How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S17, BONUS EPISODE: Lucy Spraggan on survival, sobriety and staying true to herself

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

TW: discussion of sensitive issues including sexual assault, suicide and addictionThis interview contains Lucy's account of sexual assault. That account starts about 30 minutes in and is flagged before we discuss it.I don't have many words to write about this extraordinary guest because I really need you to listen to her story, in her own words. The singer and songwriter Lucy Spraggan shot to fame as an X Factor contestant in 2012. She was just 20 when she was scouted to take part in the ITV series and she became an overnight sensation, with her audition watched by millions. But her time on the show was cut short after she was subjected to a horrific sexual assault. At the time, it was reported she had withdrawn from the talent contest owing to illness. That wasn't the case. For years, Lucy did not feel able to tell the story of what happened to her - until now.This is Lucy's only podcast interview and it marks the publication of her incredible and courageous memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through. It was Lucy, and her publishers, who approached How To Fail and it was only after extensive consultation with all of them that we agreed to sit down in an environment that felt safe and respectful to Lucy's experience.She is, quite simply, one of the bravest people I have ever met. This was an emotional and, at times, confronting interview. But what comes out of it loud and clear is Lucy's strength, her compassion and her resilience. Also, she's so lovely and funny too.This is not an interview about her trauma. She is so much bigger than that. This is an interview about the survivor that she is. We talk about sexuality, sobriety, reality television, the unexpected kindness of Simon Cowell and her journey to embrace the fullness of herself. I loved every second and I love Lucy Spraggan.--If you've been affected by any of the issues raised, Samaritans are here to help 24/7. Call for free on 116 123.--You can order Lucy's memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through here.--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpodLucy Spraggan @lspraggan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

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. In 2012, a young brunette woman wearing blue chinos and a white t-shirt from Georgia Asda took to the stage and auditioned for The X Factor. She sang her own song last night about hangover anxiety. The audience in the Manchester arena went wild. Within minutes, Bea Fear was trending on Twitter. When she woke up the next morning, Lucy Spraggan was famous. Until that point, Spraggan had been making a living selling photographic portraits on the street during the day and gigging in the evenings. She was the first contestant in X Factor history to score a top 40 single and album before the live shows aired, with the independently released Top Room at the Zoo. The X Factor would change her life forever,

but not in the way you might expect. Spraggan has gone on to be a successful artist. Out of her six albums, three reach the top 10, the rest are in the top 20, and her seventh, Balance, is released next month. And yet her journey has been difficult. She has, in her 31 years, experienced profound trauma and mental health challenges, persistent alcohol and drug issues, she has now been sober for four years, and the frenetic surreality of TV talent show fame. But throughout it all, her fearless ability to write things as they really feel and put those words to music has connected with millions. Now Spraggan has written a book. Her memoir process tells her story for the first time in her own words. It is searing, truthful, thoughtful,

funny and devastating. Whatever she went through in the writing and the living of it, the thing that strikes you most is Spraggan's ability to connect with others. It has perhaps been a longer journey to connect with herself. As she writes, I sometimes feel like I have been trying to prove who I am my entire life. Lucy Spraggan, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much for having me. I don't think I took a breath. The whole of that is so wonderful. Thank you so much for that introduction.

It's extremely difficult to do you justice. And we will find out more about this during the course of this interview. I am so deeply grateful that you have chosen to speak to me today. And I know that it's your first interview about process, and I'm very honoured. And we also wanted to flag to the listener that during this interview, we will discuss rape. And if that triggers you in any way, then I will put in the show notes the point at which that discussion starts. But we've also made a decision after chatting beforehand that when we reach that point, we will use the term sexual assault because you are profoundly aware of how that word can trigger

others. Yes. So how are you feeling about who you are today? Off the back of that quote that I ended the introduction on, which is that idea that you've been trying to prove who you are your entire life how's that journey for you today well based on a response from that quote it's I just don't feel like I have to prove anything anymore to anyone because I feel like I'm always trying to just it's not about proving anyone this is about finding out and I'm constantly just finding out more about myself and every day I feel more compassion towards myself and that's where I feel like you start to win yes like more compassion less competition I don't feel like I have to prove anything some days I do yeah some days I'm like, oh no, I'm worthless. And other days, easier. It's not binary.

That's beautiful. More compassion and less competition with others, but also fundamentally with yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I want to do that awful thing that journalists sometimes do, which is like quoting lyrics to you that you have written. And there was an amazing one.

Let me just find it. Let me just leaf through my notes okay I don't want to get it right from your track bodies released in 2023 when I study my reflection and the harshest words get through say I'm not my thoughts this is my house and these are my rules tell us what you mean by that well I've struggled with my body image my probably entire life, I'd say. And it's so difficult to look in the mirror and see something or feel something. We think we're seeing something that we hate, but in reality, you're looking and it's the way you feel about yourself. And when I was trying to work on my body image through the various channels,

self. And when I was trying to work on my body image through the various channels, somebody told me, you are not your thoughts. And that one sentence, I was like, of course. You walk along the street and your brain says, jump in front of that bus. And you're like, whoa, absolutely not. Where did that come from? You can do it with all the other thoughts too. You just have to remember that there are channels of your brain that aren't helpful. And so when I look in the mirror and I go, I lift up my top, I have this mirror checking obsession. I lift up my top and now I go, you better not be looking to see if you can see some abs. You better be looking at your stomach and about to say, thank you so much for your digestive, like all of the beneficial things you do for me inside your stomach. digestive, like all of the beneficial things you do for me inside your stomach. It's just about changing my narrative and I have to do it all the time, but I am not my thoughts. Yeah.

I love that. And part of the structure of process, which I think you can tell are bloody loved, is that you write letters to your younger self, which I have always struggled with as a concept, although many a therapist has tried to make me do it, because it feels quite cringe. But you do it in an extraordinarily powerful way. How helpful was that in sorting through your self-thinking? I mean, writing the book for a start was the best thing I've ever done for getting answers about myself. I can link things directly from my childhood to things I do every day now. And I think, wow, I didn't know that. But the letters to myself, it is cringy. Loads of stuff in therapy. What therapists leave out, right, is that it's all really cringy there needs to be a book that says by the way the cringe is so normal

like oh let me write a letter to myself horrible let me practice mindfulness in every I when I walked here I was doing somatic breathing while I was walking along really small movements with my hands and I thought if someone looks at me and thinks I look crazy that's fine because I'm being cringy in my own little world but I realized how powerful that was when a friend of mine told me a piece of information about themselves and they said well I don't feel anything about that it was really traumatic for them as a child but they were saying now I don't feel anything about it I feel completely numb to it and I said well what about if that was your 10 year old nephew or niece or whatever and they said well I'd be outraged I'd be disgusted and I said you are that child if you can just take your

name and your face off the experience the anger that you feel thinking about that child you know you are that child so that's where the compassion started for me I started to think well I was that child and even when I wasn't a child last, I've got to have compassion for the bad decisions I made last week or last year. I know I say compassion a lot, but... It's very powerful. I want to get into your failures extremely quickly because they're so good and they provide so much of the starting point for any conversation I would want to have if I'd come up with my own list of questions. But before we do, I want to talk about you a little bit as a child and I want you to tell me about Max.

Yes, well, I was Max. I don't ever remember being a little Lucy really. And there's a few pictures here and there. But for the majority of time of my childhood, I was a little boy. I was called Max. And it wasn't that I wanted to be a little boy. I wasn't a tomboy. I was a boy. I was a boy. I was called Max.

I went to the barbers with my brother. I climbed trees. That's a boy thing. I'm trying to think of all the... You wore boxer shorts. Yes. And it wasn't that I was ever pretending to be anything I was living my most absolute most authentic self I was a boy there's a story in the book about where my school friends heard that my name was Lucy

and they were like Max's real name is Lucy we need to find out we need to do our digging our investigation in the playground they came up to me and said we've heard that you're a girl Max's real name is Lucy. We need to find out. We need to do our digging, our investigation. In the playground, they came up to me and said, we've heard that you're a girl. And me, little Max, was like, no, I'm not. I talk about knowing. And we all know about knowing. When you know something about yourself, whether society deems it true or not, you know it. And that's all that matters. And I said, well, I'll'll prove it to you I'll prove to you that I'm a boy and so I stood there and I unbuttoned my trousers and everyone was staring at me and I pulled my trousers down and had my boxer shorts on and all the little boys went oh yeah see we knew you were a boy and the simplicity of that is what we lose as we get older.

You are who you say you are. You are actually who you are. I still believe that now. I was a little boy. I was a little boy until puberty. And back at the turn of the millennium, there weren't the options that we have today. And people really struggled to get their head around the fact that if that was an option today I'd have loved to still be Max and I think a lot of the issues I had with myself and my body

image were based in the fact that puberty stopped me being Max and my mum was amazing my mum said okay Max I'll call school tell them that you're Max. You wear the boxers, you go get a short back and sides, you're Max. And that's all I needed. That's all I ever needed. Had I decided to stay Max, she'd have said, absolutely. And the power in that is such a privilege. And I know it's difficult for people to understand because you'd look at me and think, oh, there's a woman, blonde hair.

I've got fake boobs, actually. And Max would never have believed that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm still comfortable being a woman. And I've had to really undo all of that my whole life. Yeah. Although it goes much deeper than this, your fake boobs are a result of weight loss that came about when you discovered fitness and so that's all kind of intermeshed as well isn't it it's not that no yeah I didn't get fake boobs because I wanted bigger boobs I hated my body and I decided that I hated my body because

I was fat because that's what society had told me that we hate our bodies due to the size and shape so I lost three and a half stone and I had pretty much a bodybuilder's physique. I had super low body fat. I developed an eating disorder. I carved out this physique and I still looked in the mirror and thought, I still hate myself. What? And it wasn't until Kenny Ethan Jones and Charlie Craggs, I had a conversation with them and they said, do you think you're sort of like self-hate of your body and your body shape? It's not to do with weight at all. It's to do with gender identity.

And I was like, oh, wow. I'd never even thought about that. And I'd had my boobs done at that point because when I had such low body fat, my body ate every piece of tissue on my body including my boobs and I was left with grade three ptosis of the breast which means they're completely flat and when I went to the surgeons I thought I might just have top surgery that didn't even cross my mind that that's not what cis women really think no one said anything because you know what my family would have just and my friends

would have been like yeah cool do what makes you happy such a privilege my sister my mum told my sister said oh yeah we had this conversation that if you transitioned to max now none of us would be surprised do you miss max now do you feel that he's still with you or is you what's really hilarious but i have to check myself all the time because if I don't negative thought process can take over the other day I got loads of trans male friends right and the other day algorithm threw up trans man with this amazing beard and instantly I thought I don't like them I don't like that person and I thought oh one sec what are you doing here I was jealous of his beard I was looking at this picture of this beautiful trans man I don't get jealous of

cisgendered men's beards just trans men's beards and it just shows how sort of like how you can feel that you think you'll be you don't like something but whereas actually there's a deep-rooted sort of jealousy that that's not you do you know one of the reasons I'm not trans is because of how much hatred and prejudice and bullying happens towards trans people thank you for saying that I've never been in the presence of anyone who has said that before. And it's very important to be able to vocalise that. There's a lot of things that we think we don't like. And sometimes it's because we're not that. I accidentally wandered into a, I say, I wandered straight into an anti-trans protest the other day in Birmingham. And I say I wandered into, I walked into a protest and I said

what is this and I realized what it was and I cried I cried because I thought how many of these people are here protesting against somebody being their authentic self and I could look at almost everybody there and say you are angry because you are not being honest with yourself and if more people could redirect their anger into all of the ways they're not being honest with themselves there'd be a lot less angry people in the world I know because I was one of them yes and you grew up with anger at the same time as you grew up in an environment of acceptance in one way and there's nothing so beautiful as that innocent impulse, your first impulse being acceptance. But there was also anger on your dad's side. There was one

passage in the book where you talk about holding his hand as he headbutted a street vendor. And those two things competing for attention. And I was really in awe of how honestly you explored your own anger I mean this was anger that was getting you arrested street brawling how angry are you now I realized and actually this is through the absolute privilege that is therapy that it's a lot easier to be angry than it is to be sad and often our like reactive and impulsive feelings are rooted elsewhere and I talk about in the book about generational trauma because people say it all the time and I thought what does that mean and I realized that my anger is actually rooted in sadness but it's so much easier to throw a table than it is to sit and cry.

Nobody wants to sit and cry. Sometimes I'm angry, but again, I have to check myself and say, come on, what are you really? Are you sad? Are you scared? Sometimes I'm really scared and that makes me angry. I become hypervigilant because I'm so scared. That comes out of anger. But the thing with generational trauma is like,

I watched someone be angry. I watched them be violent. And then I demonstrated that. And I, at the same time, have compassion for my father's anger because I don't know where that came from. He may well have watched his father or his father's father. The aggression and the anger, the rage that I walked around with might have spanned a hundred years we don't know but the thing about generational trauma is that once you realize it you can be the one to stop passing it down and if I ever have the privilege that is having children I will try my very best to not pass down my anger. Let's get on to your first failure. Yes. When I tell you that I read Lucy's failures and they made me cry,

that gives you just a tiny glimpse into how much thought you clearly have put into this and how beautifully you write. Your first failure is failing to moderate dot, dot, dot everything. So tell us about that. I just never got it. I never got the memo that you could just not do everything to your absolute fullest. Black and white thinking, all or nothing, go big or go home. There was never any option to go home.

So I just went big. Everything, like relationships, I thought love was about this desperate thing where you had to, you know, you had to give everything, every single part of yourself in order to love. And I thought when I started to learn about fitness, I ran for the first time, six weeks later,

I ran 10K. and then six weeks after that I did my first half marathon. Insane. You know it's a superpower sometimes it's awful if you don't know that it's there it will just eat away at you. You're a classic overachiever like pushing pushing pushing burnout then you can't do anything else for a little while and in other ways it's incredible I woke up one day and said I'm not going to drink anymore whenever you tell somebody that you're sober lots of people go well I don't really drink either I only have oh my god all the time all the time of this I only have a couple of glasses of wine a week and I'm like yes but I woke up one day and I really did you know

I've had a terrible relationship with alcohol since I was in single figures and one day I woke up and I said I'm not going to do this anymore and I managed to apply my lack of being able to moderate to something positive but it really has shot me in the foot a lot of times. Can you tell us about the roulette table? Look, I have a tattoo that says all on my head. Oh, my God, there it is. And that era of my life, I was just taking risk after risk after risk. And they associate with, you know, trying that much sort of risk and that trying to, like, wake up your central nervous system

and just, like, I wanted to feel something and I'd got my record advance 75,000 pounds which is a tremendous amount of money and I'd been out drinking all night with my new band members and my tour manager who was my best friend as well we're at roulette table and for some reason I just said 74 grand all on red and the whole casino just turned around like in a film the piano stops playing and everybody just swings around me and they said you know for high stakes bets we need to contact the floor manager because I couldn't even stand up and the guy guy comes and he says, are you sure? Like, you sure this is what you want to do? And Ben was looking at me so desperately. And he was like, no, she doesn't want to do this.

She doesn't want to do this. And I argued with them for ages until somehow they managed to convince me to just put a thousand pounds down if I did have to bet, to just put a thousand pounds on the table. And I did. And they'd been holding the ball because I was like, no's the next roll it's the next roll and they spun that table it was forever and the whole casino I mean they were let down that it was just a thousand pounds at this point but everyone's still watching and it'll be onto the red and everyone just erupted

walked away with double the money. Could have been a lot more money but in the flutter of a butterfly's wing I could have had no recorded bounce left. How much of this is to do with neurodivergence do you think? I think a hell of a lot. I think so much and so much of my life makes so much sense when I realize that my brain is quite possibly a little bit different and I recently was speaking to a psychologist who said what's your experience with street drugs and I said which ones and what's really funny is I said that when I'd taken Prozac it nearly killed me it was horrific me, really did not work with my brain. And this psychologist said, well, they make drugs for neurotypical people because you have different

neuro receptors or, you know, your brain's different. So she said, what happened when you took street drugs? And I said, well, I used to take MDMA and all my friends would be jumping around a club and I would, I'd fall asleep in the corner of a club there was this running joke that they'd say are you all right loose and I'd go I'm having a really great time with my eyes closed and it just does make sense to me that of course drugs would work differently on a brain that's built a little bit differently I'd never thought of that and it seems so obvious now that you say it so obvious yeah and the reason I was so obsessed with coke was because what I think I have is ADHD I'm yet to be assessed a huge deficit in dopamine so anything that tries to sort of boost you up to get a bit

more alcohol drugs food gambling social media sweets anything that you can use to just try and get yourself up to baseline you'll do And your brain just wants more and more. I'm just an extremist and I have been since I was tiny. I had no fear. What do you think out of that list of substances has been the most damaging extreme for you? Alcohol. Because it's so fine.

It's so fine. And if we just discovered alcohol the thing is i'm not an anti-alcohol person i'm not like lots of my friends still drink but it broke me in so many ways and it wasn't until i got sober that i really had to deal with myself i had to really sit down and say okay you're to have to do some work because alcohol just covered everything up. I'm just going to take the edge off, have a glass of wine. And the problems feel like they're gone,

but they're not. It's so dangerous. It's so dangerous. And it's so fine for us to do. If they discovered alcohol now, I'm sure they'd say, this is illegal. It's so interesting to me that you were struggling

with alcohol when you released and performed that song last night on x-factor which I remember watching at the time and it was a beautiful audition but it also felt kind of light and funny. And actually, there was some real issue there, wasn't there? I always say, if you played that song in like a minor key, change the vibe. It's just a list of things that are probably not that funny. But they were funny to me at the time. And that whole lifestyle was funny to me at the time. It's like Laudette, the peak of Laudette cultureette culture this is the thing i wouldn't change any of it it's so weird to say because

alcohol landed me like as you rightly said in police cells and landed me in a lot of trouble and heartbreak and ultimately then probably the worst thing that ever happened to me but it also helped me learn so much about myself. And yeah, that song, I've always used music to observe who I am. Yes. And that was true. You're writing letters to yourself. Yeah, and it was.

It was true. That was me. Yeah. 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, 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. Peyton, it's happening. We're finally being recognized for being very online. It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo.

All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions, if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second then join me hunter harris and me peyton dicks the host of wondery's newest podcast let me say this as beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mass we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to we're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news like it's not a question of if drake got his body done but You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry.

The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. From last night to one of the most visceral passages in the book is when you are driving in the car and you find yourself not wanting to live anymore yeah and your dog Steve is next to

you can you tell us what happened yeah in 2014 I had reached this part of my life where everything was dangerous I couldn't be alone because I knew as soon as I was alone my thoughts just completely swarmed me they completely take over and my thoughts were not positive and one of the ways I tried to avoid my thoughts was with drugs and alcohol and after a big bender with a friend of mine I found myself on my own and I knew it I knew what was going to happen I was like I'm gonna kill myself I didn't have like a plan I think I describe it in the book as you know when you step off the road and a car very nearly misses you and your whole body is on red alert oh my god that was so close it was like that but every single millisecond it was getting worse and I've never experienced anything like it. And I got in my car and I was hysterical.

I was just crying and crying. And I was using the steering wheel to try and call friends. But it was six o'clock in the morning and I knew no one was awake and no one was picking up my calls. And I had my dog. I got my dog Steve in 2013. And he's the love of my life. He's my best friend. And he was only little.

He was in the passenger seat. I didn friend and he was only little he was in the passenger seat I didn't know he was there I didn't know I have so much compassion for anyone who has ever tried to take their life and even more for anyone that successfully took their life because I felt that there was no choice I didn't think about anyone I couldn't think about anyone it's like an alarm and I shut my eyes took my seatbelt off and I just put my foot to the bottom as far as the accelerator go and I felt the car move forward and I shut my eyes and I went to turn into the central reservation and there's this little noise that dogs make when they're play fighting or when they want someone to know that they're just they're just messing about it's gonna be all right and steve did it

he did his have my eyes shut sobbing and he just did that that little sneeze out of his nose and that was all it took for me to like that was it i just pulled over onto the hard shoulder and i just sobbed and i've never felt that again. And I nearly didn't survive that. I'm so glad I did. So am I. In the outline of your failure, you wrote to me that the fact that you're nearly four years sober is because rather than doing the all, I decided to do the nothing,

which is another version of your extremity. I know that there will be people listening to this who might be in a struggle with alcohol, with drugs, and with the concept of sobriety. And I know that you write very honestly about going to a few AA meetings and deciding with respect to AA that it wasn't quite for you because you didn't want to stay trapped in the sadness of your past self so how have you done it other than being addicted to an extreme like how have you done it what support have you had when I did go to AA and I discovered how that all works I went to four four of them and I like you say I put it in the book my experience of it and I one of the things that stood out to me was that you needed a higher power I really struggled with I thought I actually

went up to this woman and said excuse me can your higher power be yourself and she said no and I thought this can't be for me then because I need to know that when the worst of the worst happens, when life is incredibly stressful, if somebody dies, if something just awful happens, I need to know that it's me. I've been there with my foot right down on the accelerator. I can't be trying to call a sponsor because at that point, no one picked up the phone. Like, I can't be praying to something. I need to look to myself and say, you can do this now. It's cool. You've got it. I don't know praying to something I need to look to myself and say you can do this now it's cool you've got it I don't know where that came from I don't know and if anyone is listening and

thinks they could never imagine themselves sober neither could I and if I could go back four and a half years ago and tell myself that I was going to be four years sober, I would have hysterically laughed in my own face. I used to be that person that went up to sober people. I'd be wasted at a wedding and I'd see a sober person and I'd be like, how? How are you doing this? And now I'm the person that people come and ask. You can change anything. And I mean that directly to whoever is listening. You can change anything. And I mean that directly to whoever is listening. Things feel so dependent on your environment.

And they are rightfully dependent on privilege, 100%. And the people you're around, it's really hard. It's hard, but you can do it. And I believe that for anyone, truly. Thank you, Lucy. I just really believe in everyone. I do. Your second failure, and this is the part of the conversation where we are going to talk about the sexual assault. Your second failure is taking part in the X factor, and as you put it, denying your knowing. part in the x factor and as you put it denying your knowing so let's start there what did your knowing consist of at the time that you agreed to go on the x factor what was the instinct that

you ignored so I was scouted for the x factor which is by far a less glamorous experience than I anticipated somebody saw me playing at a gig and said you're great do you want to come and do the x-factor but the thing not to leave out here is that she was a beautiful Layla yes she was beautiful and she knew that and she said you know would you be interested in doing x-factor and I was like no way I'm not doing covers and she said what would it take and I was like you know if I could do my own music I'd think about it she's like yeah no one no one's really done that before but I will let you take me on a date so I was like I'll leave all the musical purism like to wherever like you know I'm going on a date with Layla. I'd say even then, my instinct, my knowing said, don't.

Because what people didn't know about me is that I'd already released an album. I'd been around America playing my guitar. I'd won a support slot for Joan Armatrading with a BBC introducing competition. I'd been to the BBC introducing masterclasses at Abbey Road. Stuff was really happening. I had three and a half thousand followers on Facebook then, which was loads. And life was great. And I could feel this momentum. I knew that something was

going to happen. And I effectively had two paths to choose from. I knew that I shouldn't have done that. But I did. There are times in life where I look back and think, there's a crossroad there. There was a crossroad. And I can't change the past. But I did know something then. And it kept happening. You say it kept happening.

So you did your audition with Last Night. There's that however many thousand people cheering, not letting you get off stage. You had to do encores. And overnight, as you write about in the book you become famous it's like flicking a light switch is what you say in process and your album and the single go into the top 40 top 10 and the x factor lawyers call you don't they yes and then what happens they said you need to take your

album down and the single down and i'm like wait what i mean it did them no favors this was just a self-released album that i made in my mate will's kitchen and i did i distributed that on a distribution platform myself i put it out there out there and made the artwork, all that. And I took that down. The distributor got in touch and said, this album's going to be number one. If you take it down, that's not going to happen. The lawyer said to me, you know, this is in your best interest. You might regret this further down the line. I don't know whether it was said directly or the impression that I got was if you don't take this down you're not continuing in this show and once again I chose the show because it did feel like the biggest thing that would ever happen to me yeah and then as the competition goes on they tell you this is the most

important opportunity of your life this is it and that's fed to you from the second you're involved in it and I mean that like that is drilled into you. And it happened that the judges' houses, I was told I needed to sing Whitney Houston, I Will Always Love You, and I massacred it. And I remember saying to them, I don't want to do this anymore. I do not want to do this anymore. This isn't what came here to do.

I want to sing my songs. And I know that that's not the typical way, but that's what I want to do. And I tried to leave. I said, I don't want to sing my songs. And I know that that's not the typical way, but that's what I want to do. And I tried to leave. I said, I don't want to do it. And the producers, once again, this is your biggest opportunity in your life. If you leave now, you'll always look back.

And actually that didn't even work. So they left this bar that I was sitting in in St. Lucia and Talisa and Caroline, flat, came down. And they said, Luz, come on. This is the biggest opportunity you're ever going to have. And so I stayed. And ultimately, I stayed until whatever my instinct was telling me was going to happen, something bad, did.

So you get through judges' houses. And what happened subsequently would have repercussions for the rest of your life. And this is the point that we are going to start talking about, the sexual assault that you survived. But before we do, I would really like to ask you why that terminology is important to you. I have struggled as with many victims of rape with the word rape at some points has stopped me completely in my tracks and I acknowledge there are other words that do that to other people not necessarily the same for me but there are trigger words for people and I want anybody listening who wants to listen to this story to be able to listen to it without the

jagged words that hurt them so much but I also want people to know that I was raped and I don't want to undermine the severity of what happened to me by using a more sensitive phrase but I want to use a more sensitive phrase to protect the people that have been through the same thing that I have. And that's what we're going to do. You become very good friends with Ryland, former How to Fail guest. And you two are quite mischievous together in the most lovely way. And you will go out of an evening and have a few too many drinks. And the tabloids love it and at that stage all of

the x-factor contestants have been put up in the corinthia hotel in london and then you and rylan are moved and then what happens lucy so rylan and i were moved into another hotel without any security so all of the contestants had a 24-hour security guard at the Carinthia. The thing is, when you're on a show like that, the public see a caricature of you. The production pick out little parts about people that people love, and they emphasize them. And for me and Rylan, it's that we were these, you know, if there was authority, we'd say, nah, and go and do our own thing. And people loved that, so we did it more. And we don't know whether it actually was the Carin the Corinthians that requested we leave or whether it was a look those two have been chucked out of a swanky hotel they put us in a different hotel and upcoming that week was the Halloween

week it was Ryland's birthday party which was at Mahiki in West London and everybody was there Nicole Scherzinger was there I mean Nicole Scherzinger was there. I mean, Nicole Scherzinger was there. That's all I can really say to you. It was amazing. It wasn't like anywhere I'd ever been. And everybody was drunk. When I say everybody, I mean like everyone, the runners were drunk, the celebrities were drunk, we were drunk. And it's a part in my book. I spoke to one of the runners recently who was party to everything that I'm about to explain. And she and another runner were the only sober people there.

And during that party, she turned to the other person and said, someone's going to get hurt. And it turned out that that was me. I don't remember leaving the club. I don't remember much about being in there. The alcohol's free. When you've grown up around not very much, anything that's free you will just rinse.

And I was bundled into a taxi. I was taken to a hotel by the runner. The runner couldn't lift me up on my own. So on the way up, one of the hotel porters offered to help so under one arm is a porter under the other arm is a runner and I was taken up and trucked onto my bed I don't remember any of this this is what I have what I know now I was wearing a pumpkin I was wearing a pumpkin and because it was a Halloween party, we'd been given these costumes. So I just envisioned that.

Later that night, Ryland came home from his own party. I say home. He came back to the hotel from his own party. He'd been drinking all night. And something, something told him to go and check on me. And I would not, you know what, I would have not done the same for him. I would have just gone to bed. And Rylan, sweet Rylan, came to my room. And as he came to check on me, he pushed the door.

And the door opened. And he realised that the door had been put on the latch. You have those little metal latches in hotels. And that had been put across. And so he pushed the door and thought that's strange walked up to me took my pumpkin costume off I wasn't responsive so he checked my pulse made sure I was breathing and took me in and more most importantly Ryland took the latch off he moved it and he shut the door I know now that the next person to let themselves into that room

was the hotel porter who had been the person to leave the latch across because the intention was to come back to my room and to rape me. And that's what he did. And because Rylan had the, whatever it was, knowing to come back and check just that I was okay that I was safe the next morning I woke up and I went into complete autopilot like I just went about the beginning of that day as if nothing had happened and I knew something was terribly wrong. And I told Ryland. And I didn't know what had happened at that point. I just said, I can't even really remember what I said.

And Ryland took charge, absolutely took charge. And later that day when the police had been called and Ryland had just been this incredible leader, calm, rational leader who just saved the day, they told me the hotel porter was in custody. And had Ryland not have come to shut that door, there would not have been that traceable keycard that gave all the evidence to arrest this man and I mean there's so much more to add to this story and it's all out there now you've read it but when I think about the chain of events in long form I look at it and I'm just like this was such a failure on so many levels but that is what happened and I've protected my right to

anonymity for the last decade because I had no other choice I couldn't have talked about this before sobriety before healing before that compassion that I've found for myself, because I was so ashamed for 10 years. I cannot find the words. All I can say is, I'm so sorry that happened to you, and that feels too little, far too little. And I'm so in awe of you for surviving and for talking about something that goes beyond the level of normal pain.

Thank you for your strength in telling us about that. The criminal who did this was put behind bars for 10 years. Well, I actually found out on Saturday that he only served four and he was deported immediately sentenced to 10 years but was supposed to be deported immediately I only recent I found out last week that he was in the country for three months I don't know where so And so I'm still discovering things about what happened to me. So much more so after writing this book. I had so many questions and I'm getting them answered now. And there's still moments where it's like, ouch.

Like that was a moment because I've been in, I have been in prison for a decade. Every time somebody said to me, are you that girl off X Factor? My name, my face became synonymous with the X Factor. And those words to me were synonymous with my sexual assault. Yes. And I was plucked from the biggest moment of my life. You know, everyone thought,

this is the biggest thing you'll ever do. I got plucked out of that in the most traumatic fashion and I didn't really understand the gravity of that until I wrote this book I didn't grieve for the opportunities that I lost that was stolen from you yeah the x-factor said that you had to withdraw from the following week's competition because of illness and then the message was put out that you had decided to quit what actually happened how much care were the x-factor producers and itv as a whole how much care were they showing you i was a corporate problem i was a corporate problem we as contestants were corporate commodities from the beginning in my opinion were not treated well we were so tired we were exhausted we were drunk we were stupid we were just so tired all the time

we were controlled you didn't see your family we staged an escape once rylan and i we took everybody all the contestants we ran up to Nelson's column and you know what we did he sort of went I'm gonna have to go back because that's what happens if you're being controlled you go back but at that time I was told initially they said what what do you want to do they took me back to the hotel that it happened in I had to sit in a room opposite I was like I can't I can't and I remember not being able to talk I had no vocabulary I remember saying the same word over and over again and they put me up in another hotel they put me in a hotel where there was I think I was on the 11th or the 13th floor it always

jumps around in my mind but it had a double balcony door. And they shut me in there. They put a security guard outside my door. And a few hours into being in there, the security guard knocked on my door and said, you must be really bad. You must be a right tearaway. I look after Saudi princesses and Formula One race car drivers,

and they got me looking after some tearaway X Factor contestant. I just shut the door in her face. And I sat down on this bed and thought about jumping out the window again. And I had a girlfriend at the time who was living in Thailand. And I said, I need her. I need her to come back. I just need her. The person I need.

Someone from my old life, not this circus. And I said, please, please, can you fly her back? And they said, no. She had to borrow the money from her grandma to fly herself back. There's so many parts of this story that, like, one of the worst is that they discovered, because of beautiful Ryland and his formidable character, they discovered that the guy was from India.

And so one of the producers came to me and said Lewis the doctors have told us that there's an increased chance that you're gonna contract HIV there's a higher much much higher risk because of where he's from and you need to take this drug well they didn't say you need to take they said you can take this drug pep and it will shut down your immune system i don't even know the science but you're less likely to contract hiv they said it also makes you really ill really unwell so almost like the matrix with the blue pill and the red pill they were literally holding their hands out and saying like take this pill and you might not get hiv or don't take it and you'll be well enough to carry on with the show. And at

this point I've been so conditioned that this is my one chance, this is if I fail now I fail forever, I will never get this again and I said to the producer, no thanks I'm gonna carry on with the show. You see I'm so sorry. And the part that makes me sad about that is how let down I was. I just feel sorry for myself. Yeah. And I wish I could have just marched in and said don't worry we're gonna take you somewhere. You don't have to worry about anything. They asked me within days what we gonna say Lucy. I was like I don't know and I said just

tell everyone tell everyone what happened but that wasn't actually what they were expecting so do you know what the next thing that happened to Lisa turned up and just like on the beach she coached me loose I don't think you should say this now. And I have nothing to hold against Lisa. I think she's excellent. She's just another young woman trying to extend her moment to shine. And that was exploited. And in my exploitation, I see everybody else's. You were 21?

Yeah. Looking back now, who do you blame? There is one person who can be blamed for that act. And we all know who that is. And I'd love to say that justice happened, but now that I know how short that sentence really was, I'm not sure that it has. However, there was, and still is, I imagine,

a huge failure in duty of care towards me. Not just my physical self, but my mental self. Because, as you know because you've read my book, after the live final of X Factor 2012, I was not contacted again by ITV, by Fremantle or by Psycho. I wasn't offered ongoing mental health treatment. I wasn't offered work. I wasn't offered a secondary platform to kick my little rowboat back off and start trying to rebuild my life and my career. More importantly, my life.

Because it destroyed it. And that's the biggest failing. We know who is to blame and if the question was different, if the question was who failed, it's clear to me that the people that were supposed to look after me at that time failed me. It's profoundly beautiful and courageous that you've chosen this as your second failure. And it's not your failure at all. It's the failure of other people. It's the failure of that man who stole something from you. It's the failure of a corporation who I believe left you on your own to deal with one of the worst things anyone any individual could ever have to deal with you experienced PTSD for years you're probably still experiencing it

I still do yeah even to come here yeah so I have issues staying in London full stop I can't be in a hotel room that's laid out in a certain way, in the same way literally 50% of most hotel rooms are, you know, a bed on the right hand side, TV on the left hand side, because I was sexually assaulted in a room that looked like that. I started EMDR to try and help with PTSD, but no, I still suffer for this. It's really funny because I used to be like, I don't think PTSD is real. When I had it, I've completely dissociated and do sometimes. It happened to me in the last room on the left of a long corridor. And oh my goodness, I don't know what the universe is doing,

but a lot of hotels I stay in, I walk or I go up the lift and I look at the little thing that says which room I'm staying in and I'll look down and it's down the left and I think every single step I'm going no no and I get there and it's the last room on the left and just stand at the door yeah can I hold your hand The things that get taken away. Yeah. Small things like I panic about staying in a hotel. And then I think about the bigger things like me being 21 and having that experience and having that opportunity. And it just being torn away like I'm still dealing with it all.

And EMDR, by the way, is the way so hardcore yeah but I think it's working for me and if anyone is listening that suffers with PTSD I mean I'm with you yeah there is one unlikely hero in this story alongside Ryland and that is Simon Cowell yeah will you tell us what happened there because he wasn't a judge the year that you did X Factor so you'd never actually met him but it is his company Psycho that produces X was that right yes or that assigns the artists 10 years passed and I nearly killed myself and I did a lot of things I didn't know why I did them and the answer is because I was severely unwell for years Caroline died Caroline Flack and when she died I thought this is it now I remember thinking it's over now because they have to change they have to they have to come and get us so Caroline Flack died by suicide and that's what

you mean they have to come save the they have to save the people that are left like they will see this and say we have mistreated people we have left people on their own and they should have never been on their own I remember seeing that and thinking there's going to be a shift in her name and I saw the kindness and I saw the fleeting industry shift and I just thought ITV were going to come selfishly. I was like, they're going to come for me. They're going to help me because I'm in a fucking mess. And they didn't. And I said to myself, I've released an album every two years,

as you so kindly said in your intro. And I said to myself, if my next album, which I released in 2021, if that reaches the top 10 then I'm gonna write this book because nothing has changed and I want to change it I want to be a change maker like I can't sit here and watch anyone else die I can't die so I wrote this book and I started writing this book it wasn't a book it was just like this charged angry like letter it was me just being like why did this happen and as you know you can't write a book that's a question you can only write a book that's like I know the answer so here's where I'm gonna start and so I wrote a letter and it was a letter that said tell me what has happened and I sent it to ITV I sent it to Fremantle I sent it to Simon Cowell I sent it to

Sony and you know when I did I've heard so many horror stories conspiracy theories about upsetting the apple cart and I said to my friends I just sent this letter that says I'm writing a memoir and I'm going to tell everyone that what's happened including the way they treated me and I said if you find me full of, if you find me full of drugs, if you find me full of alcohol behind the car that's in a ditch and I'm dead, that was not me. And do you know what's mad? I have been warned since by friends in the industry to say,

be careful, be careful, just be careful. And just to touch on the anonymity aspect of it, your decision to tell your story is a waiving of your right to anonymity as the survivor of a sexual assault. Yeah. That's right, legally, isn't it? Legally, yeah.

The press knew everything. The gallery was completely full of press when he was sentenced to 10 years. And I have been poked and pried for this story for the last decade. And actually, it's been used against me. Sent a press release to a newspaper in 2014 that replied saying, if Lucy's not willing to talk about what happened in 2012, we're not willing to talk about Lucy.

And plenty of other stuff. However, to bring it round to the more positive response, I received responses from each company. The response that I got from ITV, I remember exactly where I was and I sat down on this step and I felt like any ounce of like worth that I had built, they took a pin and just shoved it into my side and I just deflated any ounce of self-worth that I had left. We're sorry that the experience you had on X Factor was such an unhappy one, is how that started. Unhappy, unhappy, because a birthday party and they said there's nothing they could add. It was like

you've seen the letter because I published it in the book, it's the most throwaway, you've seen the letter because I published it in the book it's the most throwaway I can't even explain it and it made me feel like a piece of shit that actually I wasn't worth it all along of course this is how I should feel because I was irrelevant all along and it took me a few days to be like wait wait wait don't let that undo the hard work they're bullies I got a response from Fremantle slightly more elaborate but still no apologies and it all just made me feel a bit disgusting and then one day I got a call from an assistant at Psycho and they said Simon Cowell wants to speak to you would you mind I said actually I'm playing netball at seven the guy on the phone was like yeah um he called me actually he called me the next day and I recognized his voice immediately

which was really bizarre because like you say I've never met him he wasn't on my show and this voice his voice because you everyone knows his voice he said the first thing he said and I bear in mind I picked up this phone call ready to fight I was like warrior woman and he said the first Lucy before either of us say anything the first thing I need to tell you is that I am sorry I am sorry for everything that happened to you I've thought about you for years I'm sorry in that moment so much of my life changed the power of accountability from somebody someone said to me I am so sorry and like it was like you know when the clouds break in the sky and and one line of light just comes down. It was like that just hit my skin for the first time.

It stopped raining for the first time in a decade. I couldn't speak back. I didn't expect that from him. I joined the big army of X Factor and Britain's Got Talent contestants who were like, we hate Simon Cowell. We were treated badly contestants who are like we hate simon cowell we were treated badly by the show and we hate simon cowell and kind of the more i got to know him and the more he put his neck on the line for me because you know as well as i do the people around him would have said simon do not engage with this girl this is bad news I know it's his decision to call me and all I wanted all along was to be

treated like a human being and he was the only one that did that you say he's like family to you know he's yeah and it's so confusing to me because I see the realness in him he's one of the most famous people on the planet right and that even when he said hello, and I thought, oh, my God, that's Simon Cowell. And I don't really care for superstars. I've walked down the street with him plenty of times, and it's hilarious because there are near-car accidents. It's beep, beep, Simon, Simon, Simon.

Everybody, there's not a person that walks past him that doesn't recognise him. I was famous, like, light switch famous, for a short, brief period of time. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. He's had that for years. And we started talking about stuff a lot deeper than X Factor. We started talking about each other's brains and thought processes

and love and empathy and vulnerability. each other's brains and thought processes and love and empathy and vulnerability and I just was like oh you're just you're a human being and I hated you I didn't hate you I hate and I think the conspiracy for me is that we're supposed to we're not we're not supposed to hate the corporate company that treated us like a corporate commodity because they rely on these shows being huge so they can make money from advertisements. The Celebrity Judge, those guys are getting paid regardless of how many viewers there are. But we hate them.

And do you know what's really funny? It wasn't until writing this book I thought, why do all these extraordinary things happen to me? And I've realised, I think, it's because extraordinary things happen to me and I've realized I think it's because I am supposed to tell stories yes I am hoping now that the things stop like I'm saying to the universe that's enough yeah and they sound really strange it's a privilege to tell this story it's such a privilege to hear it and it is such a powerful talent that you have to stare the truth down, to stare it in the face and to convey it in your stories. And that you haven't lost that. No matter what you've gone through, you've never lost that. It's a superpower. I'm so grateful for its existence. that. It's a superpower. I'm so grateful for its existence. It's like you are a bonfire of clarity and you're exactly who we need. And I'm so proud of you for telling your story. I can only begin

to imagine the amount of strength and resilience that that took and how many times you might have wanted to stop and turn back and do it all over again and yet here you sit Lucy Spraggan just ineffably powerfully yourself and no one has taken that from you what could ITV have done to make it better and what should they be doing now and are they failing well I can't change anything in my past I can't change anything that's happened it's done I couldn't tell you what should have been provided for me at the time because I don't know how it would have panned out yeah that happened it was bad moving forward funnily enough I'm an expert the other day I was thinking what am I an expert in I'm an expert in being the contestant on a reality tv show what I would like to see from this what I would like to be a change maker I want to build I am not interested in tearing anyone

down or anything down I am interested in building on what we have it's my belief that when a reality tv production is created there is a budget there should be a nominated percentage of the gross budget that is taken and put into a mental health pension fund for anybody involved in the production of that reality tv show from runners to contestants to producers to anybody all it means is that for the rest of their lives there is a resource there is a mental health resource for all of those people to go to whether or not there's a system that deems whether they can access it whether it's appropriate just needs to be there if great idea if itv need an expert to come and tell them i know i know 12 every year who were

on a massive show who can tell you how to make life better for those people and i believe that this mental health pension as an industry standard should be available historically because mine was not the only life that was ruined and I say ruined I'm so privileged to have had a music career yeah when people come to me and they say are you that girl off x-factor which I changed every single thing about myself in order to not be recognized I look like a different person I know that my friends who have had to go back to their jobs who have people come up to them every day and remind them what was. Are you that bloke off there?

That's hard too. It's really hard. And in terms of just having a bit more compassion for everybody, what I want ITV to know is that we are not corporate problems. I needed somebody to call me and say, I got you. What do you need? And I actually, what's funny, when Simon said, what do you need? I said, nothing. You just did it.

This was an acknowledgement as a person. I know so many people who need it. What do you think of, you know, I sit before you as someone who is a willing consumer of reality TV. And I've spoken a lot about my love for reality tv as a viewer less so the talent contest side of things but what do you say to viewers of these programs should we stop watching them oh and here's the point where i say i want to build there are people from impoverished areas people who don't have roots into the industry they want to be in they don't have the funds they don't have the privilege the environment to start music career

I know plenty of people like that who made their careers on a platform like the x-factor Britain's Got Talent Love Island we need those because actually it's kind of a class thing is that how are you going to find your way into the industry if you haven't got those platforms? We need them, we do and the viewers are doing nothing wrong. We need to protect those people, we need to build on the shows, we need to say what's going wrong and how do we prevent it from getting worse actually how do we make it better so that everybody can have their cake and eat it we can all watch the shows we can partake in the shows and it's funny because everyone says the same thing to me well you know what you were getting into how could you here's the thing about life is you never know you never really truly know and it's the same for any

reality tv show and I think a very very basic start point would be to offer everybody the help that they need fame is unbelievably bizarre it's a phenomenon we're not as humans we're not designed to actually experience it so we need something to counter when you become famous I remember putting the Hunger Games on and when they met the survivors of the Hunger Games and they were explaining to them and I thought I can't watch this I can't watch any more of this absolutely I couldn't I couldn't watch it because actually when you go on a show like that you should have an old hat come and tell you what you're getting into a mental health pension fund is a superb idea but listening to lucy

spraggon is also something that i just recommend anyone with any interest not only in reality television but the human condition and the spirit of survival. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for talking about that. Thank you for allowing me to. There's one more failure. Yeah. Your third failure is believing everyone. Everyone.

Okay, so tell us what you mean by that quite literally you believed everyone from the day you were born believe everyone I believed I have always felt like I've had really good intentions like even when I've done things that weren't good they started off as this like blind intention just I thought everyone really knew what they were talking about and I just believed everyone and when I sent these off I thought maybe it should have been that I never questioned anyone but no because I did question people and they'd give me an answer and I believed the answer as well I don't know I said when I wrote the answers I don't know if it was like toxic optimism or neurodivergence or the way

I was parented that made me believe everyone I just did and it kind of plays into the failure of being on the show because they were saying this is your biggest opportunity and I was like oh yeah and it wasn't it wasn't You know the biggest opportunity of your life is whatever you want it to be. It's waking up and getting out of bed. Or it's going on a walk with your dog. It might be playing to Glastonbury. But don't let anyone ever convince you something. You're knowing.

Whether it's buried beneath grams and grams of whatever drug you choose. Or whether it's buried beneath pints or cakes or whatever is that you do it is there and you could tap into it and it's fucking hard and sometimes it tricks you you gotta always question yourself and question everybody else too i still believe people are good right even though there's been a few demonstrations of the fact that some people aren't, I still believe for the majority, we're good. But just check that sometimes. I think where it comes from is your purity, like the purity of your vision and of your truth. It strikes me that truth is the most important thing for you. I don't know if that's going too far, but like it feels like, is the most important thing for you.

I don't know if that's going too far, but like it feels like, and also the truth is such a heavy thing to see all of the time that to my mind, no wonder sometimes you had to rely on the crutch of drugs or alcohol because it's just such a heavy thing to see all of the time.

You're actually seeing. It's so funny that you say that because I actually really struggle like walking down the street with my girlfriend she's gorgeous and she's really tall and blonde and just beautiful I always think she's gorgeous and I see men being really disgusting sometimes and I try to like frame it in a different way like you were saying then I see it right yeah and I know that it's the truth and I actually know the intention behind it and it's like oh no yeah I hate that and it makes me

angry that's another time when I feel like oh no because I try to lie about it in my head and oh no he's just doing this or it's like x-ray vision yeah and I do see things for what they are yeah and I imagine you also have an extremely strong protective impulse for yourself for like younger Lucy but also for the people around you because of what you've experienced so put those two things together that's a very powerful headspace to be in I've really struggled with hypervigilance yeah really and I started fighting proper fighting mixed martial arts a couple of years ago and I boxed for a while and doing jiu-jitsu having men in my guard you know they're lying on top of them between my legs at first was unbelievably difficult yeah unbelievable you know like it took my breath

away oh my god oh my god I remember being flattened by somebody and just panicking I just reassure myself you know you're good don't worry about it and learning actually strengthened that sort of thing pushing myself to an absolute limit having the clarity of being sober I can run I can run away I can fight if I need to all of those things do help me manage my fear and my I want to protect people I want to protect everybody actually and most of all I want to protect myself and it's funny because I never used to want to tell the truth about anything really I just well you might not want to tell it but you knew it that's that's the distinction isn't it and that's like a yeah you're not encouraged to tell the truth in this

society but absolutely not yeah and I will yeah and I am and everybody calls me you know everyone calls me blunt because you're right society thinks the truth is super blunt and you should be more humble cover things up for other people absolutely not you said that part of believing what everyone told you led you to believe that you had to live a heteronormative life which I find super interesting can you tell us a little bit more about that I came off the x Factor and I couldn't be alone. We already talked about that. That was horrendous. I met somebody. I superglued to her.

And I got married to her. And I wore a suit and she wore a dress. And we bought a house. And we bought a car. Doors opened wide enough to get a baby seat in. We became foster carersers and I was really trying I didn't know it at the time I read this book called Queer Intentions I think it's by Amelia Abraham yes yes from Vice and I'd never even heard of the term heteronormative

that's how heteronormative you were I I'm not even joking. And I didn't realise that actually, culturally, and it is, it's like people say to lesbians all the time, oh, you just rush into things and you shouldn't be like that. And I've started being like, no, actually, that's part of my culture. I've always been trying to deny it and go, no, no, I should really slow down because the straight people told me to. And actually, now I'm like, no, there's a blueprint that I have yet to really work out what it is I can go and have a baby with my friend I can do

whatever I want I love it and I read queer literature now because Laura Kay's wild things just about a group of queer friends who move in together in this house wonderful because why not I can do whatever I want you've got divorced I just wanted to say that because you mentioned a girlfriend and we didn't get to the end of your marriage I didn't want people to think that you were a bigamist no but what it does go into in the book is all the ways that discovering myself I caused so much harm to all of the people around me and my ex-wife and our friends and our extended family and in finding myself I don't for one second want to devalue their experiences because it was horrendous for them

and I was doing things that were terrible and I am incredibly sorry for all of those things that I did and that's one of the reasons I wanted to put it in my book, because I can't hide from that sort of thing. And my book, Process, is completely about the process of finding out who you are. Well, it's not actually, it's about me finding out who I was. I'm talking to myself still. And I still don't know. I don't know what I want to do, what I want to be. And I don't know what I want to do what I want to be and I don't think I ever will and that's fine it's fine you are a beautiful magical soul and although you wrote this extraordinary book as a means of self-discovery I know for a fact it's going to help so many people I found it impossible to put down I found it spoke to me so deeply and movingly. And I thank you for writing it. And I would like to draw this to a close by quoting from it. You write in process, I've made a lot of mistakes, things I wouldn't do if I could go back in time. But I can't. And that's the point, isn't

it? I suppose they aren't mistakes, they're lessons. All of those things are part of who I am, who we are. It's all part of the process. Thank you so much. Lucy, thank you so, so much for coming on How to Fail. Thank you. It's been an absolute privilege. 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