How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S15, Ep1 How To Fail: Vanessa Feltz on divorce, body-shaming and Big Brother breakdowns

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Welcome to Season 15 of How To Fail! And there could be no better woman for our first episode than the iconic Vanessa Feltz. I was so COMPLETELY blown away by her honesty, humour and her brilliance when we met that I knew straight away I had to make her the season opener.She joins me to talk about the breakdown of her marriage, her shock at discovering her husband's infidelity and how she had to rebuild her life in the aftermath. She also discusses the failure of her chat-show, the toxic media attention paid to her weight and what enduring such challenges in public taught her about resilience. And - of course - she chats about THAT infamous moment on Celebrity Big Brother 2001.I admire this woman so much and I can't wait for you all to listen to this powerful episode to have your preconceptions shattered. (Unless your preconception happens to be 'Vanessa is a total legend' in which case, it will be re-affirmed).--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Vanessa Feltz @vanessafeltzofficial 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. 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. Vanessa Feltz is, and I don't say this lightly, a cultural icon. She's also been described as one of the hardest working women in media and when you look at her schedule it's hard to disagree. Her mornings start at 4am on Radio 2 and continue at 7 on her phone-in show for Radio London. She writes columns for the Daily Express and Best magazine and appears regularly on ITV's This Morning. But her iconic status comes from her impact on popular culture. She is one of a select few who has been a contestant on both Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Big Brother, and her 90s daytime TV chat show saw her compared to Oprah Winfrey, before it was taken off air amidst a scandal concerning the alleged hiring of actors as guests, something that Feltz herself knew nothing about.

It's all a long way from Totteridge where she grew up. Her father, Norman, was in the lingerie business and wanted his daughter to be a lawyer. After graduating with a first-class English degree from Cambridge University, she'd only gone there to follow a boy she was in love with, Feltz persuaded her dad to give her six months to make it as a journalist. I wrote as many articles as I could and made a living, she said many years later. My motivation was that and nothing else. It certainly wasn't fame. It was really just to make a few quid. It didn't occur to me for years that anything else might happen. Vanessa Feltz, welcome to How to Fail.

Oh, hello. Hello. I'm so good at failing. It's a real pleasure. This is my natural habitat. I don't know why I didn't just come and live here in this podcast. You are my dream guest and you're very welcome to live here. This is my dream podcast and I'm really, really pleased to be. In fact, it's my nightmare and combination dream and nightmare combo. Failure forever. Did I get everything right in the introduction? because I have to say I was intimidated because you are not only a cultural icon but a journalistic icon oh gosh and someone I grew up with it feels like we've had similar careers to the point where you became stratospherically successful but in terms of the fact that we started as print journalists

yes so it's important for me to get the facts right. Did I do them? I think so. Yes, I think they're fine. Yeah. Okay. Now, you said at the end there, that idea that fame was this unexpected byproduct. Yes. How do you feel about fame? I feel many things about fame. I mean, sometimes I really love it, actually. Sometimes it's fabulous. For example, if you've flown abroad somewhere, and then you come back to Heathrow, let's say, or Gatwick or any old airport. And when you come in, the passport person says, oh, hello, Vanessa. Where have you been? Do you have a good time? Welcome back. Welcome home or something like that. You feel great, really great. And if you meet someone in the street or they come up to you in the supermarket and they say, oh, God, I listen to your show all the time. up to you in the supermarket and they say, oh God, I listen to your show all the time. I'm one of your lovely listeners. And actually, you know, I've just had, you know, this illness or I've just had a baby

or I've just been very lonely or my relationship's broken up. And just having you there all the way through lockdown was just a great thing. And, you know, thank you or something like that. You feel warm and pleased and cozy and there's lots of affirmation and all the stuff that you want people to say they're saying. So that's really great. And also there are some good bits where you get to go and see a premiere of something or you get to go and see a production of something you might not otherwise go and see. And you think, oh, this is great. This is fab. I love this.

And then there are all the horrible downsides, which is, you know, when things go wrong in your life, which they always do for absolutely everyone, instead of just being allowed to go away quietly and lick your wounds in private and feel embarrassed and humiliated and heartbroken and shocked and ill and sick and wretched, like everybody else. You can't because just as they wrote about you when you were walking up a red carpet,

they're entitled to write about you when some horrible, hideous thing is happening to you. And so there it is exposed for all the world to see. And somehow because it's in print, it feels worse. And you feel much more scrutinized and you feel, you know, absolutely horrible, just as you would anyway, but somehow a bit more horrible because it's in the paper. And so those are the horrible downsides, you know, that kind of counter side of the, oh, you're now Vanessa. I love you. I like you. I like, see, I like what you do. It's the opposite side, which is, you know, some horrible thing happens to you and it's everywhere. So, you know, I really have enjoyed

the good side and continue to. It's good fun and I do really like it. And I'm not shy and I'm not retiring. I don't wish nobody ever noticed me. I like it when people say hi to me. It's fine, especially if they say nice things. But the other side is really horrible and horrible enough to make you wish maybe you'd never done it in the first place however and this is a really big deal you don't really get the choice people think you do and they say well you put your head above the parapet didn't you you know you wanted to be famous well you are so you absolutely deserve whatever happens and that's not true it's just not like that you don't have a day where somebody says you're right you're making the decision now it's a faustian pact okay do you want to be famous yes or no if it's yes this is

what it's going to be like if it's no goodbye it's not like that you know you can be toiling away for years and years as a journalist as a jobbing presenter somebody being interviewed on other people's shows you can even be presenting a show nobody ever notices you there are lots of people who are on the bbc for years no one knows their name no one knows how many kids they've got you know they've never been asked to autograph someone's leek and potato pie who knows why they just haven't they just haven't god yes i've autographed pies i've autographed people's actual chests autographed men's buttocks and a felt pen and all sorts of things but for some reason some people never are and some people are.

And if you're going to be one of the ones that is, you don't know you're going to be. Because all the years where you're working and no one notices you, nobody knows your name, nobody sends a car for you, nobody cares if you come or not because no one's ever heard of you. You don't know whether that's going to go on forever and ever or not. There isn't a day where you say, yeah, okay, I'll be famous. And then you jolly well deserve whatever comes with it. It's not like that. And you became famous in the 90s. Am I right in saying that? Yes. And I think that we're going through a collective cultural reassessment of the 90s and what we were like to women, particularly during that era. It was such a confused era, one that I lived through

as well. But luckily, I wasn't famous because there was LADEC culture on the one hand, and on the other hand, this circle of shame tabloid culture that really dragged women down. How did that feel? And how did you navigate it? It all came as a colossal shock, just all of everything. I think lots of my life has come as a shock. I think it will be a continuing theme. And you may say, well, you're meant to be bright. Why was it always a shock? And I don't really know the answer. But essentially, I was a journalist, and I was a columnist. And really, what I was focused on was earning some money, because my then husband was a junior hospital doctor, so we didn't have any money. So we're always, you know, financially up against it. And so I was just trying to write an article about, you know,

I don't know, hair conditioner and an article about a quiz to know whether you're compatible or any old thing that anyone would pay me to write, I'd write. And then I was asked on to the radio and then on to television shows to talk about various columns I'd written. Well, that doesn't make you famous. You're not famous at that point. And then eventually I was spotted and I was asked to audition for a chat show because at that time, all the TV companies were looking for an Oprah Winfrey style show. And every woman you'd ever heard of

was trying to be the new Oprah. And I was a woman you'd never heard of. And I wasn't even trying to be, they just asked me to try. And I tried, I did this audition and it turned out that mine was the show that got chosen. It was made by Anglia TV.

And suddenly the Vanessa show was born amid enormous controversy because lots of people were saying, why do we need that kind of vulgar, American, cheap, rotten show here? And also they were saying, anyway, it will fail, and it will fail dismally, because nobody in this country likes to talk about their personal lives, so they won't. So it'll be shockingly boring and rubbish. And so I kind of had been offered the job. I'd been very pleased to take the job. I was excited to do the job and somehow was not prepared for the enormous kind of tidal wave of criticism

and opprobrium. It was debated on Newsnight. It was debated on, you know, the Culture Show. It was going to be a blight on the whole nation. And of course, I was going to be the blight that brought this about. Also, I wasn't prepared for an absolute kind of deluge of criticism about my appearance, my life. At that time, I was happily married to the nice Jewish doctor that my grandma chose for me. I had two little girls, age six and nine. I, you know, I'd read English at Cambridge. I, you know, I made my own chicken soup. I didn't really think that there was anything nasty about me that anyone would say anything nasty about. I mean, I didn't think that I would provoke any level of criticism, but that was absolutely inane of me and stupid. It was my fault for not realising. And I just didn't realise. I just

thought people say, well, she's nice and this is a good show or she's nice and this isn't a good show. I thought the show may fail because everyone said it would. And then I just go back to real life. I didn't sort of see the enormous amount of misogyny, the nasty things that was considered perfectly fine to write about female presenters particularly. And also, of course, everything that came with it, including phone hacking, which meant that you had absolutely no idea who was betraying your secrets. You didn't know if it was your sister. You didn't know if it was your sister. You didn't know if it was the receptionist at the doctor's surgery. You just didn't know.

But all you knew was suddenly completely personal and intimate things about you that no one could possibly have known were on the front page of tabloid papers. And because the word and the phrase phone hacking had not been invented, no one had ever heard of it, you couldn't assume it was that. You didn't know about that. So you just thought it was your best friend, your next door neighbor, the dustman. You just didn't know who it was. And that was a horrible, horrible thing to sort of contend with. So I had kind of thought, ah, a talk show called Vanessa and I'm Vanessa. Wow, this is going to be great. And in a way, it was great. It was fabulous. It was good fun doing it. It was very exciting. And it was well paid, the best paid I'd ever been. And it was great.

But in a way, it was just absolutely horrific. And I don't think I'd really realised that at the time. How did you survive it, do you think? Did you know what was going on? Did you talk to someone about it? Did you get very low? Like, how on earth do you survive that? I think the reason I survived it was because it wasn't my main focus, and it never has been. My main focus was my family, my children, my husband, my parents, my family life, my friends, my real friends. And I never did move into a sort of, you know, famous circle where I suddenly began hobnobbing with Stephen Fry and Nigella Lawson. I don't know them. I didn't know them then, and I don't know them now. You know Fry and Nigella Lawson. I don't know them. I didn't know them then and I don't know them now. You know, I've met them, but I don't know them.

And my friends were my real friends from school or my real friends from around the corner. And my family have always been everything. And doing the job was always a byproduct to kind of financing a nicer family life. Having started out with very little money, as I say, married to a junior hospital doctor on a minuscule wage and earning almost threepence myself as a sort of jobbing freelance journalist. I mean, the idea was I'd

get paid more and we'd have a nicer house and a better life was really the key thing. So I survived because I tried not to make it my main focus and not to think about it very much. Also, it was a great help that there was no such thing as social media. So if people hated me, they couldn't directly message me and tell me that. Wow, you're strong. You really are. You mentioned there some of the criticism that you got. And when I was researching this interview, it just shocked me to such a great extent how much of it was physical criticism. And again, I remember living through that time, but to revisit it now from 2022, it's so revolting. What do you think happened to your self-esteem as a result of fame? I know that's a huge question, because I also know that a lot of people become famous

when their self-esteem isn't necessarily where it should be. But I wonder what your personal relationship is with that. I'm not sure. I mean, I think it was all quite complicated. I think I felt thrilled and pleased to be the Vanessa of the Vanessa show, certainly at first, very, very pleased. And very quickly, we were turning out three shows a day, six shows in two days. And, you know, after the American model, and you know, I was working sort of incredibly hard. I was also writing a newspaper column, and I was doing a radio show on Sundays and my children were little and I was very busy with that and I was enjoying it you know it was stimulating and fun and it was great and also I was new to the whole sort of famous side of life where you suddenly got asked to

premieres and you suddenly got asked to be in the celebrity audience of an audience with Bruce Forsyth and you're looking around thinking oh my god that's Wincy Willis the weather lady blimey that's you know that's so and so off you, off EastEnders blinking heck. I never thought this was going to happen. You know, I was writing about Chaucer at Trinity College. I never thought that I was going to end up sitting next to, you know, John Stapleton. Blimey, this is just great. So it was really unexpected and brilliant. And also I was being described in the most loathsome ways as the woman who ate her audience and with breasts like a World War I barrage balloon and, you know, all kinds of nasty things like that. And I think I, I mean, I obviously felt upset, but I also felt that I was sort of, you know,

quite careful not to sort of let it define me. And you see, at that point, I thought I was extremely happily married. me. And you see, at that point, I thought I was extremely happily married. So I thought that I was basking in the pretty much unconditional love of a very delightful husband in a really lucky marriage where things were great. And, you know, we loved each other and respected each other. And because he was a surgeon, he wouldn't be in the least diminished by my possibly very temporary bout of semi-afternoon television fame. I mean, I didn't think that that would diminish him at all because he was a surgeon and, you know, he had his very, very important life and was doing really great things. So I thought this was an incredibly harmonious state

of affairs. And we had these two gorgeous girls and they were all that really mattered. And so I don't know how much my self-esteem was dented, probably not as much as you might think. Let's get onto your failures because there's so much to talk about and you've really gone there with these three failures and I'm so grateful to you. What did you think I was going to do? Well, some people say, you know, they fail their driving test. Are you joking? Oh God, I didn't realise you were allowed to do that. I failed my driving test three times.

If I'd known that, I'd have put that. Well, I actually think it makes us the best drivers. I failed twice. if I'd known that I'd have put that. Well I actually think it makes us the best drivers I failed twice okay so let's actually start with the Vanessa show because you've chosen that as one of your failures and that's very interesting because the way you've been talking about it thus far sounds like it was a real success and it absolutely was at the time that it started so tell us why you chose it as one of your failures. Oh because the Vanessa show was a huge success the ITV Vanessa show was a supersonic amazing success everyone said Everyone said it wouldn't be. And it

went from two afternoons a week to three afternoons a week. And then it went to five mornings a week. And it was shown every single morning before Richard and Judy on this morning. And it was a huge success. It had 53% of the audience share. So that was huge. So that means 53% of all people watching TV at that time of day were watching the Vanessa show. Why do you think it was such a success? I think people loved it. I think they just were very, you know, interested to see what other people were thinking and feeling. I think that there was an awful lot of truth told on it about the way that people behave to one another. There was a lot of humour in it. It was good natured in general. It wasn't kind of Jerry Springer-esque because we weren't allowed to do that in those

days. So I might go, Sean, do you prefer an Italian stallion to a British bulldog or you know Britain's meanest dad or something I don't know and it was just kind of all life is here and people telling their innermost feelings and the audience very quickly got the hang of it and it was a soar away roar away success. Do you think that it was partly successful because of you? I don't know I mean in retrospect you don't know because of you? I don't know. I mean, in retrospect, you don't know because of what happened next. So the answer is probably partly because of me. But really, it was probably the format that was a success. I think it was all because of you. No, I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. I'm not being ridiculously self-deprecating. I really don't

think so. And that is because it was such a success that the BBC came for me to say, move to ITV, come to the BBC. So I did. And so I left the ITV show and went to the BBC. And it was at the BBC that the fake guests were found to be on the show. And this was an absolute shock to me for various reasons. One was because I had nothing to do with the booking of guests. Obviously, it was a live daily show. And I never even actually set foot in the building where the guests were booked. It was in the production office, you know, and I'd just come in in the morning, they say, these are your guests. And I'd say hello and shake everyone's hand and read the background info. And that was it. So what happened on that show was, A, it was quite a lot tamer than the ITV show because ITV had a reputation for, you know,

being more, I suppose, more vulgar than the BBC. It was a bit too real for the BBC. So the show I presented at the BBC was a lot tamer. So when it turned out that some of the guests on the show weren't who they said they were, and there was the most enormous outcry about this, it was absolutely shocking to me because the guests were very ordinary, quite normal. They were not sensational stories. And the idea that they weren't who they said they were was absolutely amazing and also horrifying. And the fallout that ensued was immense. I mean, it was on the 10 o'clock news. It was on the six o'clock news. It was absolutely all over the place. It was used as a great big truncheon to beat the BBC with. It was used as a vehicle to try to stop people paying the BBC licence fee. So this one

show became a sort of emblem for all that anybody wanted to be bad at the BBC. And so it was so much more than some guests on a talk show who weren't who they said they were. Meanwhile, over on ITV, Tricia had stepped into my now vacated place and was doing really good business. That's why I'm not being ridiculously modest or humble when I say the success of the show was probably only marginally to do with me, because she stepped in, she was doing fine, was going really, really well. And what year did this all happen? This all happened in 1999. So there was this catastrophe of guests who weren't who they said they were. The importance of this at the BBC, which is, of course, in receipt

of licensed payers money and is absolutely obligated to be honest and transparent. And then the sort of humiliation of the show not doing very well anyway, because it wasn't going very well. And then the show being axed after what, about six months or something after making this big move from ITV to the BBC. And it's one of those instances where I can say, I had no idea. I didn't know anything about it. It was nothing to do with me at all, except the show was called Vanessa and I'm Vanessa. And you can't wash your hands of something that has your name all over it. And it was something that had an enormous impact on my career, the rest of my life. And it's a kind of example of how, you know, you cannot be instrumental in something,

and yet you can be absolutely caught up in the ramifications of it, and in fact, never really be able to escape them for the rest of your life. However many times you say, but I didn't book the guests, and I don't know who they are. I didn't know who the guests were. And in fact, on one particular show, there were guests who were supposed to be sisters. And I said on the show and I don't know who they I didn't know who the guests were and in fact on one particular show there were guests who were supposed to be sisters and I said on the show you don't seem like sisters because they didn't I said you don't seem like sisters I said you know you've got an American accent you haven't you don't look anything like each other you don't seem like each other you don't seem like sisters and they get had some answer for why they didn't one of them had been brought up by the father one of them had been brought up by the mother but I mean you know mad but they didn't they didn't seem like sisters because they weren't

sisters but I didn't know that and was it the pressure that the bookers were under that then made them get actors rather than I have no idea I think there's a big question mark to this day over whether the production team actually knew that the guests were not really who they said they were or not and I think the general consensus now, 20 years later, more than 20 years later, would be they didn't know and it was not deliberate and they were not being careless and they were not being, you know, lacking punctiliousness. Actually, they were very conscientious and they were being fooled, I think is the case. But all I can say is I think that's the case. But I just know that the fallout for absolutely everyone was just catastrophic. And for you personally, did you go through those cycles of grief?

Did you have your angry phase at the unfairness of it, that you were having to carry the can, it was having this massive impact on your career, and it was something that you knew nothing about? Was there anger there? I was terribly, terribly upset. I was just devastated. I don't know about angry. I wasn't really angry. I was just so grief stricken and so sorrowful. And I felt so terrible about it. It was just absolutely awful. And I couldn't have felt worse. I thought,

I thought I couldn't have felt worse. I thought you cannot feel worse than this. The utter humiliation, the embarrassment, everything else, and also wanting to say, look, it wasn't me. I don't book the guests. It wasn't nothing to do with me. But knowing that nobody wanted to hear that because, you know, perception is, you know, at least nine and a half tenths of everything. And it's called The Vanessa Show, blah, blah, blah. I felt absolutely dreadful and as if I could not feel worse. And then my husband left. And then I realized that was far, far, far worse, because that was my real life and my real heart and my children's lives and my family and my

future and my dreams and my hopes and everything I really, really cared about. And that is how I learned. The one thing is just a job. And the other thing is the stuff that really, really matters. And it was so brutally illustrated in that switch between thinking that a job is everything and realising a job is almost really nothing in comparison with a marriage and a life. And that was all in one hideous year. One year. Yes. That is your second failure, the failure of your marriage.

And am I right in saying that you found out from a newspaper yes tell us what happened well I thought I was really happily married it just shows how much I know about anything I thought that I was really one of the lucky ones and we had so much in common and we really complemented each other and you know I had seen no signs of any sort of rift or drifting apart or anything like that. My husband's brother had died in the summer. And so I did obviously could see that he was a little bit more distant, but I just thought that he was grief stricken and I completely empathized and sympathized.

And, you know, I felt so sorry for him and so sorry for his loss and was trying to do everything I could to comfort him and whatever it was. And then the show was axed and people will have to draw their own conclusions about why my husband did as he did when he did it. I would have to say that in retrospect, my feeling is that the goose that laid the golden egg wasn't going to be laying any more golden eggs. And he thought this would be a good time to ship out, I think, anyway. Just suddenly, one Sunday morning, when I was just peeling the vegetables and his mum was meant to be coming for lunch, I said to him that friends of ours had just had a new baby. And there was a big gap between the last child and this new baby. And I said, you know, we're invited around there for tea this afternoon. And who knows, I said, when you see the baby, maybe we'll have another one.

And he answered in a voice of a Dalek, something like, that is not a possibility or something like that. And I looked at him, why are you talking like a Dalek? You don't know me. That's very weird. That is not a subject I care to discuss. I said, what the hell's happened? What's the matter? What do you mean? And he said, I do not rule out the possibility of a divorce. And then the children came home from Sunday school. The mother-in-law came for lunch. Everything was completely normal. We went to these people's house for tea. We saw the new baby.

Completely normal. Came back to our house. I gave the children supper, bathed them, put them to bed. Completely normal. I started to think I must have imagined it because it was so utterly astounding. I thought I must have made this up. You think you're mad. Yeah, this can't have happened. It can't have happened. And finally the children were in bed and I said, what was it that you said earlier? And he said, I repeat, I do not rule out the possibility of a divorce. Oh my goodness. I know.

And he wouldn't discuss it. He wouldn't say why. He wouldn't say when. He wouldn't say anything. It was absolutely staggering. It really was absolutely staggering. I now realise he didn't say anything because he couldn't say anything, because it turns out he was having not one, but several affairs. I found out by all sorts of different means, but I didn't have any idea then. And he was a very model of probity. He was all about, you know, we believe in fidelity and we believe in honesty and we absolutely don't believe in being unfaithful. And he would very often, you know, condemn other people who were and, you know, very vocally say how terrible it was.

And I believed in all of it. I believe that he was a man of great moral core and tremendous decency and all that kind of thing. And you're bloody clever. Not only are you clever, you're really emotionally insightful. I had absolutely no idea what was going on in my own life. No idea. I did not know what was happening. I had no idea. It's the most horrible, horrible feeling. It's absolutely extraordinary. Because one minute you're just in your house, perfectly comfortable in your own skin, having a piece of toast, cuddling your children, having a chat. It's all normal. And in the turn of a penny, it just completely changes. I was absolutely wrong-footed in every single way. I just didn't know what to do. My mother had died. My father had found another woman, my mother died at the age of 57. The same year? No, she died in 95,

but it was all still very real. I didn't have her to go to, to ask her. I just didn't know what to do. And then a couple of days later, he said he would give me a 12 week trial period. And those were the exact words. And I, when I think about it now, should have said, what the hell am I on trial for? What's my crime? What do you mean? How can you try me? I'm your wife. I'm the mother of your children. I love you. I've been a faithful wife. I've worked really hard. I thought we had a lovely life.

You know, what do you mean? But I was so terrified of him going or the marriage ending and being on my own and the children not having a dad. And I was just so scared. I said, OK, OK. But I didn't know what to do to pass the trial. I didn't know what to do. Because he hadn't said, this do to pass the trial. I didn't know what to do.

Because he hadn't said, this is why I'm unhappy. Okay. So I didn't know how to win the trial and to stop him going. I didn't know what to do. So one of the things I did was stop eating almost entirely, to lose as much weight as I possibly could, as quickly as I could, in case it was that. Because obviously I was chubby, I was fat,

whatever you want to call it. And I thought, well, God, maybe it's that, maybe it's that. Okay, so I stopped eating completely. I was fat, whatever you want to call it. And I thought, well, God, maybe it's that. Maybe it's that. Okay, so I stopped eating completely. I absolutely filled the house with friends and family. Not that I didn't anyway, but I just did it even more. I had breakfast parties and lunch parties and barbecues and people coming and going and coming and going because I wanted him to see this is the lovely life we have. This is the fabulous love we have.

These are all the friends we have. Look at this lovely life. You surely don't want to walk out on this and your own two absolutely ravishing children, do you? I wanted to kind of show, look, you know, and I'm funny and I'm loving. I'm nice. I am kind. I am, I love you. I mean, I've loved you since the moment I met you, you know, please don't leave. Please don't leave. And he didn't show any sign at all of how the trial was going. And on about two occasions, I asked, well, how am I doing? Don't talk about it.

I don't want to discuss it. If you talk about it, you'll ruin it. You know, this kind of thing. And so I was on absolute tenterhooks. I didn't know what to do. I just didn't know what to do. So I just thought, all I can do is be as nice, loving, thin as I can. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I just didn't know what to do. So I just thought like, all I can do is be as nice, loving, thin as I can. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Anyway, about, let's say,

seven weeks into the trial, we went to a wedding. And at that wedding, he danced with me kind of nicely. And for the first time in the seven weeks, I began to think, oh, maybe he does realize that I love him and that I'm loving and nice and we have a good life and he doesn't want to walk out and I started to breathe kind of like for the first time in the whole seven weeks I'd be able to actually take a proper breath in and we got in the car to go home and we got home I remember taking off my special dress that I've been wearing and taking all the pins and everything out of my hair and I thought that he was just going to bed and the next thing I saw he's dressing and And I thought that he was just going to bed.

And the next thing I saw, he's dressing and packing a case. And he said, I'm leaving. I'm going. He said, I want space. I just want space. And I'm going. He hadn't mentioned it to the children. He hadn't said why. He didn't say anything. It was absolutely shocking. And I, you know, I started to beg, you know, please, I'm begging you, please don't leave. I'll do anything. Because I didn't understand what I'd done wrong. I didn't know what I'd done. You know how people say, what goes on behind closed doors in a marriage?

But I was in the marriage and I didn't know what was going on. I wasn't behind the closed door. I had no idea. You know, I mean, I don't have to give you all the details, but I mean, effectively, I sort of put my arms around the wheel of the car, the tire, to try to say, please don't drive away.

Please don't leave us. Don't, please. Well, you literally did that. Yes, because I just thought, what can I do to show you? Just don't go, please. I'm so sorry. Oh, God, it was awful. I'm so sorry.

And he left anyway. Anyway, so I just did not know why. And I did not know what was happening. And no one else seemed to know. And then articles started appearing in papers and newspapers suggesting all sorts of things. I had no idea if they were true or not true. I just didn't know what was going on. He never phoned again. He didn't come to see the children, nothing at all. And then a couple of weeks later, I think it was, the girls the girls and I I think I don't know where we've been but anyway we came back home and you know in those days you used to have an answer phone and the answer phone was blinking and there was a message and it was a message from a columnist

who's now passed away called Sue Carroll at the Daily Mirror saying your husband's having an affair and it's going to be in the papers tomorrow and And if you phone me, I'll tell you, you know, who it is and what's going on and blah, blah, blah. And I spoke to her obviously. And she said, you know, he's having an affair with a young doctor. I was at that time 37. I think she was 26. I mean, at 37, I hadn't realized I was the older woman at 37. Anyway, she said, it's going to be in the paper tomorrow. We've got pictures of it. And it turned out that Piers Morgan, who was the editor of The Mirror Mirror at the time had heard that my husband had left and had thought it seemed really suspicious and had got one of their reporters on him and they'd tailed him I knew nothing about this at all but all I can say and this is you know in parentheses

is I bless Piers Morgan's name every day of my life because if he hadn't done that I'd have no idea I would not know what happened in my own that, I'd have no idea. You'd have no explanation. I would not know what happened in my own marriage. I wouldn't have any idea. So I love Piers Morgan for that. He didn't do it as a favour to me, I get that. But the net effect of it was, at least I knew. Because if you hadn't known, you still would have been...

Blaming myself and wondering what I'd done wrong, of course. He would still be gaslighting you from this distance. Exactly. What an absolute emotional nightmare. Exactly. I'm so sorry you went through that. It's okay. It was a long time ago now.

I was listening to you with my jaw slack there. I've also been through a divorce by no means anywhere near what you went through with that. And we didn't have children which I'm so grateful for now after my first marriage broke down I had a period of numbness which I now realized looking back was depression how did you feel in the immediate aftermath of that absolute panic total panic I did not have numbness at all, nothing like that whatsoever. I was absolutely panic stricken. I had been brought up to be married. That's what I was raised to be. You know, I would say I grew up in Fiddler on the Roof in a traditional Jewish family where basically the heat is on to get married. That's what you're meant to do. And I had done it. And I could not

conceive of life without it. I just couldn't imagine getting up in the morning and just living without him, without my husband, a husband, a father for the children, just the whole thing. I was absolutely brokenhearted and completely shocked. I had not expected it. I had known we weren't happy. The whole thing was just, it was absolutely shocking. And I was absolutely grief-stricken. I couldn't sleep at all. I couldn't eat at all. I couldn't sit down. I couldn't read a book. I couldn't read a book for years. I couldn't read a book for about six years properly. I couldn't just sit down and relax and pay attention because I was so, so upset. I felt like my heart was actually broken and that there was kind of like a chasm between the chambers and it was kind of an effort to get it from one side to the other. And I now, these days, have

read about, have you read about this kind of broken heart syndrome, which is an actual medical thing. But in those days, 1999, no one had ever mentioned it. So I didn't know that it could physically be happening. But I could describe it then very clearly. It felt like the blood wouldn't get across to the other half of the heart, which was broken. That's how it felt.

And as I say, my mum was dead. My dad had gone off with someone else. And it was just... And you had two daughters. I had two daughters. And of course, the show that I've been presenting was finished. So you need to find work, all of that. You need to find work.

Who did you talk to? Did you have anyone that you could confide in? I went to see a therapist. And the very first day, the therapist said to me, you're nobody's schmutter. And a schmutter in Yiddish is like a piece of rag, you know, an old cloth. You know, you might used to do the cleaning, or if you wore really, really cheap clothes, you might say, I'm just putting on my schmutters, you know, my cheap clothes. And he said, you're nobody's schmutter. And I thought,

God, that's right. I'm nobody's schmutter. That's right. And then I went back the next week, and he said, you know, you're nobody's schmutter. And I thought, I think you said that last week. And I decided that going to the hairdresser would probably be better because that way at least you look better at the end. And also you could read good magazines and you could, you know, have a good chat. And I just thought that was probably better for me than therapy at the time. And I think it was. It was quite good. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words, supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago,

set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world-leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real-life history that inspires the locations, the characters, and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. What was your lowest point? Oh, I think that night when my husband actually left and probably the weeks after. And I remember the advice my father, who was alive, gave me, which was change your will.

That was the first thing he said. He said, change your will, because if you get run over by a bus today, your husband will get whatever money there is. Not that there was much, but anyway. Change your will, change it immediately. So I did. I went that day and changed my will. And I cried so voluminously while doing it. I could hardly breathe.

I was sobbing and crying. It turned out that the solicitor responsible, her husband, was a rabbi. And I said, you have to find me a husband like immediately. I need one like immediately. And she looked at me like, you must be joking. Your husband only left what this morning and you're asking for a husband. And I was completely serious. I said, yeah, look, like preferably by, you know, if you could get one by tomorrow or, you know, maybe, you know, because really there's a whole weekend coming and I don't know how to get through the weekend. And I had that thing where, where people might recognize this thing where you honestly don't know how to get through the next two minutes it's not you can't even see

lunchtime you're just thinking how do I just get from like now to one minute from now just don't know what to do and also you must just question it's like a death but it's also one that makes you question all of your past life decisions. Exactly. Like what was a lie? And you certainly don't feel clever. I mean, you're meant to be a clever girl. People think you're clever, but you know you're not because the only thing you've ever really cared about, you had absolutely no idea about whatsoever.

So you've obviously got no emotional intelligence, no intelligence, no insight. You don't know about your own life. You know, you don't know how can you possibly know anything? And what does it matter if you've read a few novels and you understood those, or you can identify a hexameter, so what? Everything you cared about in your life, everything has completely imploded. So clever, who cares about that?

You're not clever, are you? You're an absolute fool. And then you look around and you see all the people hand in hand and entwined, and you see all the husbands schlapping along, the baby and the buggy and the suntan lotion and everything else and following behind a wife who seems completely ordinary but who he's obviously besotted by and you just think Jesus he loves her and he loves her and he loves her and they love

each other and they're together and they're together and they're together my parents were together until my mother died and my grandparents were together we didn't really have any divorce in the family just thinking, I must be so awful for the man I love more than anything, my children's father, to leave me. I must be beyond repellent. I just must be so chronically, unbelievably undesirable and hideous as a person

because otherwise, how could this have happened to me? What happened? Has he ever apologised, George your mother dying at the age of 57 and I'm just very aware how traumatic that must have been and I don't want to gloss over it I'm so sorry what happened why did she die so young oh she died of endometrial cancer and it got all sort of mixed up I think by doctors and by her with the menopause. So I think that what was actually happening was cancer, and she thought it was the menopause. And when she went to see doctors and surgeons and specialists, they didn't quite

realize either. I think that's primarily what happened. And then by the time they found out what it was, it was pretty much too late. She had two more years, and then she died at the age of 57. She was lovely. She was a history graduate. She read history at LSE then she died at the age of 57. She was lovely. She was a history graduate. She read history at LSE. She was at St. Paul's. She was extremely elegant and refined. She wouldn't raise her voice. She wouldn't eat in the street. There were many things she wouldn't do and didn't want me to do. And she was very keen on, you know, decorum and, you know, decorous behaviour and literature and all sorts of nice things, really. And, I mean, I miss her obviously every single day,

every minute of every day, really. And I felt that, gosh, when my husband left and my mum had died, I was 37 at this point and I had two little girls, and I felt that I had to be the mum, the dad and the grandma. I had to be the sort of, I had to be the collective cheerleader. So, you know, at the ballet demonstration at the end of the term, I had to be cheering for me and I had to be the collective cheerleader. So, you know, at the ballet demonstration at the end of the term, I had to be cheering for me and I had to be cheering for her. I had to be cheering for my dad.

I had to be, who wasn't, it was a busy consumer, some other woman that he'd taken up with. And I had to be cheering for the absent husband who was no longer around. I just had to be a sort of collective cheering team, which is quite knackering, actually, when you think about it, and quite demanding. So, do you... Gosh, isn't this awful? This is awful. gosh isn't this awful this is beautiful the most depressing interview you've ever done it's so beautiful and so riveting i hate it and do you know what it's going to help so many people

i'm gonna have a different life story the next time i come back okay all chirpy and cheerful but i wonder if you could give advice to anyone who is finding themselves in a similar situation. Because I do think one of the most powerful things for people going through heartbreak to this extent to hear is that you got through it. And you're now in a happy, thriving relationship with Ben Afaidu, who looks so lovely on Instagram. He's lovely looking. And he is nice. He's a lovely, natured fellow. And he's 10 years younger than me.

And we have nothing in common whatsoever. Not one oh that's brilliant not a thing i'm a big believer in having really sustaining romantic partnerships with people with whom you have nothing in common it works out fine yeah nothing whatsoever nothing advice well my gosh i mean all i would say really is the you know the dreadful cliche of it does eventually pass and when I say it I mean the shock the shock that sort of courses through you and the panic and the long-term catastrophizing and the belief that you'll never never meet anyone and everything will be awful forever and you're scared and you're lonely and you're shattered and all those things I mean time is the big thing that does kind of help because you can't remain

in shock indefinitely. At some point, the shock does ease a little bit and then a little bit and then a little bit. And then I just plunged into absolutely everything I could think of plunging into, particularly other chaps. I'd started dating the moment I got the chance, which was about, I don't know, let's say eight weeks after my husband left or something like that. And, you know, people think it's a displacement activity and they think you probably shouldn't do it and you should just sit with your grief for years on end, whatever that means. But I couldn't possibly do that. I couldn't bear the thought of doing that. And it's great to have a displacement activity, let's be honest. I had to, exactly.

A clean end to the displacement. Totally. So I was just busy displacing as much as I possibly could. And at least it takes your mind off it. Doesn't, of course, preserve you from being heartbroken by whoever the new incumbent is and having the most terrible experiences, all of which I definitely did have. But at least they were new experiences. It wasn't the same old grief. It was something else, you know, all of that kind of thing. So it is an absolute minefield, obviously, dating. It's very, you know, and this was all before the internet and all this kind of thing. So the whole thing was very difficult, but at least it was kind of distracting. That was one of the things I did.

We all went very, very blonde, including the girls. I told them they could swear, including the C word, which we'd never used before. I felt that it was the only word that would really do full justice. So they did, even though they were 10 and 13 at that point. It seemed like the only thing anyone who came to visit us ended up blonde and using the c word and you've got to do whatever you can to get you through don't you do you think looking back that you can get through anything now that you're strong enough to get through anything no I don't I don't think I'm strong enough to get through anything and there are some things that are too terrible to contemplate that I don't even want to say out loud that I know

I couldn't possibly get through and I'm still absolutely no good at all at being on my own, even for an hour. I really hate it. And certainly for a day, I really hate it. My own company, just being by myself, I've never liked and I've never been any good at and I'm still no good at all at it. I start to think all sorts of things and feel all kinds of things that are exceptionally melodramatic. So no, I don't think I can get through anything. And I'm quite surprised I got through this, quite honestly. Final question before we go on to your third failure. Do you think you're a workaholic? No, I don't think I'm a workaholic. I just think I've always been scared of not having any money,

really. You know, I had a father who, I don't know what you'd call him, amazingly parsimonious, or maybe character building. But you know, if you said, oh, dad, dad, can I have 10p for the bus fare? He would the next day be looking furious. And you'd be thinking, what have I done? What have I possibly done? And you'd say, dad, what's the matter? And you'd say, well, where's that 10p? Woe betide you if you said it's only 10p. My God, if you said it's only 10p, you've got the whole speech about 10p, 10p. Do you know how difficult it is to earn 10p after depreciation on the shoe leather and car tax and import export duty and, you know, paying the rent on the premises at the business and food and light and heat, you know, 10p to get 10p free and clear, Vanessa? Do you have any idea

that kind of a thing? So you felt completely worried, sick about money the whole time. And then if you get cleared out financially by your then husband, and then if you lose your job and you've got two kids and it's, you know, very, very worrying and precarious. And also, if you choose a career, which I didn't really choose, but ended up having, which is job to job and freelance contract to freelance contract, and the very real threat of nobody ever wanting to see you or hear from you again, which you keep thinking could happen at any moment. And also, you think about the people who are broadcasting, when I first really came to sort of public notice in 1994. And loads of them aren't still in the game. You know, they haven't been employed, not because they're no good at all, just because,

don't know, they fell out of fashion, or the new boss didn't much like them, or I don't know why, who knows why, you know, some people carry on earning a living and some don't. So it's a very precarious way of earning a living. And I've always been worried sick about not having any money. And I think that's the reason I work as hard as I do. I don't think I'm a workaholic. Do you think, and this is cod psychology at its finest, but are you so aware of life's transience, given how young your mother died,

that you want to make the most of every opportunity? I think so, yes. But then I also think, well, doesn't that mean not working? Doesn't that mean, you know, doesn't that mean weaving at my loom and, you know, smelling a beautiful rose and, you know. And now you've got to find time for that. Exactly, sitting in Monet's garden in Giverny and thinking, oh, isn't this lovely? I mean, what about that part? And I suppose be doing that as my mother died at 57, rather than getting up at half past three and schlepping into Radio 2 and being live at four o'clock in the morning then running across the road doing another show then jumping on the back of a motorbike to get to this morning because if I didn't go on the back of a motorbike I

couldn't get there in time and writing my column while broadcasting on the radio because I had to do that during Strictly because there was no time to write the column and go and do the dancing with James Jordan so I had to learn to speak and write at the same time and so once I'd learned that I carried on doing it so do I think that I'm trying to grasp every moment probably the wrong moments in the wrong way I kind of am aware of it I do think it's a bit extreme. Are you stressed? Well I might be because yesterday which was Sunday morning I charged at full tilt into Radio 2 just careering up the six flights of stairs and dashing into the studio and being absolutely aghast when there was no producer there. And then phoning the boss in absolute

panic saying, but there's no one here, there's no one here and it's five minutes till the show. And he said, it's Sunday. And it wasn't that funny at the time. It really wasn't that funny. And so, and also, I let you down one day by not showing up. And that's two things in a week. And I don't ever really do that. I know you won't believe me because you'll think oh yes you do I did it to me but actually I really don't do it so maybe I am more stressed than I know possibly but you don't feel that kind of churning anxiety I feel churning I feel anxiety I feel all of it you just got used to it maybe yeah maybe I think you need a holiday Vanessa but before you go on holiday I'll come with you I'd love it I think you'd be a great holiday good man before you go on holiday. Take me on holiday. I'll come with you. I'd love it.

I think you'd be a great holiday companion. Ditto. Let's go. Do you know what? I am actually great on holiday. I bet you are. Because I do properly relax. And also, you wear great clothes.

Oh, Vanessa. At home and on holiday. I like that orange thing you wore the other day. It's the best thing I've ever seen. I love that. It's from Zara. It's divine. Oh my gosh, you have to get it.

You look gorgeous in it. Thank you. You're really gorgeous. You look gorgeous today. Let's get dressed up and go on holiday. Okay, after this recording, we're going to book a holiday. It's going to be a riot. I am in.

100% in. Yes, please. I'm so, so glad you chose this final failure because... I can't remember now what I chose. I'm absolutely dreading what you're going to say. Oh, God. Because I remember this so clearly. And I was a huge Big Brother fan when it started. And this was the

first ever celebrity version of Big Brother. You didn't even get paid. No. It was for charity. You didn't even get a fee. No, no fee. For anyone who hasn't seen it, what happened? And why did you choose this as a failure? Well, this is the only one of the failures I've chosen that I think kind of ended up more successful than a failure, because I was choosing real failures that were absolutely abjectly hideous. But this one was much less of any of those. This is more lighthearted as a failure, really. So I was approached to do Celebrity Big Brother by Richard Curtis. And, you know, he's closest thing that we have to God.

You know, he wrote for weddings and funeral. He wrote The Vicar of Dibley. And he's married to Emma Freud. He's just, you know, he created Comic Relief. He's the most virtuous person in the world. So if he asks you to do something, you don't really say no. And it was for charity, for Comic Relief. And it was just going to be, if you stayed in for the whole thing, it was only a week. Obviously, there was no prize money. You weren't getting paid for it. These were the days before the phrase reality TV had really kicked in. And certainly the days long

before anyone said, oh, how much more reality TV is there I know we don't want to you know it wasn't a thing there's just been one big brother only one everyone started watching it when Nasty Nick naughty what was his name Nasty Nick Nasty Nick you know started cheating and then everyone was aghast because we all kept the rules in those days and that's when it sort of you know kind of bedded in and then this was the very first celebrity version. And of course, I said yes. And I really didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea. So this was 2001. So my husband had left in 1999. And I was still reeling. Yeah, still reeling. And if you'd asked me what do I think it's going to be like, I thought it was going to be like all other comic relief things where Sir Lenny Henry's playing football with some young chaps. And you know, everyone says

it's really great. And then they, you know, you pledge some money. I thought it was going to be like that. That's what I thought. And I suppose I thought it would be upbeat because it was for charity and it would say, oh, there's Vanessa cleaning her teeth. You know, there's Anthea Turner feeding a chicken. Isn't this nice? I just thought that's what it was going to be. That's how I thought it was going to be. And then on the morning of the actual thing, they came and picked me up and they went through my luggage for contraband and I suddenly thought god this is a lot more serious than I sort of thought what did they classify as contraband well anything you weren't allowed to take like a camera a pen you're not allowed books

I definitely not of course you're not allowed books you're not allowed books you're not a pen there are various things you're not allowed and obviously I hadn't tried to take them I wasn't trying to smuggle anything into a show that was for charity I wasn't trying to do anything wrong but it's you know and then they picked me up in the car and then my children were going to be brought later to wave to me as I went across the bridge into the thing and it was the first time we'd been separated since the divorce and as I was sort of taken off in the car with my case I suddenly began to feel all funny yeah and not nice at all and think, oh, God, what have I done?

Why have I done this? And then we got there and we kept in solitary confinement until the moment came to actually walk across the bridge, and I'm not good at solitary confinement. I don't like being on my own. I didn't like it. And then we were allowed to start walking across. In those days, you walked across.

You didn't have a big car to drive you up. It was a much less souped-up, kind of Rolls-Royce-y version of the show. It was brand new, and it was very, very understated in some ways. So I was allowed to sort of walk across the bridge. I believe, I think I was pulling my suitcase. I'm not quite sure. I might not have been. But anyway, and there in the distance, I could see my two waif-like orphan children just like looking and they already

looked pale they looked like they'd lost about half a stone since I last saw them that morning they looked they were starving and malnourished the whole thing was just absolutely agony and they were kind of calling mommy mommy and I was just having to walk across this bridge in the opposite direction it was just completely terrible I can't overemphasize how awful it was and then there were dogs they had big dogs to bark, to make you frightened as you went in. There was barbed wire. There was barbed, I swear to God, there was barbed wire and big dogs. And I'm Jewish. It had a massive kind of holocaust effect on me. And I just thought, my God, this is absolutely terrible. Every element of the pantomime of it

worked on me. I should have been a TV professional because in those days I was on television nine times a week. I did five Vanessa shows, four big breakfasts, maybe 10 times a week. And I also did Value for Money on the BBC on Thursday nights at seven o'clock. I was always on telly. So I should have known, you know, these are TV devices, you know, they're meant for the audience. They're not for you, you know, you're not meant to be. But somehow they had the most amazing effect on me. It absolutely freaked me out. And then we went in and an enormous door clanged behind us. And that was just the final thing. And then there was this really awkward bit where you were just trying to be, you know,

kind of likable and just get on with Jack D and just Chris Eubank and just, you know, Anthea and Claire Sweeney and Keith Duffy from Boys and just being just like one of the peeps and just down with the homies and all this palaver and just get on with it so I just thought a good thing to do would be just like wash up a lot I would just wash up and that would make me look as if I was a kind of approachable nice person I was washing up and washing up and that was sort of really weird and then came the nomination on the very first night for eviction okay and so everyone was meant to nominate two people for eviction. And then they announced who had been nominated. And it was Chris Eubank and Anthea Turner. And Anthea Turner began

sobbing, pitifully and wretchedly sobbing. And then there was this unbelievably hideous feeling of, oh my God, you know, she's a woman of 40 something, she's sobbing on TV. And here am I, and people might think it was all my fault, you know, whoever's watching, and we didn't know if it would be one person, or 10 people, or more, we didn't know, but if anyone was watching, they might hate us for the fact that she was crying, and then suddenly the whole thing just became absolutely, absolutely kind of epic, and terrible, and moving, and just really emotional, and then various people said they wouldn't nominate again, they just wouldn't, and then I was summoned to Big Brother's, you know, the diary room to be told, Vanessa, look, some people are saying they won't nominate. They've got to, because that is the

actual game. So can you please go back and say to them, they've just got to nominate. They have to, because they don't, we've got nothing going on here. You know, Chris Eubank was saying he'd draw straws, you know, just absolutely wouldn't nominate. Jack Dee was saying he couldn't stand it. It was terrible. And suddenly everything just got ramped up and ramped up to the most extraordinary degree. That was day one. That was day one. We'd only been there since about 11 o'clock in the morning. This was probably about seven o'clock in the evening. And it'd gone from, you know, this is a great laugh doing this, you know, reality show to absolute kind of feral, miserable wretchedness all at once with

Anthea sobbing. was just terrible and then I just felt worse and worse the whole time and then when it came to nominating the second time obviously you could not nominate Anthea how could you because she you know and so it was Jack D and I was nominated for eviction you hadn't done enough washing Vanessa I hadn't washed enough and well nobody could nominate Keith Duffy or Claire Sweeney because nobody was absolutely sure who they were in those days. Keith was the young guy from Boyzone, but why would you nominate him? He's lovely.

And Claire Sweeney was a young actress in a soap. You know, why on earth would you nominate her? And Jack D's funny. Jack D's funny. And Chris Eubankma then had already gone. So it basically left me. So it was Jack D and me. And I knew Jack D wasn't going to be a victim

because he was funny. I thought it's definitely going to be me. And I started to feel absolutely terrible, even though you're not meant to. You're meant to think, it's only a game. It's got to be one person. So it's me. So what? But I was at such a rubbish place in my life.

That's not how I felt. I felt like, oh my God, everyone hates me. And this is terrible. I've done something wrong. I don't know what it is. I'm on trial again, like I was in my marriage. I felt abysmally terrible. And it was right on television of 24 hours a day with a camera right

in your face. So first of all, we were all given a chalk and we were meant to do some game. And then when they said, Vanessa, give back the chalk, I thought, well, I've got nothing to write, nothing to read. And the table was a blackboard. So I wrote words on the table that meant basically locked up and stuck in this place like immured immolated isolated incarcerated and things like that I happen to be wearing a Cambridge English degree that's right and I happen to be wearing a leopard skin dressing gown and sunglasses at the time inside while writing this so obviously I look like an absolute nutter was I having a nervous breakdown no but was I feeling really awful yes Yes, I was feeling terrible. And then I started to think, well, the earliest I can go home is Monday evening,

because that's the next eviction. And at this point, it was probably, I mean, we came in on Friday. So we'd had Friday night. I think we'd had Saturday night. And it was now Sunday morning. And I realized it was going to be all the way, all of Sunday, Sunday night, and all of Monday. And somehow that just seemed too long. I just couldn couldn't stand it so I went into the diary room to say to big brother I just want to go home now yeah I'm not being paid I've had enough of it you know I came in now I want to go home and big brother said if you do this you'll be the most hated woman in the country because it was pre-counsellors it was pre you know there's a resident therapist I mean it's pre-mental health it was pre-mental health mental health wasn't a thing why do they care so they said if you leave now you'll be the most

hated woman in the country oh my goodness so that's when i started crying and all of that i haven't said the bit where i hang on to my chalk and tell big brother to fuck off which i did i was the first person in the world ever to tell big brother to fuck off and my children say that i was the absolute pioneer of people going on reality shows and crying. Yes. Because now everyone does it. I mean, it wouldn't even be a thing if you didn't sob and break down and all of that. But I was just sobbing and it was just terrible and awful. Anyway, eventually I did get to go on the Monday night. And honestly, within, I don't know, seven minutes of coming out,

I felt perfectly fine again. Absolutely normal and perfectly fine. It was such a culturally iconic few minutes. I won the TV Moment of the Year award. I still treasure it to this day. I could not believe when I went to YouTube it again that it's 20 years, over 20 years old. But it did have a disproportionate impact. I think it's because, I mean, I don't know why you'd have to tell me why you think it is. I thought it was because no one had ever seen a celeb behave like that. Yes.

Nobody had ever been that real ever, ever on TV, had they? Exactly that. And I think your authenticity is your superpower. I suppose. And that's why you can be on so many different formats, engaging and connecting with people. And you were being real. And I think for so many of us us it was the first time we'd seen that side well yeah it wasn't just me it was no one had ever done that before and I think for me

watching it when I did I was very impressed that you didn't give a fuck like it seemed so wild to me that there could you could be a woman and not give a fuck that someone was telling you to do something and not give the chalk that someone was telling you to do something and not give the chalk back genuinely because I suddenly thought oh fuck it you're only a researcher yeah fuck it there's no such thing as big brother what is this shit I just suddenly oh god I'm having this terrible time I'm not being paid I miss my kids I'm really miserable I want to go home I've had enough I don't like it and I want to go home and I'm not giving the fucking chalk back oh fuck off so that's what happened there with the not giving a fuck I really didn't give a fuck by then

when you came out what impact did it have on your career well I don't know how my career was anyway I'd already lost the Vanessa shows and my career wasn't exactly flourishing then anyway I don't think it did my career any harm I also don't really think it did it all that much good but I don't think it made any difference what I did happen was I got something like I think it was something like 11,000 letters from members of the public they just said like Vanessa Felt's big brother and the postman would just bring them in big sacks saying come and live with us we'll look after you we've got a back bedroom in you know Bogner and you know we'd love to have you are you okay you can bring the girls we're so sorry lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely letters from thousands of people.

And also I was given a bodyguard paid for by Channel 4 for six weeks after the show. And it wasn't because people wanted to attack me. It was because people wanted to kiss me and give me a cuddle. That's so lovely. Did that make you feel good? It was so lovely, yes. Yeah.

It was really, really great. And also the other great thing that came out of it was that Keith Duffy, your fellow housemate, introduced you to Ben. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Introduced me to Ben. And then we were both otherwise engaged at the time. But a very good few years later, because that was 2001 and we didn't get together properly till 2006.

Eventually, we bumped into each other in a nightclub, actually. And he said to me, I'm Keith Duffy's friend. And I said, I know, because of course I remembered him. He's really handsome. He's got a lovely lovely smile he's really friendly and nice and we got together eventually and yeah that was one of the best things about it the other good thing about it was I'm never short of something to talk about at a dinner party because everybody still wants to know yeah and I remember at the time thinking well okay everyone wants to answer and also and suddenly when I'd go on tv shows instead of playing the Vanessa show theme music which I've

been doing for years they play the Big Brother theme music. I was only there for three nights, three nights of my life. And suddenly Big Brother superseded absolutely everything else, which was a bit surprising. And I remember thinking, well, OK, it might be like this until the next series of Big Brother. But of course, when that comes, you know, nobody will bother talking about me anymore. But it's now how many years later? 21. 21 years later. And people look at this. People have not stopped asking me about it. But it's now how many years later? 21. 21 years later. And people

look at this, people have not stopped asking me about it. So it's never gone away. What about your daughters? I know that they say now that you really were the pioneer of this kind of emoting on national TV. But when you first came out, it must have been so amazing to see them. What was their reaction? Like how have they handled Vanessa the famous person I think they've got quite a healthy understanding of the good and bad parts of fame I mean I think they remember what it was like when they were little and I take them to Brent Cross to buy their school shoes and I'd be stopped every yard or so by somebody who wanted to have to take a picture or have an autograph or talk to me or tell me about their problems or whatever it was and all they wanted to do was

just get their school shoes so they remember that also they know that I'm just a person like any other person. There's nothing more special or less special about me than anyone else. They totally are aware of that. So they know that the kind of venerating of somebody you don't know, for whatever reason, is probably a bit of a hollow sham, you know, just because they're famous doesn't make them more interesting or nicer or even better looking or any other thing than anyone else. So I think they're quite aware of that. So they wouldn't be going around fanzining people because they know that they're just people. Plus, they've met loads of famous people and they're just people. And, you know, some are nice and some aren't. And some are interesting and some are not. So neither of them wanted to be famous.

Let's put it that way. One of them is a tax lawyer, now a lecturer in law. And the other one is a primary school teacher, but now a child psychotherapist in the state system. So they're far away from copying anything I've ever done. But, and they're always a good part of all of this, I've now got three grandbabies in there, eight, six and three. And I have another one on the way, please God, in September. And I'm now taking them to premieres. And it's, you know, the next generation. So they're still walking up the red carpet with me.

And they're still, I mean, yesterday we went to see The Railway Children Returns. And I went with the grandbabies. And so the kind of nice side of fame, where you get to go to nice things and see nice things and travel to nice places, that's still going on all these years later. And I can, you know, have really, really great times

with my grandchildren in the same way I did with my own children and that's a pretty nice thing and I've had a glimpse into what an amazing grandmother you are because of your thriving Instagram profile and I know that this is something that has come to you relatively late on because for years you didn't have a smartphone you didn't have social media and now you've taken the plunge with Instagram I want to know why but I also want to know more importantly do you care what people think of you I mean I definitely do but do you well I've got my comments switched off do you so no one can say anything about me clever so if they want to say you big fat Jew they can't because I don't want to hear it I just don't want I'm not

interested you know if they don't want to follow me don't follow me they don't like me fine but I don't have to hear about it just because they want to say it so I don don't want to. I'm not interested. You know, if they don't want to follow me, don't follow me. If they don't like me, fine, but I don't have to hear about it just because they want to say it. So I don't know whether that means that I get fewer followers because they can't say what they want to say to me, but I don't care what it means, whatever it is. I'm not prepared to hear nasty things and I don't want to. I don't see why I should and I'm not going to and that's that. Why did I start doing it? I started doing it because I realized that for various jobs I was doing, they'd say, and of course you've got to post. And I'd say, huh, I don't have social media. And they wouldn't think it was charming or eccentric or sweet. They'd look at me just horrified, like, well, you need to. And so I realized in the end, well, I better, because

it's obviously no longer a charming thing. It's obviously a stupid affectation that's just annoying people. So I better do it. What I didn't anticipate was really enjoying doing it, which I do. Good fun good fun I do like doing it and also I didn't anticipate it just zooming up because I've been doing it only since January the 1st of 2022 and I've already got 167,000 followers which is really amazing given that no one can comment exactly they can't comment I mean it's up to them isn't it they don't want to follow they don't need to follow but if they do I'm delighted that they are they can dm me and sometimes they do and that's fine I do reply never having followed anyone else in my life I didn't really know what the thing is to put on there I didn't really know so I just put whatever I wanted to put on there and just hope that I just didn't even know who

would follow or if anyone would or anyone would care less and very quickly Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby started talking about it on this Morning and saying, oh my God, you know, and Rochelle Humes is like, but you're in bed with Ben. What are you doing? You know, I'm not sure you should really be doing that. And I said, we're not doing anything

we're not supposed to do. It's only, you know, we're just chatting like Eric and Ernie. It's not a kind of sexual thing. So far, I'm enjoying it. If I don't, I'll stop doing it. And you said much earlier in this interview that the way you get through

everyone having opinions of you as a public person is to have certain individuals in your life who you know you can trust, who you turn to. Is that still the case? That's how you navigate the noise. I think so. Just to have a real life that really matters, that isn't a show-busy type or public type thing. show busy type or public type thing. And then you hope that, you know, the people who really matter will really love you and you'll love them and you'll be natural and relaxed and they'll appreciate you for the good things you do. And obviously no one's perfect all the time, but I'm doing my best to be. And my children do say I'm a fairy grandmother because I try to make everything

nicer for them than it really is and try and improve everything and make it, you know, have fun and do joyful things and have special excursions and projects and, you know, just lovely things, for example. So I've got a house in Ireland in East Cork, right on the sea. And we were just driving to the house and my grandbabies said, Zeke and Neroli, they're eight and six. There's this kind of big suspension bridge that goes over a busy road so you don't have to cross it. And they said, but we never get to go on that bridge. And I thought that's because we always drive under it whenever the people crossing over the road or it was the people driving along the road.

And they said, oh, but it's a really great bridge. So we had a party on the bridge, an actual party on the actual bridge. I can show you pictures of it. And we had food and tablecloths on the ground. And we did our party pieces and the traffic was absolutely roaring underneath. And it was just a great party.

It was absolutely excellent. Well, they really loved it and I really loved it and Ben was there and my daughters were there and we just had a good time on this bridge way up in the sky with all the traffic roaring along behind and I'm just hoping to leave a trail of really lovely memories oh what an image that's what I'm trying to do anyway I'm doing my best to do that you bring joy to your grandchildren but you also bring joy to the rest of us I want to ask you Vanessa final What do you think your failures have taught you? I really think my failures have taught me that failure is a really important part of everyone's life. And I

really did not know that. I certainly wasn't brought up to think that. And nobody at my school or university or my family ever said that. No one. No one said you will probably fail at lots of things. And that's absolutely normal. And everyone does. And there's no such thing as a life without failure. No one said that. In fact, the absolute opposite was said to me. I was told really, work really, really, really, really hard. Never be late, never be drunk, never be irresponsible or stupid. Always be diligent, conscientious, keep working and working and really, really, really try hard. And then you'll have success followed by success, followed by success upon success upon success. If you really

try your very, very best and your best is good, you will just do brilliantly well and everything will be better and better. I didn't know that things could happen despite you, and be terrible failures that really weren't your fault, and weren't your responsibility, and you didn't actually make a mistake. It wasn't that you actually didn't do something you should have done. It was just that something occurred in the wider world that had this horrible impact on you. I didn't know that. And I didn't know that it was an inevitable part of your life story that would just be a part like anything else. I didn't know that. And I didn't know that it was an inevitable part of your life story that would just be a part like anything else. I didn't know that. And I'm really pleased I do now. And I think that your wonderful podcast has been so instrumental. That's why I was so pleased and desperate

to do it, because I feel that it's giving a really important message, really important message. You know, however hard you try, however virtuous you are, however hard you try, however virtuous you are, however kind you are, however nice you are, however faithful you are, however slim you are, you know, whatever it is you're trying to be, however much you succeed in being that thing, still failure is part of your life story. It will be, there will be no foreseeing what it's going to be, which area you're going to fail in. And I know you've had some utter heartbreak yourself and too much of it in my view, and it's such a shame and really so difficult, but you don't know which area it's going to be in, but it will be part of the fabric of your life. And really, I think it would have helped had I known that, because at least I could have been a bit prepared. And at

least I wouldn't have so much blamed myself or been so shocked and derailed by it. If I thought, well, yeah, well, everyone fails at stuff. You know, Richard Branson's failed at business in various parts. People fail at Princess Diana, failed in her marriage. You know, beautiful women are left by their husbands or partners. You know, all sorts of things happen to people all the time. If I'd sort of known that, I think I would have been better armed to deal with it. And that's why I think the big lesson about failure is it's inevitable. It's really horrible at the time, but it doesn't have to be the sort of grand finale of life. And actually, even if you do fail late in life, it's just a part of the story of life. And that's something that's taken me far too long to learn.

It's a wonderful note to end on because by sharing your own failures you have performed the ultimate act of generosity to anyone who's listening and who will be tremendously reassured, entertained and seen and moved by you. Vanessa Feltz you are a national treasure, I love you. Is that is it too early to say? No it's fine. I think you're so wonderful, I can't thank you enough for coming on How To Fail. It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. 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.