quite noble, as meaning that you were willing to be vulnerable enough to try

when success hasn't been guaranteed. And so I think to progress is to be human. And I think that the day that we have all of the answers, what is the point of existing anymore? I just don't think perfection is realistic. I think it's something that we definitely hold women towards the standards of more so than men. And I think that perfection has not only extended to the way that we look and how our bodies fit into patriarchal stereotypical narratives but also we are expected to have perfect minds perfect behavior perfect abilities to please every single different type of individual all at the same time simultaneously

and I refuse and so I think that the most realistic way as a solution-based human that we can all progress incrementally because change real change systemic change happens incrementally it's frustrating but that's how it is then we need to encourage progress and not strive for unrealistic perfection we need to definitely call people out when they make mistakes god knows i do and i'm happy to be called out but i think that we need to make sure that we keep championing progress and not ridiculing those who aren't at perfection yet. Because when us adults are mocking and jeering at those who still have more to learn or those who admit to their vulnerabilities or apologize for a mistake,

we have to remember that kids are watching us. And those same kids are going to maybe not put their hand up when they're afraid or unsure and ask the important questions that help us remedy our own ignorance so that's a very long fucking answer sorry I mean I feel like this podcast episode is done we might as well stop recording now because you've yeah perfectly encapsulated everything yeah bye bye but it's very interesting to me to talk about this particular topic in this particular cultural age because so many people get in touch with me as I'm sure they do with you describing an overwhelming fear of failure and that fear comes from what you've just identified like the pressure to be

perfect quote-unquote perfect but also because as you know only too well if you put a foot wrong we live in an age where you can be publicly shamed for making a simple mistake so how do you counsel people get over that fear of failure what I said at the top of this podcast is normally what I say to people which is just that I find their their willingness to be vulnerable very val, and that I think we have a really fucked up perception of what success looks like. To me, success is just progress. And success is happiness and success is growth. I love the risk of failure. I think not only does it make my life so much more interesting, it keeps me on my toes. It means that I feel always as though I'm engaging and learning more and growing more. But also, if it goes really tits up, which often it does for me, as we've all seen, because it's always very public and goes very far. It makes for a funny story at

the pub with my friends who already think I'm an asshole. So I think that for me, personally, I just try to reassure them that to fail and to have growth is to be human and it's something that you must really kind of check your ego at the door if you ever can when it comes to taking on new pursuits because there's nothing I find scarier than the words what if when it comes to a kind of existential crisis I hate the idea of wondering what could have been had I just swallowed my pride enough to try and really just open myself up to things not working out the way I wanted it to everything I've ever done I've been completely unprepared for underqualified for and had to just kind of figure it out on the job I

didn't know how to act when I started in the good place I didn't know how to host radio when I started on radio one I've just winged it and almost hustled my way up. But I've been able to find all these different facets of my personality or these different skills that I do or don't have, because I actually was willing to try. And what a boring and bland life I would have lived had I never found out about these sides to myself. Imagine if I'd never tried, I would never have known. And I think that in particular, again, women are told to stay in our lane, we're given this box that we're supposed to fit inside of. And we're told very early on, almost at school, who we are, what we're supposed to do, what we're going to do with our lives, how things are going to turn out by 30, you meet someone to stand 35,

you've got kids, 40, etc. We're kind of prescribed this life. And I think that that's really dangerous, because look at how much we change, you at 21 years old you have no idea who you are at 25 years old you have no idea who you're going to be at 30 you're still changing even in the last four years even in the last one year look how much we have changed as human beings as individuals so to deny yourself the periphery of life I think is a fucking shame and so I just don't want to do that. I think you are incredibly courageous in the way you call things out and I wonder if that comes at a personal cost to you because I just want to know for my own personal benefit how do you cope with criticism? I think I'm just I I mean I wasn't very popular at school

so I think the idea of being liked isn't a priority for me and I think that's very liberating especially when you're a woman in the public eye because you're told that that's sort of your main objective not even to be the most talented not to be the best not to be the smartest but to be very very likable to absolutely everyone in spite of their multitude of very tastes in every single way and so because I don't prioritize being liked very much or approved of or understood or even believed I'm able to just take it on the chin and try and take it as a compliment weirdly which sounds maniacal maybe but I guess what I'm trying to say is that if someone criticizes me, it means implicitly, I hope that they have faith that I'm capable of change.

I think when people give up on you and don't bother to criticize you, it's actually much worse. I think when people are offering you, inviting you to change and to do better and to be better, then it means that they know that you can handle it. You know, which is why I think it's really dangerous when we enter this territory of saying that women can't criticize other women. It's like, do not disempower us in that way. We need to all be checked. That is the road to evolution. And when you check another woman, you are saying to her, I believe you can do better. Here is how. It's not unfeminist. No, exactly. In fact, it's really patronizing not to do it. Yeah, we can take critique from each other. I but also fucking way rather hear it from a woman than a man if i'm honest

so you know if i'm doing something in particular that harms other women i want to be told by my fellow women just to shut up fuck off learn and come back and do better what if you're being criticized for something you haven't done wrong that's really frustrating and that's only really started happening to me in the last year and a half listen I'm not gonna start conspiracy theory but I am just saying that as soon as I started standing up for Meghan Markle publicly who I didn't even know I just felt as though there was an implicit bias against her in the British tabloid media almost as soon as I doing that, this kind of lens of ferocity and smear campaigns and just shaming me for things I hadn't even done started. So it's been really, really odd. And that is

something that I find very difficult to swallow. It gives me severe anxiety because it's the one thing I wasn't prepared for. I knew being a public figure meant always being accountable for what I had done I had no idea how much bullshit is involved in the kind of given this character when you become famous by the media and for me I guess it was this like soapbox standing on screaming smashing bashing slamming locking horns with chaotic egotistical and scheming manipulative hysterical lying munchausen having compulsive prick if i could sum it all up you know and they give each woman a narrative and i think what's been the most illuminating to me since this all happened i think february was the worst of it where people started telling me what my sexuality was for me they started telling me that I had faked my illnesses and no one has ever gotten a job by being open about their illnesses so I don't know

what they thought my motivation would be for that and then also said that I had something to do with the suicide of a famous woman in the UK that I had nothing to do with so when that all happened I think what it made me realize especially when I was doing press after that time, and seeing the way that my thoughtful, carefully constructed answers when I was being interviewed by female journalists were being twisted and gnarled and turned into these sort of newly constructed sentences that they'd created out of my entire paragraphs to make me sound like as much of a thoughtless, reckless, I guess, vacuous arsehole as possible, I realised that, oh my God, all my life I have been reading about women and I've believed what I have been told. I have read their interviews and rolled my eyes at them, having no

idea if any of these words have actually come from source. I've believed the headlines. I have seen strategically placed photographs of them looking like what could be constructed as a smug smile. That's something we normally only ascribe towards women. I would see the carefully placed photograph next to the extra inflammatory headline. And I would digest that, internalize that and decide that that was who she was in this world. So once it happened to me, and once I was in the belly of the beast and right inside the machine watching how they twist and turn your every move facial expression and word it made me just so angry with myself for the decades in which I have been complicit in a system that builds women up and then tears them down using smear campaigns and lies and that just really bummed me out and set me out on a path to now make sure that I tell everyone that we are all in the middle of, I guess, a kind of some sort of

simulation against women. A collective gaslighting. I mean, that's what you call it. There's a highlight on your Instagram stories, which I highly recommend everyone goes to watch about media gaslighting. And you deconstruct headlines and images used of you. And then you ask us all to ask ourselves which women we find quote unquote annoying for no reason. And for me, I've always loved Keira Knightley, unfashionably, but I know that she triggers some huge reaction in people. And that's where it comes from.

It was so interesting. For sure, she's a punchline. And so is Anne Hathaway. And we've seen the same thing happen to Jennifer Lawrence. Everything she says gets twisted and turned because everyone loved her at first because she was so relatable and so funny. And then after a year and a half of overexposure that she had no control over, because that is part of the system of building a woman up, breaking her down. After a year and a half of everyone loving her so much, suddenly they were like, oh, why is she trying to be so funny and relatable all the time why is she so full of herself we hate her she faked falling

over the same falls that we found so charming a year before we now decided were constructed and manipulated we love the idea that a woman is constructed in some form and you know I think Taylor Swift talks about this brilliantly in her documentary Miss Americana where it's like you have to navigate through this world carefully in order to be safe and then when you do so you're accused of being strategic as if it's a bad thing rather than a survival skill love that documentary as well let's move on to your first failure because it relates to so much of what we've just been talking about which is as you put it your failure to be an obedient female celebrity or to be good at Twitter what does an obedient female celebrity look like I think silent and one who fears and obeys the press and their publicity

team someone very media trained and someone who doesn't get involved in truly any subject that is relevant or controversial even though they could sway their massive amounts of money and influence and power towards that subject and raise awareness. By the way, I'm not shaming these people. I completely understand. I mean, it's a hard path going against this. And I've always been encouraged to take this road. I've chosen not to. but someone who maintains the obedient sticks in figure the one who dresses the way that they are expected to dress behaves smiles all the time even when they are sad like I think that there are more of those than aren't I think since post me too we've had more and more women start to speak up and speak out and rage against the machine but I definitely feel as though that's my idea of an obedient female celebrity someone you know who just stays in her lane.

She looks pretty and she shuts the fuck up. And I personally don't think I could do that. And I haven't because I would then feel complicit in the many crimes that this industry does play into in our society, in our culture. into in our society, in our culture, all of the lies that we tell, gender stereotypes, ableism, and the awful things we do around ageism and body dysmorphia that we contribute to. Have you ever come under pressure to be that kind of obedient female celebrity? Because you do now make your living in Los Angeles, which has a reputation, she putting it putting it mildly for expecting their female stars to behave a certain way have you ever come under pressure always always and I think I came under pressure you know at the beginning of my career both when I first started out in the UK

and the US and after I've already done it and gone out there and been disobedient I received pressure just to pull it back or to be warned that, you know, maybe you won't work again, or you don't want to go all Rose McGowan. You don't want to seem crazy. You don't want to seem difficult. There's a lot of fear mongering that happens. And I used to be told all the time in Britain, you know, I don't know why we think Los Angeles is the only place where this is prevalent because it was really bad in the UK. But I would be told all the time to not try to be funny to be likable to men and to just try to look thin and chic all the time and that that was my strength is that I

was pretty and I had long legs and so that's what I should play to that was regularly told to me by men in this industry by producers by writers by publicists even not mine but others who I then wouldn't decide to work with agents, even, you know, they really just wanted me to be pretty and silent. And it didn't sit right with me because this industry really fucked me up. When I was a kid growing up watching what they put out, I really thought this was real life. And this is what I was supposed to subscribe to. And I think a big part of me entering this industry was with the hopes of Trojan horsing my way kind of through. I never strategically decided to be in this industry. But once I was given the opportunity,

one of the only ways I could reconcile being part of it is if I used this position on the inside to just blow shit all up and expose what was going on and try and change it. Because I think that this industry can be amazing. And we put so many amazing things into the world and why don't we just do more of that and less of the toxic shit. Talking about your childhood there did you ever see yourself on screen or in the pages of magazines did you see a representation of the kind of person you were and did that make you feel alone if not? Yeah I didn't really see many South Asians there still aren't that many and I didn't really see many South Asians. There still aren't that many. And I didn't really see any. I think Aishwarya Rai briefly, she was in Bride and Prejudice. But outside of that, no, not on the runways, not on the covers of magazines, and definitely not as

protagonists in films. Only ever is the sort of embarrassing, like highly stereotyped, often played by white people wearing brown makeup, comedy Indian those were all I saw and we were only allowed on mainstream television if we were ridiculing our own culture and so it definitely had an impact on my self-esteem and made me feel as though I should either align myself to whiteness or blackness or just anything but what I'm from I tried to distance myself from my culture because I thought there was something wrong with me because that's what the messaging is this is why I still despair at how ableist our industry is because how must people with visible disabilities feel when they look out across the fashion pages of this industry and on screen and almost never see themselves represented unless they are the biggest

tragic sob story what's that do to your self-esteem? I can tell you from experience, it really harms you. It makes you feel as though you shouldn't be here. And so, you know, I guess these are reasons why I always push for change, even if I fuck it up sometimes and stick my, oh God, stick my nose in it. Just really, just really make a mess. Does that tie into your-

My heart's in the right place I know I can tell I can tell does that tie into your self-stated failure to be good at twitter are you one of those people who feels the twitter rage and needs to get something down and then regrets tweeting or is it something slightly different constantly I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me why last year during 2020 I was like why the fuck do you think you are good at communicating a almost no one is good at communicating anything nuanced and helpful to refined and tricky complex discourse in 280 characters the fact that i used to try and start massive conversations in 140 characters back in the day is horrifying but the fact that i still

think i'm capable of getting any of my thoughts across properly or that I can still get away with having a sense of humor online and that people can just read when I have my tongue in my cheek when I know that I'm a woman so therefore completely evil and be a very privileged person so also kind of evil inherently I guess that's how I would be perceived I can't believe that I didn't just stick to long form and stick to essays and podcasts being able to have my own podcast has been the first time I felt like finally people can understand what I mean when I speak but I just clusterfuck it when I try and say things that are far too complex for a tweet on Twitter so I've learned my lesson

hopefully I think I did it again like a week ago. And I think that was my last time. I was like, that's it. This is your last time trying to have an important conversation in print in a limited amount of characters, you fucking idiot. And so I'm trying, I'm going to try. Do your friends or your boyfriend ever think, please, please don't do that? Like, please just step away from the twitter oh i'm sure but i think everyone knows that i'm so impulsive i'm likely to just get it off my chest and in my head it's so clear what i want to say but it would take so much longer to be able to say it properly but normally it's too late by the time it happens but i also

think everyone who knows me anyone who knows me knows my intentions knows what I mean so I guess they kind of read these things in my voice and therefore they don't think it's problematic until it turns out to be a clusterfuck but one thing I will say and I know this sounds absurd maybe but even when I fuck up I'm kind of a little bit glad because at least then other people see how I fucked up and now they don't have to fuck up in the same way a lot of people they may not admit it but they have learned from my clusterfucks online to avoid said clusterfuck themselves so even so because I always use a massive mess up that I've had to then come back apologize and show people where I went wrong

I will show my workings out. Other people are always learning. I don't always have to be this perfect teacher in order for other people to learn with me. And I'm so down to be that character because I never had that person to look up to when I was younger. I never had that fallible woman who would make mistakes, get back up, dust herself off and try again. And I think we desperately need more of those figures in society because it's suffocating women this idea that we have to be perfect and upon your first mistake you have to be ousted even upon your 10th mistake look at the things that we let men get away with look at shia labeouf how many fucking chances is that man gonna have look at emile hirsch strangled a

woman gets cast in a massive hollywood film alongside margot robbie and brad pitt look at quentin tarantino look at all of these people who have been called out for some heinous shit and are still able to work and yet look at the things that we you know if a woman smiles the wrong way or if we don't like her haircut if we don't like her Oscar speech if we found it disingenuous and planned we will look to cast them out of our society. The standards are completely different. Women have so much extra homework to do and I just think it's unacceptable. And so I refuse.

I'm deciding to live my life like an old white man who's allowed to make mistakes, come back and say, I'm sorry, explain my mistakes and carry on. Living life as an old white man is excellent. And I want that on a t-shirt a progressive old white man though one who doesn't want to just hoard all of my privilege I just want to say that speaking very personally I remember reading this thing that you once said about how

you don't make an effort with your physical appearance to go to work like as in you wouldn't make more of an effort than your boyfriend would make from a point of principle and it has honestly changed me that because I think so many women and it's been super interesting during lockdown actually but so many women feel that they have to put on makeup just to go out and buy a loaf of bread and every time I'm tempted to do that I think of you saying that so I just want to thank you for that. And also for the stand that you take against airbrushing. Well, no, look, I appreciate that.

And I think where I was coming from was just that I think it's really bad for my self-esteem to have a bunch of makeup artists spend an hour and 45 minutes to work on my face before I can go out on camera or for me to lose an hour of sleep so I can get up extra early to look acceptable. For who? Who am I doing this for? I'm not really doing it for me and I think lockdown really proved to a lot of us that we are not doing this for us because when given the opportunity it's been tracksuit city and it's been no makeup and us getting used to our real faces and I think that's glorious and not getting our nails done the

idea that we've said sentences like I must get my nails done as if it's a necessity as if no one can see me with nails like this no one cares so I think we've all been quite liberated but for me the idea of caking on layers and layers and layers of makeup and contour all of that feeds into the way that we feel about ourselves so there's a subliminal messaging there that you are not good enough as you are and it's going to take basically you painting a new face onto your face before you can be accepted. The reason I think it made headlines when I said that is that I'd essentially at the good place, which is the comedy that I'm on, refused to come in earlier than the boys. I was like, what is this? Are you doing prosthetics on me?

If not, you don't need an hour and 45 minutes to put some eyeliner and lipstick on my face and tong a bit of my hair. I will come in at the same time as the boys. Otherwise, I will not be able to be as funny as the boys, as quick as the boys, as energetic or be able to remember my lines as well as them. This double standard means that we're not sleeping enough. We're not eating enough. We're thinking about exercise too much. We're thinking about our bodies too much. This is all time that we could be spending healing or working on therapy or working on happiness or getting orgasms. It infuriates me, the idea that I'm denied that extra time as if that's normal. We're going to come on to body issues next. But I just wanted to ask you whether your impulse to share your honest opinion and how you feel about double standards publicly is that

important for your mental health because so many people I think find it really toxic often without knowing not speaking their truth I think so yes for me but I'm an ongoing experiment so that doesn't mean everyone should necessarily do as I do because clearly I'm a mess but for me personally when I was 26 I think it was I tried to commit suicide and then I I failed so there's a failure I could have used on this podcast failed at death thank you for being honest about that that's incredibly brave well I mean it just it is what it is but I guess my decision was that if I was going to stick around in this dumpster fire of a hell earth then I was going to do everything completely differently and up until that point I'd been quite a repressed

person and I'd found out that my depression was possibly linked to repressed rage and I think finding that out really just blew my mind of how much that made sense that this numb kind of depression I had I didn't have sadness I wasn't comfort eating and crying into an ice cream like I was not not in no way to belittle that it doesn't mean that I'm sounding like I'm trying to diminish that form of sadness or mental health but that's what I always thought the movie version of depression was is that I would look sad but actually I was this high functioning very numb cold person and that's because repressed rage means that you are there's a dishonesty to it you're not telling

people how angry you are you're not even really admitting it to yourself and I think therein lies the gap between yourself and the person you're pretending to be and that's where the numbness comes in now I have no degree in literally anything so this is just my theory that I've worked out kind of with the therapist but that's where I think my kind of moat of empty was between me and who I pretended to be this hyper tolerant survivor yeah and you know this stoicism that I thought was important to portray and was gallant of me gallant what's the word no never mind yeah fine sorry and valiant together gallant oh there we go gallant I do thatant what's the word no never mind yeah fine sorry valiant together gallant oh there we go gallant i do that all the time oh my god and i'm a malapropism queen another failure

but if i could just make a complete 180 if i could completely change everything and just start saying everything that's on my mind all of the time a kind of practicing of the micro no it started with just saying oh sorry at Starbucks and this isn't actually what I ordered could I have the thing that I ordered please and that in itself just felt like such a huge thing to dare to do and just slowly but surely I built up to telling someone who would kiss me in a way that I didn't like like oh I actually prefer kissing like this not with your tongue in my stomach and then it kind of moved forward to saying how I really felt in all interviews and then online and then everywhere in all situations and so

if you know me you really fucking know me I'm not holding anything back to my detriment sometimes but it's just something I'm trying to see if I can work my way out of this prison that is being subservient, obedient woman. Practicing the micro no. I feel like I'm getting so many truth bombs. Motive empty is something that I'll never forget. The fallible woman and practicing the micro no. Thank you. And gallant, the brand new word. And of course gallant. What Oprah Winfrey would call a teachable moment. what oprah winfrey would call a teachable moment so your your second failure is your failure to be kind to your body tell us about that yeah oh i despair it makes me feel sad even just hearing it i uh just spent over 20 years being so mean to and about my body this body that did so much for me

and i took it completely for granted and just hated it because it wasn't being obedient to kind of very strict white patriarchal standards that hate women. And so I feel very, very sad now that I look back on how much time I wasted, how much sex I didn't have because I was starving myself. So I had no sex drive, how much less fun I was, how much less had no sex drive how much less fun I was how much less fun I had how much less brain space for innovation and creativity I had and you know what I've done to my organs with all the shit that I've put in my body or haven't put in my body you know your body is an engine and you have to nourish it and I didn't for so long and the reason

I rage so hard against detox and diet products is because I fucking took them all I took them all anything that was advertised by anyone anywhere I bought it I took it I spent all my hard-earned pocket money or work money on it and have kidneys that don't work properly my digestive system doesn't work properly I don't know if it ever will again I'm sure I've fucked up my bones like I have harmed my fertility there's so much damage that will last forever because of the early years of disrespecting this body that was just trying to get me from A to B and do so much for me. Do you know that you've harmed your fertility? Yeah yes I do I do and I don't want to go into it because then it becomes another thing that people will talk about on the internet but yes I definitely I definitely have. And we noticed that early on

when my periods stopped when I was about 15 at the height of my anorexia. And that was the kind of beginning of issues with that part of my body and with my fertility. And so it doesn't mean that I definitely can't have children. I've just made it much harder for myself, as many people who've had anorexia for a long time have. and one of the most interesting things was turning 19 and making that decision back then which is 16 years ago almost to stop starving myself and I thought because I wasn't just existing on like 180 calories a day that I was no longer anorexic but I totally was anorexia comes in all different shapes and sizes, and it can happen at 400 calories a day, 600 calories a day, 800 calories a day. Orthorexia

is something that's true, which is a terror of food, which I definitely had. And it's taken me really until the last four years of my life to get rid of it. Body dysmorphia, all these different things I've struggled with, all without realizing because diet culture is so hyper normalized every woman being on a diet every woman complaining about how much exercise they're going to have to do to work off their dessert or talking about foods as guilty or naughty or a treat you know it was all so normal to me that I didn't even know I had an eating disorder throughout my 20s because every other woman in my industry and even outside of this industry in my life were just starving themselves perpetually because we all wanted to look like I guess Alexa Chung

it's not her fault yeah did anyone step in at any point because you described the decision you made at 19 as a person who generated one but did you feel anyone helped or could see what was going on no no and anorexics can tend to more often than not be very good at hiding their anorexia which is how yeah we're able to sustain the I guess it's a disease for such a long time I think Katlin Moran came on my podcast and told me that something like only 30 percent of people ever fully recover from anorexia which leaves a vast amount of people still in turmoil and so no no one stepped in people would express concern which I used to take as a compliment because I was so messed up and you know it was

the era just posed to heroine chic so you know I really thought it was an achievement if people were concerned for how thin I was oh I despair I despair I'm so glad that I didn't die in my early 30s so that I was able to at least have a few years of freedom from that thought toilet that is eating disorder mentality how do you feel about your body now I just sort of don't care I'm not that fussed about it I'm not someone who stands there in the mirror I fucking love Lizzo and Megan Thee Stallion and all these different amazing women who sit there and really genuinely love I mean Megan Thee Stallion also just is I mean they're all goddesses everyone's a goddess but the point is that when there are women who really just fucking love their thighs and they love their arses and they love their bodies I marvel at them but I can't personally get. And to say I could would be disingenuous of me.

And I would give anything to feel the way about my body that those people do. And I'm a relatively slender-ish person. I'm a size sort of, I don't know, 10 to 12 UK. But I can't stand there in the mirror and look at cellulite and be like, I love it. I appreciate it because it's a part of me but I just tend to now as a way of pushing past that to just not really negotiate with my body image I'm not going to try and love something for me personally that society spends so much time telling me to hate instead I'm just not going to think about it so I wear most of the time loose clothes or big baggy suits and

I don't really look in a full length mirror more often than maybe once every couple of weeks unless I'm getting ready for an event and I don't spend a lot of time getting ready in front of the mirror so I'd have to look at myself too much and so in doing so it has been so fucking liberating to me because there could be a shit an actual shit on my face and I would have no idea all day which sounds like a bad thing but it's also very liberating because why do I need to know why is it any of my business what I look like I don't want to think about it anymore and in doing so I have become so much more successful so much happier my relationship is happier my friendships are better I'm a better person

I'm still shit at Twitter so I can't blame that on the eating disorder unfortunately I'm just shit at it but other than that I have such a full and happy life now because even the hours that we spend thinking about trying to love our bodies or actively loving our bodies we're still thinking about them and I just still think that that's what patriarchy wants that's what the diet industry wants that's what the beauty industry wants it just wants us to be thinking about our looks all the time and so any form of giving into that I think gives them what they want and I'm far too rebellious for that so who knows maybe one day I'll love it but for now I just choose to not engage with it do compliments help no they go down it's that Georgia O'Keeffe you know compliments and criticisms or insults go down the same drain. None of it helps.

It makes me uncomfortable because of years of dysmorphia. I don't want to think about it. And I've become very careful to not compliment other women in particular. If I notice weight loss, I used to be like, oh, you've lost a lot of weight. As if that was a good thing. And I realized, oh, my God, that was so problematic. Because also then, if that weight comes back on, they're now thinking that you're going to be noticing it and judging it so I'm very careful to never comment on that sort of thing I'll comment on a dress or if someone's glowing or on their hair but I'm very very very

much more aware of the damage we do with compliments sometimes and just to be clear I think there'll be people listening to this who are nodding their heads with every single word that you say, but who also feel like I like to wear leather trousers and put makeup on and go out. And you're not saying that the two are mutually exclusive? Not at all. I fucking love makeup. And I love women in particular in leather trousers. Really hot. But I'm never telling anyone how to feel about their bodies I'm not even out there preaching to love yourself I'm just saying for me personally as someone who's been so fucked up for such a long time I choose to just not even try I'm just like that's for me is an emotional minefield I'm out I just want to get on with my day you do you and whatever you do just try to do it slowly

safely and not at the advice of a celebrity. Like if you want to gain weight or lose weight or gain more muscle or have less muscle in your body, do whatever you want. But just do it slowly, safely. No quick fix ever works. It only ever harms you and it is designed for you to fail so that you'll have to keep using it again and again and again. Don't ever use laxatives. again and again and again don't ever use laxatives and please consult a proper nutritionist someone with certified skills and a health practitioner to guide you through these massive long-term changes in your body that's the only thing i ever try to subscribe to i'm never telling anyone what

to look like what size to be just to please do everything carefully safely and to never take diet advice from these fucking lying asshole celebrities here who i see in person they don't fucking look like that and i know how much surgery they have and i know all of the tricks they use i know all their trainers i know how many nutritionists they have i know what goes into i know that they're wearing a weave in their advert selling you hair like growth gummies i see these people i'm on set with some of these people i know what really goes into the appearance that they pretend to you comes from a powder. They are hawking to you over the internet that

they've never taken once in their life. They're all full of shit, literally. Well, because they haven't taken the laxatives they're selling you. So the shit's still in there. Sorry. I should point out that, no, no, no. I should point out that I weigh and you have been instrumental in making Facebook and Instagram change their policies around celebrities and influencers promoting diet and detox products to minors and I often think that those sort of achievements are overlooked and I wonder if it ever frustrates you. It does frustrate me, but it doesn't surprise me. Why would we ever choose to big up a woman when we could instead focus on her micro mistake that didn't actually harm anyone? Why would we ever talk about the thing that she did that saved

or helped a generation of kids avoid something that was incredibly damaging and detrimental, that we have statistic proof of being damaging and detrimental why would we ever congratulate a woman for something she did that was helpful when we could instead just make a headline out of a mistake that she either did make or didn't make that we just made up from quote-unquote a source so it doesn't surprise me it is annoying but I guess it goes along with my decision to check my ego at the door if I was doing any of this for praise or popularity I would be in the wrong game yeah one of the things that I find funny that I noticed when I was researching this interview is how many grateful no no it's how many grateful dads you get you get a lot of dad saying to you I'm the father of a 13 year old girl I just want to thank you so

much you're like emailing you for advice I feel like you're the guru for dads of teenage girls I'm big with dads I don't know what to tell you I think I've only got 16% of my followers are men and I swear it's all dads like it's all terrified dads they don't fancy me they just want tips on how to communicate with their daughter I love how many of them listen to my podcast I've like a big dad following on my podcast and so much feedback from them because, you know, kids aren't educated at school and neither are parents. I don't understand why we still haven't stepped up our education program to make kids media savvy, to make kids understand what goes behind social media, to explain photo editing to them and the dangers of it, to explain eating disorder stuff. But we should also be making that same manual for kids. This is the first generation where we've had kids this far ahead of their

parents parents don't even know what the kids are looking at anymore or what they're learning this is a nightmare schools need to stop fucking going on and on about condoms on carrots and igneous rock and all the other nonsense they teach us that we're almost never going to use i don't need to learn about amberlynn i to use. I don't need to learn about Anne Boleyn. I need to learn about consent. I need to learn about Photoshop. I need to learn about eating disorders. I need to learn about porn. And so do my parents. That's where we need to spend money in the education sector, in my opinion, is actually preparing people for life. And while you're at it, teach children about tax and fertility. That's the other thing that I would add to that excellent Jimmy DeGimille syllabus. And finances.

Finances, which leads us seamlessly onto your final failure, which is that you lost all your money at 30. Tell us that story. Yeah, just so shit with money. So shit with money for so many reasons. One, I think, again, school didn't teach me anything. How is this possible that we're given debit cards at 16 and we're able to open our own bank accounts?

But school literally doesn't mention it. We do not have classes where we learn about interest, about credit cards, about credit, about how to, you know, eventually be able to get on, I don't know, if you want to maybe have a mortgage one day or start a business. You learn none of this stuff. So I had no idea about saving. I was totally unprepared. And we don't all come from super educated backgrounds I sure as shit didn't so my parents didn't know anything about saving either and we were really poor so you know money was something that when you got some you spent it on a nice little treat and I guess I took that as the way that I would then go on to even when I made a lot of money in this industry I just spent it all of the time I didn't know how to save and

also as a woman I think I felt very uncomfortable being successful and having a lot of money and so I used to just try and spend it and share it as much as possible and I was incredibly you know overly generous like I'd meet a stranger and they would say they needed a knee operation and they were two years on a waiting list on the NHS so I'd be like here's six thousand pounds complete stranger and that's a nice thing to do but also also, I wasn't planning to protect myself. And I think the third layer of it was also just being quite mentally ill, and us not really talking enough about how inner chaos can present itself as external chaos,

as financial chaos. I was just spending as if I wasn't going to be here very long. And I think it's because I didn't think I was going to be here very long. So it was just a kind of clusterfuck that led me to making all of this money in this industry and just hemorrhaging it. Also just having an eating disorder if you're a binge and starve person, really fucking expensive. Because the binging part is very costly. Yeah, you wrote to me that you you spent so much on food and then you lost a clothing contract oh my god well that's because I spent so much on food that I ended up eating so much that I gained so much weight that I lost a clothing contract because I was too big for the samples and I remember just trying to hide from them quite how much I was eating and

then getting papped buying like six cakes at eight o'clock in the morning on my own and then clocking that I've been papped and then instead trying to pick up a healthy pair and hoping this will be the photograph that makes it into the daily mail but it wasn't it was the cakes and so I was sort of busted but yeah that's fine and I'm glad I didn't starve myself for any kind of clothing contract or anything else but yeah I literally ate my way out of parts of my career I'm really really glad that you chose this failure because I think so few people and specifically women talk about money or feel that they can and as you say most of us aren't equipped with the knowledge when we come out of school but after you went through this financially difficult patch how did you recover from it on a practical level like what what did you do did you get a financial advisor yeah I got a financial advisor I was very very lucky to ever get a job again at 30

you know moving to America to start a brand new life was a very very bold thing to do considering I was going to try my hand at being a writer again a thing I've never done and I didn't want to be on television anymore but I was able to kind of figure shit out to be able to do work that I knew how to do which was tv hosting and then eventually accidentally falling into acting but once I did have money again this time around I went and I found two people who I trusted who guided me through learning really about pensions, about tax, about saving, about planning, about budgeting, all these things that I just hadn't learned about. And another thing that I think is really important, specifically when we're talking about women and finance is that we are 80% of the fucking market. We are consumers, we are the main consumers as a

gender, by far and away we consume the most and we are the ones most targeted by advertising even if it's for cleaning products or for household stuff or for beauty stuff because they think every single part of our bodies needs to be fixed because they've convinced us that it's broken so with women being the most targeted to spend our money we are the ones who should most be taught how to save it and how to budget it and so therefore I kind of find it a little bit convenient that we aren't schooled about that in our magazines or in our schools and we are just left open and vulnerable to being manipulated into that having that must-have bag that it top that must-have makeup like this must-have new color we're prescribed a brand new body type

every decade we're prescribed a new hairstyle that we have to have or a new way of doing our nails. Men are just not targeted in this way. I mean, not as much. Maybe it's growing now because they've run out of inches on our bodies to commodify. They're now telling us we need our earlobes done and our elbows done and our knees lifted, et cetera, which is real. So I think it's happening more to men. But with women being this much under attack when it comes to consumerism and capitalism we're the ones who most need to learn how to defend ourselves financially and protect ourselves financially. I'd love to talk to you about LA because I love LA I feel like it's my spirit place I've really missed it this year because we haven't been able

to travel obviously but explain to me why you moved to Los Angeles and what is it about that particular place that has I don't know whether you feel it's been good for you whether you feel it's been liberating but what's the impact that that city's had on you multiple good impacts first of all I'd say that you can't blame your problems on LA and that's been really good for me because I think living in places like London or even spending a lot of time in New York I was able to blame my inner chaos on the very like clear external chaos of living in a city where people are just on top of each other and your money doesn't go very far and your apartment is too small your flat sorry I've already become a bloody yank but your flat

is too small and you know you someone farts in your face on the tube in the morning like you know by 9am I was already fucked off by tangible things that had happened during the day like the weather is shit and people are banging into me all the time and so I was able to blame a lot of my problems on that and I think it therefore meant it took me a lot longer in life to work out that oh I am a mentally ill person I didn't realize that for such a long time and coming here it's like oh it's really sunny and there's loads of space and your money goes further and the food's just better quality because there's more sun people are really fucking friendly and so no one's banging into each other you know you have so much space as a pedestrian I didn't have anything to really tangibly complain about so I realized that

oh this pain that I'm carrying that's on me so for me that was very good because I needed to work out sooner rather than later that I was struggling emotionally and psychologically but also the industry here is way ahead of the UK industry in that women in their 50s and 60s who are African-American or they are brown women or like women from different ethnicities of all kinds of different ages and shapes and sizes have really big jobs over here that feeling of you expire at 30 doesn't really exist in America and I think that that's really cool and i feel as though they love a multi-hyphenate which is what i am which is what most people are yes we are all multifaceted and we don't know that we're not encouraged to find

that out especially when we're women because patriarchy does not want women to know how strong and adaptable and fucking fantastic and special and unique we are and so we're told just to pick one thing that you'll maybe be allowed to do and then just sit down and shut up and be grateful and never complain about that situation and so in America they love multifaceted people it's actually considered strength to be jack of all trades they're not really looking for a master necessarily and I think that's been really good for me because I am a master of fucking nothing and I and I am someone who loves to explore different sides of myself and I've been able to do that here and it's been congratulated rather than criticized which it was in the UK and I urge the UK to grow in diversity and grow in their ability to allow people to be

more multifaceted oh I just agree with every single thing you've just said which makes for a very boring interviewer but no I'm sorry I'm also like I'm like a caffeinated chatty Cathy who's just like not letting you put a word in I'm so sorry uh I'm just bursting with opinions can you imagine I try to condense all of this into tweets can you of course it's a disaster of course I'm a fucking disaster why why Jamila why shout that on my balcony do you love a whatsapp voice note no no I don't no. I do. I do like and need a back and forth, especially in chat. It's just when I get fired up about something which normally happens on a podcast, I just turn into a roadrunner. But no, I don't like a WhatsApp. No, no. I love a WhatsApp chat, though, especially a group chat.

I live for that. It's how I've maintained my Englishness and all my knowledge of what's going on in London is via my group chats with my mates so you went to LA because you wanted to write more I wanted I just wanted to be a writer in comedy to be a writer yeah what's next do you think you will end up being a more full-time activist or more full-time writer or will you just continue being the brilliant multi-hyphenate that you are I think I'm just going to continue not really having a plan if I'm honest like I came here to be a writer that took a really unexpected turn as I said earlier like I love being open to the periphery I think that's where all of the magic in my life has happened in the most unexpected places and so I think I'm just going to carry on trying things and then I will carry on my activism

until the day that I die I'm continuing to grow my way I love the podcast it's such a fun thing to do so I'll carry on with that and we're building out the YouTube channel and we're working on just more and more content to give more and more people a use of my platform I've got this big old platform and clearly I'm not a fucking expert so people from the beginning of my career were always like pass the mic pass the mic and I've been like I don't have the mic I've got a fucking like dildo that you can pretend is a mic or you can wait till I get it and then I can actually pass it on to people so I feel like now with three and a half almost million followers and 1.3 million on iway and we have all this engagement and this podcast i now have the mic i have space i can force younger people who

are more experienced or interesting or charismatic or funny or intelligent than i am into spaces with me and just be like i won't do this unless you allow this person to come with me i'm now able to pull those strings and i don't know throw my my weight around in that way. And so now it's all about passing the mic over to those who are more, you know, who are bigger experts than I am. So I think that's what I'm doing next. And if I don't die, I'll just carry on with activism. I'll write a book and I'll carry on making documentaries, which is something I did when I was younger that now I'm getting back into. Because I really just love learning and I'll carry on making documentaries, which is something I did when I was younger that now I'm getting back into. Because I really just love learning and I love learning with other people.

So that's the main goal forever. And how has this interview about failure been for you? It has been a success, if that's what you are asking me. Excellent. I have, I've loved it. I don't know, I'm sure I shall continue to fail, but I do promise I will keep getting back up and trying something new you know I said recently in a podcast with I think Angela

Scanlon that maybe I'll leave one day and just become a therapist I have no idea but I promise to continue to be open and transparent and to show my workings out and to say sorry when I'm wrong and just to keep trying to bring everyone along on this transparent journey with me because it's really the main purpose I serve is just no more lies, no more haze, no more bullshit. Let's just be real. Even if we get it wrong, let's at least just be real. Jamila Jamil, keep failing as gloriously as you do.

And thank you so much for the important activism that you do on behalf of the rest of us and thank you also for coming on how to fail oh thanks for having me this episode of how to fail is sponsored by don't buy her flowers thoughtful gifts for any occasion that are all about encouraging the recipient to take some time for themselves. And we all need a bit of that right now, don't we? I love Don't Buy Her Flowers. I can talk about this completely objectively because way before they sponsored this podcast, I found them online and I sent a package to a friend of mine who had

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Her Flowers. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.