Love Lives - Carrie Hope Fletcher on loneliness, fantasy, and leaving long-term relationships

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

This week, we speak to Carrie Hope Fletcher, an award-winning West End star, YouTuber, and bestselling author. Carrie discusses her latest book, With This Kiss. She spoke about the process of writing romance novels, where she gets her inspiration from, and what drew her to write about a woman whose kiss gives her the ability to see how someone is going to die. She also opened up about breaking up from a long-term partner.(LINK)Check out Millennial Love on all major podcast platforms and Independent TV, and keep up to date @Millennial_Love on Instagram and TikTok.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity and war. This week, I am very excited to be joined by the wonderful Carrie Hope Fletcher. For those who don't know, Carrie is an award-winning West End star and is currently playing Cinderella in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. She's also a bonafide YouTube star and now a best-selling author. Today she joins me on the show to discuss her latest book, With This Kiss. We discuss the process of writing romance novels, where she gets her inspiration from, and what drew her to write about a woman whose kiss gives her the ability to see how someone is going to die. It's a fascinating premise that I never would have come up with. I'm so excited to get started.

Hi Carrie, how are you doing? Hello, I'm good thank you. How are you? I am really good thank you. So tell me about this novel with this kiss. What is it about? I know I just gave away quite an essential plot line. That's right, people will find out soon enough. It's about a woman called Lorelai who, as you said, has the power to see how someone is going to die when she kisses them, which means she's sworn off all romantic relationships because she just doesn't want to go through the trauma of seeing how the person that she loves enough to kiss them. She doesn't want to go through seeing how they're going to die. And she also wonders what's the point in a relationship if you ultimately know the ending? What's the point in reading the book

if you know the end of the story? So she's sworn off all relationships that is until she meets the wonderful Grayson um and Lorelai is a hopeless romantic at heart she's so invested in books and movies uh more specifically books being adapted for the screen um so she always throws herself into these really romantic stories and loves them because they're so hopelessly romantic. So she actually finds it very, very hard to swear off romance as a whole, which means when she meets Grayson, it's all that more difficult to swear him off as well. It's a great concept. And I mean, it's such a, like I said, it's such a unique idea, the whole seeing how someone is going to die kind of premise. How did you come up with that? And what kind of drew you to that really interesting power that she has?

Yeah, I've always really loved a dark story. I grew up really loving Tim Burton, like Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride. I love all of his stories, but I love how all of his stories do have an element of romance to them. Even things like Beetlejuice, like there's a whole element of romance to the Maitlands and how, you know, they interact with each other and how they both die together and how they're going through this journey together. So yeah, I just love a dark story, but I am also a hopeless romantic at heart I've always loved her uh you know a romance whether it's dark or or like your classic rom-com um so kind of combining those two things has always been a really big passion of mine um and I had yet to write a book that had

kind of skewed towards the darker side of things um not this much anyway um so yeah I kind of took that challenge for for this one um and really enjoyed kind of combining uh the the two the the dark side of things with the light and fluffy romantic side of things well I think romance is dark isn't it it is yes when you break it down unless unless it's a mutual affection for one another, which it rarely is. There is quite a lot of darkness in love, as we talk about on the show quite a lot. So I want to ask you a bit about fate, because I think so much of Lorelei's power is rooted in this idea of, you know, knowing what's going to happen. Yeah. happen yeah and even though the thing she's predicting is about a person's death obviously a lot of that then dictates her relationship with that person and whether she wants to attach or

detach from that person knowing what she knows so I want to ask you a bit about this idea of fate when it comes to relationships because I think so many of us we kind of cling on to like oh it's meant to be if it's meant to happen it's gonna happen how do you sit with that and do you think believing in fate when it comes to relationships is a positive and healthy thing to do or can it actually be quite damaging there's a there's a huge question within the book about her power and she she asks um herself whether you know when she kisses someone and sees how they're going to die, is that a changeable thing? Or is she sealing their fate by kissing them? Is her kiss literally the kiss of death? Is she making what she sees an inevitable future? Or is it something that can be changed by that individual's actions from that point onwards? And there's, she kind of ends

up testing that out within the book, quite a dangerous game for Lorelai to play. But yeah, I've always been fascinated with the idea of fate. And if we're all just on a path that has been dictated for us that, you know, we don't know yet, or if it's ever changing, if every decision you make leads to like a fork in the road and we choose one or the other. I'm completely and utterly fascinated by that. And yeah, I think the question of relationships comes like ties into that so heavily because we do romanticize these ideas of, you know, I'm with the one I'm, this is meant to be, I met you for a reason. Um, and often if we kind of cling onto those questions, especially after a relationship has ended, you know, it's all wonderful when we're leading up to a relationship and we're like, oh yeah, I've met the one. This is the person that fate has led me to. I have met this person for a reason. And now the rest of my life, our paths have merged and that's it. But then after

a relationship has ended and you've broken up with someone you're then left with well that was I thought that that was the person I was meant to be with so why has fate now like is was this always meant to happen in which case what a cruel thing for fate to do to lead me to this person only for them to have broken my heart or to leave me in this state of despair um it yeah you can kind of latch on to those questions and drive yourself crazy after a relationship before a relationship they're peachy but afterwards not so much i think weirdly i think that's quite a lot of comfort to be found in that there isn't there like if you if you cling on to this idea particularly if you're going through a period of uncertainty or darkness or in a wakeful breakup and you kind of go back to this idea with like okay everything is happening exactly as it is meant

to happen it does give you a source of reassurance doesn't it because I think it it tells you that everything's going to be okay and yes you had this relationship and maybe it didn't work out but maybe you weren't supposed to be with that person forever and the person that you are supposed to be with if they exist is still out person that you are supposed to be with, if they exist, is still out there. And I think there is, you know, I know that I've, when I've been through difficulties in my personal life, I've often sought the help of like a psychic or something.

Totally get it. Yeah, because people tell you everything's going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine. Like, yes, I know everything's going to be fine, but I want someone to tell me everything's going to be fine who actually knows it's going to be fine I need someone of authority to tell me it's going to be okay yeah someone who can see into the future yeah and I know before we started recording we're talking a little bit about tarot tell me about what draws you to that because that makes a lot of sense that you've

written a book like this and you're interested in that kind of yeah I don't want to call it spiritual but what's what's the word for it um I guess I've no idea I guess it is spiritual in a sense I guess it is in a way isn't it spiritual yeah in my head I'm thinking witchy but it's not witchy it feels it it feels it I totally get it um no I've I've recently really become interested in it and I think it is because I recently went through a breakup and I have a tendency to try and force good things to happen. I'm constantly chasing good things and seeing, you know, where I can find opportunities to make, you know, good things happen for myself. And it's exhausting. It's exhausting to constantly be trying to not, I guess, well, yeah, I guess it is trying to force things to happen for myself. Um, and I need to learn just to sit back and go, do you know what, what will be, will be, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. Like it, I don't need to put myself through the stress of trying to make stuff happen for myself. And I've, like you said, I've gained a lot of comfort with tarot cards um with doing like a

reading every morning even if it's kind of just like a nice ritual morning ritual to go through it's kind of nice to have a thing that I just do every morning which kind of brings some comfort in that sense um but also doing the past the present the future and if the future card is something positive or even if it's negative it's like like, you know what? It doesn't matter because it's, it's going to happen regardless. And just knowing that or feeling like whether I know it or not, just feeling like I am on a path that's already been laid out for me and what will happen will happen whether I tamper with it or not, whether I try and force it to happen or not. And it just gives me, um, it gives me comfort and it makes me relax a bit more it makes me go good things will come my way whether I'm trying to force it or not

so just chill yeah chill flat yeah me too have you um have you ever tried reiki no but a friend of mine swears by it I just tried that and um I would recommend if you're if you're going down this route and finding the stuff interesting and helpful I i had it a few weeks ago and it's it always really freaks me out i've had it once before and it really freaks me out because you don't tell them anything and i didn't i haven't when i've done it and they they do the reiki and they pick up on all these signals based on your energy and they suddenly just tell you all these things about your life that they never would have known yeah and it's it's bizarre um but it's really helpful and there's a lot of talk about you know being on the journey and being at the start of something and having like a shift of tech time you're 28 right 29 yeah 29 okay so sort of like satin return kind of situation. Yes, I've recently read about that as well.

Yeah, there's a lot of that in the air, I think. Yeah. It's funny, I watched, last night I watched this brilliant film called The Worst Person in the World. Have you seen that? No, not even heard of it. It's really good. I highly recommend it. It's a Norwegian film and it's about a young woman who has just turned 30 and is kind of questioning every aspect of her

life including like her relationship and her career and she's just very it's just full of like uncertainty and I think it really kind of characterizes the latter half of your 20s which right feel more angsty than ever before I think because of because of losing two years of the pandemic yeah yeah of course I know there's probably going to be a lot of um skeptics listening into this podcast going they're talking a load of old nonsense but I think but I think whatever like brings you comfort do it if it's not hurting anybody else if it brings you some sense of um of comfort and peace and um relaxation because I I feel like it really makes me just chill out and stop stressing about things that I definitely cannot control. I can't control what's going to happen tomorrow.

I can only control me and my actions and what I do and say. So, yeah, I know there's going to be a lot of people listening to this rolling their eyes probably. But that's it, isn't it? Fundamentally. Yeah. And I think when you break it down fundamentally all we're saying is there are things that are going to happen that are completely out of your control yeah and that in of itself does provide a huge comfort because it's just like well there is only so much I can do all I can do is control my own thoughts and my own behaviors and you know the power of the mind is is more than any of us can really reconcile with so if you you can tell yourself I'm okay I'm gonna be

okay yeah yeah at least I hope so that's what I do um I want to ask you a bit about one of the consequences of Lorelai's uh power because obviously you know she keeps it a secret from majority of people in her life as you would if you had something like that and it's loneliness and it's an incredibly isolating experience for her how do you think that affects her romantic decisions and kind of hiding hiding something from people and being so alone I think it massively affects her romantic decisions because if she can't even trust her own mum or you know her family and she doesn't even have many friends Joanie is a character who's her best friend. And that is pretty much the only friend that she has

who she does entrust with this secret ultimately, like in the end, eventually. But yeah, I think if you can't even trust your inner circle or if your inner circle, it consists of one person, the chances of her talking about those secrets with a romantic partner are slim to none there's just no chance which is another reason why she's kind of sworn off relationships it's not just the trauma of seeing someone that she loves die it's also getting past that part and revealing this part of herself that she thinks

is monstrous she thinks it's you know the worst part of herself it's something horrendous it's an affliction it's something that she would never really want to share with anyone uh because she feels like they like she barely understands it herself so how could she ever expect anybody else to understand it um which i think on a to a lesser extent we all deal with on some level absolutely i mean this is what i was going to say in many ways i think it's a metaphor for a lot of the shame that women in particular carry around with them when they enter into relationships you know it could be something like um an insecurity about the way you look or an insecurity about a part of your past or something you know

we carry all of that baggage for lack of a better word into a relationship were you kind of thinking about that when when you came up with this idea of like something to sort of symbolically represent a lot of the yeah a lot of the shame that women carry around with them I suppose yeah um a little bit it was definitely in the back of my mind um whilst I was writing it but it's funny now that I've gone through a breakup it feels even more relevant than when I was writing it and was within a relationship um because one of the first things I said when I uh went through my breakup um I was with that person for five years, essentially four years, like officially together a year whilst we were on tour and like seeing each other, but it was still five

years of getting to know someone and having someone get to know me. And the first thing I thought was, I can't be bothered to go through that again. I can't be bothered to go through revealing those parts of myself that I don't really let many people see because they're the more private parts of myself or they're the bits that I would only ever show someone who I really, really trusted. That was the first thing I thought. I was like, I can't be bothered to go through all of that again. I can't be bothered to go through the stress of wondering whether this person is going to understand or whether it's going to be a massive turnoff and they're going to go, oh, actually, I've changed my mind. yeah yeah it's it's it's bizarre it's funny what you say about breakups because it does make you think

like once you've been through something like that you're like god why do we do this to ourselves I am never gonna put myself through that I'm never gonna fall in love again it's yeah it really is yeah it is and it's so it's so lame because everyone always says to you the only thing that is going to help you is time but it is genuinely the only thing that works it really really is it's just excruciating to to get through it it is excruciating um one of the other subjects you touched on in the book is um negging which i yeah um for those who do not know listening can you describe what negging is and where it comes from because you reference a book in in your novel that is based on the real book

and guess it comes yes so negging is um it's where you kind of backhanded compliment someone um so for instance you say oh you're you're really hot for a girl with big teeth so like you're you're kind of putting someone down at the same time as giving them a compliment so it's like a really weird disguised insult and kind of makes someone feel insecure but then also really flattered that that person has paid attention to you in spite of something that you're insecure about. It's horrible. It's awful. And yeah, I actually, it comes from a book that I don't really know that much about because I've tried to stay as far away from it as I possibly can. But the reason I know about it is because I was walking back through Piccadilly

Circus on my way home from work when I was in Les Mis, I was about 21, maybe 20, 21. And this guy came up to me and I had my headphones on. So instantly I was a little bit disorientated by the fact this guy just approached me out of nowhere. And he shook my hand, but then wouldn't let go of my hand. And he said, what's going to happen is I'm going to give you my phone and you're going to put your number in my phone and we're going to go on a date next week. And I was like, ah, ah. And he literally thrust his phone into my hand and I gave him his phone back and I said, I'm really sorry. I've got to go and get my, my train. And then he said, oh, I, you sound American. I usually don't date American girls, but you sound really hot. And instantly I was like, oh my God, oh my God,

what is going on? and then he explained to me I kind of like tried to rebuff his weird come on uh and he said oh a bunch of like me and my friends we're trying out this this book there's this book that we've all got and we're trying out like we're trying to see how many girls we can pick up using this book and I was like yeah I've got to get my train I'm not going to be one of them see you later and I ran as fast as I could into Piccadilly air circus tube station holy shit I cannot believe first of all I cannot believe that that happened and I cannot believe that he admitted yeah he just kind of said it yeah I was a guinea pig I was like what what is going on right now oh my god that is wild yeah so this, so I've written about this book.

It's called The Game. It's by a guy called Neil Strauss. And it is all about, it's basically a pickup artist. Sure. But for a long time, it was seen as this like ultimate Bible for straight men on how to pick up women.

And it's only really been in the last like decade, because it came out in like 2004 or something right early noughties that people have started to realize that it's basically a guide for people artists and like it has a lot of like associations with like insult culture and it's obviously incredibly problematic but this is so bizarre but the negging thing I think is still very prevalent in flirting culture. And it's difficult because it works. I think it works a lot of the time, but it's obviously really toxic. Do you think, do you agree?

You think it works? That was the only instance where I'd come across it, but I would not be surprised if that was something that, yeah, that worked. Because it is people just preying on the most vulnerable, insecure parts of others. And of course, if someone kind of picks apart something like that, but then straight away offers you a compliment based on that thing. Yeah, I totally get why people wouldn't. And sometimes they're really well disguised. Sometimes you wouldn't notice negging unless you were really well aware of exactly what it was. So if you weren't clued up on stuff like that, I think it would be very easy to miss someone very cleverly negging you. But I think in your instance, it was very obvious.

So obvious, so obvious, so much so that he just told me that that's what he was doing. Yeah. Quite different. But I think normally it's interesting how it works. Cause I think it's about like preying on like an insecurity and kind of like, like peeling away at your self esteem, but in a way that is giving you a glimmer of hope that you think, okay,

so they've taken away my self-esteem, but it kind of makes you want to get their approval even more. And that is why I think psychologically it works. And that's why it is so annoyingly clever. But it is obviously really toxic. And I feel like it is fundamentally a form of manipulation. It is. Of course it is. Yeah, absolutely. It's horrendous. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data,

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I'm Jessie Cruikshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know what thirsty meant until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by

a tween. Facebook is like a no, that's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com. So this is your fifth novel. It is, yes. So tell me what drew you to the romance genre in general? Did you always want to write romance novels? And if you did, you know, what were some of your inspirations for that? For me, it was actually, it was always the magical realism side of things.

That's what I always read when I was growing up. I loved things to do with magic. I loved, I loved reading books that were set in the real world, but had a magical element to it. Um, I wasn't so much on the side of like Lord of the Rings, which is kind of, you know, set in its own world. I loved being within our own world, but with magic thrown in, that was the thing that I just, I think it's because it made me believe that it could happen to me. Maybe one day I will stumble onto Hogwarts. Maybe one day I will find Narnia in the back of my wardrobe. those things really excited me um so that's what I wanted to write but much like Lorelei I am a hopeless romantic so there was absolutely no way my books were going to

go untouched by romance because that is just something I'm I I'm you know I grew up on Disney so I'm forever looking for a happy ever after. So I've just been writing my, my own until I find it myself. For those who don't know what magical realism is, can you just briefly explain what the genre is and how it works? It's kind of that it's, it's, it's the real world,

but with magic thrown in. So it's, you know, everyday life, but with elements that are. So it's, you know, everyday life, but with elements that are so fantastical that, but because it's real, it makes it genuinely, for me, it makes me feel like it could happen, which is what makes those books,

it's what draws me to those books so much is because it's a wonderful sense of escapism without going too far away from your comfort zone yeah I think it fits really well with romance doesn't it because there is obviously so much um so much of romance particularly modern romance is rooted in this idea of fantasy and magic you know is is that is that part of why you think the two kind of go so well together because there is this I think I do think there is it's gonna, I think, I do think there is, it's going to sound so lame,

but I do think there is something quite magical when two people like each other the same amount at the same time and it just happens. Like that is quite magical, isn't it? Yeah. If anything, that's the most fantastical storyline. Two people who fall in love and there's no problems whatsoever. That's the biggest fantasy of them all really yeah that doesn't happen yeah exactly um and yeah i do think they do come hand in hand i think magic and romance um are always sort of destined to be together and i think we know that because of disney movies like every disney movie you watch it's not just a straight romance.

There's a fairy godmother thrown in or there's a witch who curses a girl to be asleep forever and can only wake up with true love's kiss. Like those things always come hand in hand. You mentioned Disney. What are some of your favourite kind of love stories from Disney or beyond or from literature?

Oh, such a good story. Am I allowed to say all of them? I'm such a sucker. I'm such a sucker for a love story. Even yesterday, I sat and sobbed to the second series of Bridgerton. And I was just rooting for the pair to get together so badly that every time an episode ended and they weren't yet together, I just had to watch the next one because I was like no I need to know that they're going to be okay I love that I wish I think I've become more of a cynic from doing this podcast I think I used to be a real hopeless romantic and I think now I'm just like oh I'm just going to end up miserable like I watched Bridgerton the second season I I found it so annoying they found it so annoying I said I've been ruined I I just don't I'm like no it's useless they're all and not meant to be together she's betraying her sister like

it's it's really toxic what are they doing but I'm pleased that you found the good in it what what else aside from Bridgerton um I mean like I've said I've mentioned Disney a million times and I I just I love a Disney movie. And to be fair though, I love that Disney are kind of moving away from romantic stories and they're moving more towards like family love and friendship, like Frozen. It's the story of Anna and Elsa onward.

It's about the love of the brothers and their father. Like I really, really love that they're moving more towards family and friends and the sort of the more platonic love. Yeah, they are, aren't they? I actually, I'm so pleased you mentioned Frozen. I love Frozen. And I watched Frozen 2 at the weekend a few weeks ago. And it is such a beautiful story. It really is. I think I prefer the second one to the first one. I think it's only because I've watched the first one so many times now. But yeah,

I really do love that. Then they're moving away from the romantic storylines, not because they aren't fantastic and they aren't amazing, but they've done, they've done it. They've done a lot of those now. And it's just wonderful. I think for kids to sit and watch movies and have this idea instilled in them,

that platonic love is just as important as romantic love like because I think you know romantic love is wonderful and finding someone who you want to be with for the rest of your life is a wonderful wonderful feeling but you're not always going to have that you are going to find yourself single so yeah what happens then what happens then and that's when you need to fall back on the love of your friends and the love of your family yeah and i think so much of that like you know been reared on these disney films and these rom-coms that do really champion romantic love as the be all and end all and like you said you know that leaves you feeling like when you are single that you are severely lacking something in your life and that there is like something empty

and of course that's not true but unless you see more of these stories celebrating platonic love and family love in the way that romance was previously celebrated then of course you're gonna feel like that but like you said I think things are changing and you know you have the single positivity movement and all of that stuff and the rise of like self-love and self-development we are getting there but I think it's quite hard to consciously unlearn the things that you've been conditioned yeah and it's because the end of every movie is a happily ever after and you only get the happily ever after when the protagonist has found their mate and so it instills this idea in us that oh I'll never have my happily ever after until I found someone to be with.

And it's like, no, you can have your happily ever after whenever you choose to have your happily ever after. It doesn't matter whether you're with someone or not. There's people around you who are constantly pouring their love into you that sometimes we ignore or we don't quite focus on it in the way that we should because we're constantly looking for that the one we're looking for the one I want to talk to you about writing fiction just in general and how much and I guess about romance but also just generally because I think as a novelist particularly as a female novelist it's something that uh gets quite rudely assumed is that you have no imagination and that your novel is just your life on the page which is obviously not true but of course there is an element of incorporating certain things that you might have experienced or people that you have met and fictionalizing

them in some way I imagine um I mean that's certainly how it is for me I'm trying to write a novel at the moment and I am definitely fictionalising parts of my life. But I think it's interesting to try and find the boundaries there. Yeah. And how do you go about choosing, you know, what thing and how much, basically how much of your own life do you draw on

and how do you go about setting those kind of boundaries? It's inevitable that you're going to put part of yourself into everything that you write because it's coming out of your head and the experiences that you're drawing from are things that will have happened to you or if your character's sad you're going to go all right what what made me the most sad in my life or if your character's happy or excited about something you're instantly going to draw back to when you were happy or excited about something in your life and it it's the same with acting. Like that's what method acting is. It's when you draw from your own experiences to evoke those same emotions on stage. No one ever has a go at an actor for doing that, but for some reason they do it with writers. And I found it quite hard to put my own, like myself and sort of kind of Easter eggs, as I would call them, into my own writing because I'm on YouTube and I'm so heavily on social media and sharing who I am that people can spot those things a mile off.

just an author who had never gone onto YouTube, who had never made myself an Instagram account, who'd never touched Twitter, I'd still be putting all those same things into the books. And no one would know. But because people know, people then question it and say, you've got no imagination. You're just putting yourself into a book. You're just rewriting what you already know. And it's like, of course, I'm writing what I know. What else would I write about? It's such a bizarre criticism isn't it I think it just goes but also I think you have to be you know a lot of people who don't write novels and don't write fiction won't necessarily be able to empathize with that process and that creative process and so I think it's very easy for people to be very critical and people I think are

unfortunately in this quite sexist society that we live in a little bit more critical of female creatives um than male ones so i think it's um unfortunately just a patriarchy i was i was listening to um a thing with neil gaiman and he was uh talking about how he um he had this incident with getting stung by some bees with his kit whilst his kids were with him and and at the same time I was on a real Neil Gaiman kick at this point and I was listening to a book and that same story was then in I want to say Coraline I think it was in Coraline and I was like oh but so that's that's he's taken that from his real life and then put it in a book and no one's ever questioned it.

Funny that. Yeah. Never happens. Never happens to men when they do anything. Finally, I want to ask you about some comments that you made in an Instagram post recently. You wrote in a caption that you had been struggling recently and that someone you loved at the start of the year left you, which I'm guessing was in reference to the breakup yes mentioned um and that this on top of starring in cinderella which is a role where as you write your character is constantly put down um you wrote she's told she's

so physically unattractive she could only ever be loved by someone who can't see that no one could ever love someone so shockingly plain she's called a goblin a hag no one would shag i'm guessing that's what that is and none of them i see what they did there the rhyming and none of this seemed so bad when i was coming home to someone who loved me but suddenly those words started to hurt started to poke at dormant insecurities and rouse them from their slumber i think that makes total sense first of all and it's also it's really interesting you've spoken about this because I think that's something that no one in the audience coming to watch that show would ever have thought of unless it's obviously so unique to being an actor but of

course hearing that time and time again every night and obviously when you're acting you have to get into the process of that character so I completely understand why that would have an effect on you personally um I want to ask what made you want to share that with your followers and how you're coping with those feelings now and how your followers responded as well did they did they help you after reading that I mean the reason I wanted to share it is because I've always been very very open and and happy to share how I'm feeling um but also when I I first posted about the fact because I've always been very, very open and happy to share how I'm feeling. But also when I first posted about the fact that I was going through a breakup, I was flooded. My inbox was flooded with people who had recently also gone through breakups with long term partners,

people who had broken up with their, you know, their wives, their husbands, their partners, like they're really, really long term partners, but had broken up with them years ago and were still feeling the grief and the loss of that. And so I felt like that spurred me on to be even more honest about how I was feeling, because I knew that there were so many other people who were going through the same thing. And that kind of solidarity, even with strangers, helps. It helps you get through it. And having people and also having people message me and say, I went through something similar. And that was a year ago, or even if it was, you know, like 10 years ago, and I my life is amazing now. And even though it still pains me to know that I went through that, and there's still the memory of

the pain, I'm now living my best life. So I was always going to be willing to share how I was feeling on this because I know the power of the internet. I've witnessed the power of the internet and that solidarity with people from all across the world before. And my followers were amazing. Everyone who follows me on Instagram was so supportive. They were so wonderful. They were so, so incredible. And yeah, it's been a strange thing going back to work because we had a little break for covid because everyone came down with it so we uh we closed between december the 20th to february the 3rd or the 4th so it was like a two-month break and it was in that break where i went through a breakup so coming back to work was uh a daunting thing

anyway um knowing that i would have to sing songs like, I know I have a heart because you broke it and far too late to sing a love song. I was like, oh God, I'm going to have to go back with a broken heart, singing these songs about having a broken heart in front of a thousand people every night. How the hell am I going to get through that? And yeah, it's very strange what you pick up on based on the circumstance that you are currently in. So I never thought twice about being called a hag no one would shag when on stage, when I was coming home to someone who loved me, who would shag me. never thought twice about those things. But then suddenly when you're on your own and you're feeling vulnerable and you've been rejected by someone, suddenly listening to those things, like I'm well aware that I am playing a character, that I am Cinderella, but suddenly there's a

little voice in the back of your brain that goes, yeah, but you were cast for a reason. Maybe, maybe you, you are that ugly. Maybe you are that repulsive. Maybe that's why you were that repulsive maybe that's why you were cast and maybe that's why you were rejected by the person that you were with for five years suddenly this evil little voice in the back of your brain starts piping up from nowhere and you're like hang on a minute six months ago i never even thought about this six months ago these lines were just lines in a in a play that you're in playing a character but as soon as you start feeling vulnerable and you start feeling insecure it just puts you into a completely different place where you start viewing everything

around you that you've you know that you're so used to you start viewing it in a completely different way how do you cope with those thoughts now with that little voice is it has it kind of um gone away over time as we said earlier like it's just about time or is it something about you doing doing the work on yourself how do you deal with that um I've been doing a lot of therapy and counseling and and then just by myself doing a lot of reading uh lots of self-help books but as you probably have guessed from this podcast I love a chat I love talking and I've got amazing friends around me there's a couple of people uh within Cinderella who are going through a similar situation as well as I am so we've kind of grouped together and are kind of getting each other through it um but I think communication is is the key it's telling people that you feel that way

it's talking about it whether it's someone professional or it's just a mate who you call up at three o'clock in the morning whilst you're sobbing I think talking about it is the only way that uh you're able to unravel those thoughts in your brain that have kind of gotten too like the knots have gotten too tight I completely agree and just like you said just being honest and vulnerable and open and and putting it out there so that you're not internalizing it and feeling like feeling worse because you can't talk to anyone about it yeah and it masturbates it it sits and festers in your brain because suddenly you start obsessing over it and you start over analyzing everything and it's so good to voice those things and then to have someone say no no that's not true though

that that thought that that thought that you've just said about yourself it's not true that's not true though that that thought that you've just said about yourself it's not true that's your insecurity talking it doesn't mean it's real it just means that you're anxious about it just means that you're insecure about it um whereas if you just leave it in your head you convince yourself that it is true and then everything gets that that much darker and i think what can happen sometimes in the wake of a breakup as well as you start to romanticize certain parts of the relationship and you start to forget the bad things because your brain, it's something about how the brain deals with the addiction of love and

withdrawal of it. And so then when you don't have it, it starts to fantasize over everything. And it becomes, you know, a memory becomes a memory of a memory of a memory. And you just remember something completely differently. And that's why,

like you said, you need those people to kind of bring you back down to reality like absolutely that's not what happened yeah they they did this this and this and this like remember everything that actually happened there yeah and at the moment I'm just taking everything five minutes at a time like there's no point in looking forward to the future and going over what am I going to do in six months time what if I haven't found someone to be with in a year's time what if I enter into my 30s still single like it doesn't matter five minutes just what what can I control within the next five minutes I'm going to make myself a cup of tea and I'm going to read a chapter of a book and then I'm going to get on the train and I'm going to go to work literally five minutes at a time that's all you can that's

all that's within your grasp at that moment in time that's really really good advice i'm definitely gonna take that on board myself as well um it's time for our lessons in love segment so this is the part of the show where i ask guests to share something they have learned from their previous relationship experiences so what is your lesson today my lesson today is that you are whole on your own. You are a complete human being. You do not need someone to complete you. You are not someone's other half. You are not a half of a whole. You are not a piece of someone else's life. Your life is complete on its own. You are a whole human being. That is I think that yeah I think it's the end of the lesson no that's so important and I think you know like I said the single positivity movement

is kind of like coming back in a big way and I think that is a really crucial part of it because when you look at the way the world operates so much of it operates for couples and it puts a disadvantage on single people particularly on single women um but I think that is slowly shifting isn't it and it's about I think because the mentalities are changing and society is adapting more and people are getting married later and later some people aren't getting married at all um and I think it's so important like to unlearn that language like you said like other half as, that in and of itself is so damaging when you break that down. Yeah. And I think that that's my lesson because that's

something that I really struggle with. Like I like being in a relationship and I like being a companionship. I like being a partnership with someone, but I have to keep reminding myself that being a partnership does not mean that you are two halves of one thing. You are two individual things that come together to form a really great team. You aren't part of the same entity. That's a really lovely note to end on. Thank you so much, Carrie. It's been so lovely to talk to you. Thank you for having me. It's been great. Honestly, and that's it for today, everyone. Thank you for listening. If you're a new listener to Millennial Love, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Acast, Spotify,

or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you are more of a visual person, you can now watch this episode on independent TV. You can see our beautiful faces. You can also keep up to date with everything to do with the show on Instagram. Just search Millennial Love. I will see you soon bye a cast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Kirkshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend,

I break down the biggest stories in pop culture, but when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy. You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no.

That's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts.