Love Lives - Romantic fiction, cheating and heartbreak, with Georgia Toffolo

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

Support Millennial Love with a donation today: https://supporter.acast.com/millennialloveThis week, Olivia is joined by Georgia Toffolo.The reality TV star-turned-author has just released the latest i...nstalment in her series of romantic novels, Meet me in Hawaii. Georgia, or ‘Toff’, as she’s known,s poke all about what drew her to writing about romance and how much of what she writes is drawn from her own experiences.The pair also talk about heartbreak in addition to how Toff has navigated dating in the public eye and what it was like to go through the trials and tribulations of romance on screen when she was in Made in Chelsea.Follow the show on Instagram at @millennial_loveSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This Giving Tuesday, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health is on a mission to make better mental health care for all a reality, and we've made incredible strides forward, breaking down stigma, improving access to care, and pioneering research breakthroughs. But now is the time to aim even higher. Together, we can create a world where no one is left behind. Donate at CAMH.ca from November 25th to December 3rd and your gift will be doubled for twice the impact. Hello and welcome to Millennial Love, a podcast from The Independent on everything to do with love, sexuality, identity, and more. This week, I'm very excited to be joined by Georgia Toffolo. The reality TV star turned author has just released the latest installment in her series of romantic novels, Meet Me in Hawaii.
Starting point is 00:00:54 Georgia, or Toff as she's known, told me all about what drew her to writing about romance and how much of what she writes is drawn from her own experiences. We also spoke about heartbreak, in addition to how Toph has navigated dating in the public eye and what it was like to go through the trials and tribulations of romance on screen when she was in Made in Chelsea. Enjoy the show! Hi Toph, how are you hi darling i'm well i'm very happy to be here oh thank you thank you so much for being here how are you doing how are you finding the third lockdown oh gosh i mean i'm just living on boiled eggies and toast because i just can't cook I'm baffling on through I signed up to see this online cooking course I just got to the point where it was just like an actual joke my deliveroo and I was just worried about like the lack of nutrition so anyway maybe hope's on the
Starting point is 00:01:57 horizon with that but I don't know whether you'll agree with me but I feel like things have taken a turn where we're feeling a little bit more positive and light is on the horizon I don't want to get too excited because the government will probably do a job on us again and we'll be back in another lockdown but I am able to get a bit excited um so no I'm all right how are you? Yeah I'm okay I'm also feeling like it's gonna things are gonna improve I mean by the time this episode comes out it'll be May so we will have had some restrictions lift by that point hopefully restaurants will be open piss ups in the park yeah exactly even piss up in a pub I know I can't remember what it feels like to go to a pub every time I walk past one I'm like oh it's so annoying um so you are probably best known for
Starting point is 00:02:47 being a tv star uh but today I'm really excited to talk to you about your new venture it's still fairly new which is romantic novel writing uh so perhaps you could start us off by explaining why it was that you wanted to write fiction and specifically what drew you to writing about romance yeah it's an interesting one because I I feel as though I've just been proving a part point wanted to write fiction and specifically what drew you to writing about romance? Yeah it's an interesting one because I feel as though I've just been proving a point my whole kind of career because I of course fell into reality TV when I was kind of 18, 19 and I had the most amazing luck really. I did Made in Chelsea then went off to the jungle but the personal kind of hobby and love has always been writing for me um when I was younger it was more like satirical satirical diary stuff and then I started writing a bit about
Starting point is 00:03:31 current affairs when I first joined Maiden Chelsea which is really weird and it's always just been very personal to me my writing thing and I knew that I wanted to try my hand at fiction but I never quite had the confidence to do it. Not the time, actually, as well, because after I won the Jungle, my life just was an insane, crazy roller coaster, which I'm forever grateful for, but the time wasn't there. And I started writing. I was on holiday about two years ago. And I just thought, if you want to write fiction, see if you can do it. And I wrote about 10,000 words. And I noticed that throughout the 10,000, as it went on, I was just leaning towards romantic fiction.
Starting point is 00:04:13 I thought, that's funny, isn't it? Because I thought it was always, my escapism has always been that. That's what I love reading. It's what I enjoy. And I then went to a really good friend of mine's book launch. And there was a lady there who's really high up at Mills and Boone and I just thought you've got to go over and speak to her like if you feel like this is something that you want to do go over and have a chat and she was like why do we have a meeting and a year later I somehow got this book deal over the line and it's
Starting point is 00:04:44 just been the most amazing experience I'm still in the like you'll be in this phase as well it's the pinch me moment it's like am I good enough is this happening um and it's also like writing for me has just always been I don't know why it's been a secretive thing that I haven't wanted to share and I it's not imposter syndrome but you just want people to bloody love your writing um so that's kind of where I've been with the journey with the books yeah I totally understand that I mean like you said oh when this comes out I'll be like two months away from my book coming out at the moment all I want to do like the thought of seeing a physical copy of my book actually makes me want to vomit aggressively it's like it's amazing I've got goosebumps thinking about when I because my first my first book in the
Starting point is 00:05:33 series came out last October and when I have my hands on Meet Me in London I cannot explain the elation because you know how much goes into writing a book and I mean I've got to say I've been so fortunate to have a co-author with each one of them and what a clever thing it is that Mills and Boone did because my confidence just wasn't there and I'm not going to sit here and be like I'm going to write the third and the fourth on my own because I am having co-authors but with the first I needed that but when you hold that copy and it's got your name on it and you're like oh my god it's amazing so exciting and also it was so incredibly successful it was in some it was a Sunday Times bestseller so like huge congratulations I mean
Starting point is 00:06:11 you took such a jump like in such a risk by doing that and it seems to have really paid off so that's really wonderful um so tell me a bit about the plot of your new book Meet Me in Hawaii and how you came to think about it and you know I guess how how you think about plotting these novels in general when you um you know when you come to think of the main romantic storylines? It's an enormous thing and it's all in the planning with my books because it's a quartet so there of course there are four but I was so rigid on the fact that they could be read out of sequence so there's a hell of a lot of was so rigid on the fact that they could be read out of sequence so there's a hell of a lot of planning with storylines um so that all started and I
Starting point is 00:06:51 wanted it to be I mean I had an autobiography that came out at the beginning of 2018 which you know whatever it was it was fine it was good um but with this I wanted it to be I wanted it to be really personal but of course it is fiction so I'll just do a really brief kind of top line of the crux of the whole four books so it's about four girls from Devon I mean I'm from Devon and they're insanely close they are yeah best friends forever and there is an accident um sort of in their late teens on their way to their end of school prom and two of the girls have life-changing injuries so the first book was centered around Victoria who uh I won't give the game away but she falls in love with a very handsome Englishman very successful man um and
Starting point is 00:07:39 they have a fairy tale however Victoria struggles a lot with her infertility, which was a by-product of the accident that happened. So that's book one. And then book two is what is already out when this podcast comes out is Meet Me in Hawaii. And it follows the story of Mally, who escaped with no injuries. However, we all know that if you were in a, oh God, I can't imagine being involved
Starting point is 00:08:04 in a horrible accident like they were, but the emotional scars are very deep for Mally and she is the most multi-dimensional amazing female protagonist who I mean she's just a proper hero I mean she's a tomboy so not like me at all I'm the girliest girl she's such a beautiful cute little face she's tiny she's small but she's mighty she loves surfing and takes herself off to Hawaii to live with her godfather because there are a lot of things going on back in Devon that she couldn't quite come to terms with so I was very set on the storyline for my females they had to be very strong women and it was quite tricky for me to get this across right from the get-go so from chapter one you see Mally rescuing this big strapping lad
Starting point is 00:08:52 who's got himself into difficulty um out in the sea on the coast of Hawaii and I thought it was quite a good way to set the bar from chapter one females can be as strong if not stronger than men and we are very important I thought it was a good tone setter right from the get-go so it's just a story about um it's just the most enchanting love story with I mean you can imagine writing about Hawaii I mean it doesn't get more enchanting than that um with it with a really beautiful backdrop um and it's just yeah it's just been really special for it to all come together finally. Yeah, I think that's exactly the kind of escapism that people need right now. And, you know, you do always find that in romantic fiction.
Starting point is 00:09:31 But like you said, it's so lovely and refreshing to have a female heroine who is really empowered and really strong, but isn't defined by her relationships, know traditionally romantic novels the female heroine you know we have there's a long history of female strong female heroines in fiction but they are typically always defined by their male suitors and that's such a big part of their characterization because they are often men because of course all of their traditional love stories always straight love stories so it's it's a real um it's a real issue and it's so lovely to see books like yours coming out and really kind of addressing that balance yeah and I really it was important to me to challenge that with my series because I don't know why Mills and Boone have this sort of when people hear about Mills and Boone it's
Starting point is 00:10:18 always that a woman is swimming over a man and then if the man says yes she's happy in the end and that's the ending it's really not like that Mills and Boone are written for the modern women women and written by a modern female someone like me like that is not the vibe with my books and it was really important that it wasn't that way I mean to be honest with you Mally she doesn't want to go with he's called Todd Masters very very handsome very kind man and she's just just like, leave me alone. I'm independent. I don't need you. And I love that it's that way around throughout this book. I think it's really important that it was written that way. How did you come up with kind of the central premise of the accident? I mean, that's such a lovely kind of central focus, I think, for the four books that lends itself really nicely to
Starting point is 00:11:02 this kind of quartet. How did you kind of come up with that and how did you where did you draw from for those kind of four female leads yeah it was interesting because as I mentioned so I have got co-authors for all the books and we had this amazing brainstorming meeting that went on for hours at Harper College such a long time going out two two years ago and we all got in the room and I was like we need something major to tie everyone together that is also the reason for us making sure that we're inclusive and diverse and there's lots of topics that we are addressing in these books that needed to be addressed but I was like what is it what is this major thing and we all we sounded so many different ideas but the accident for me it was important because it meant that I could address lots of different negativities that might be nagging with my fame my four main heroines so we all came to it together really which has been it's been the most collaborative process
Starting point is 00:11:54 so it's lovely that it's not just been all coming from my head yeah going into this I didn't know what I was doing I had I mean the the creative with me, I mean, it feels so bad for my editor. So I open up these stupid things and she's just like, it just doesn't fit. I'm like, yeah, we've got to get it in there. But they're very, I mean, I was mentioning to you before we started recording, I've been very blessed with my publisher and my editor.
Starting point is 00:12:19 Yeah, it sounds so lovely. I mean, I really want to go into fiction writing at some point. and I think that the idea of just getting lost in this kind of fantasy world that you've created it just must be such an enriching experience and particularly when you're writing about love yeah it's it's completely endless and that's why I'm so grateful that I've had the capacity. I've essentially had four times 80,000 words to hone in on each one of these females. Everyone gets their moment. Everyone's story is told. But just this time, it's Mally's story.
Starting point is 00:12:56 There's nothing really like it. Like I said, there's nothing really like getting immersed in like a really lovely romantic story. And obviously, you know, it's just fiction. But because the theme of love is kind of so universally relatable, I think anytime we see romantic love depicted in popular culture, whether it's in a book or a film, it's kind of hard not to project yourself and your own experiences into that story, particularly if there are so many things that you identify with. And I know I certainly did this with like the romantic novels and romantic comedies I watched
Starting point is 00:13:25 when I was younger so I wonder do you think popular culture and specifically popular culture about romance has shaped the way that you behave and have behaved in relationships as you've gotten older definitely I mean I'm just obsessed with Richard Curtis movies I mean that's probably why why I wonder around thinking that everyone gets the man in the end and everything's all quite fun yeah I do think I've absorbed it like a sponge and I don't think that's a bad thing I think I just I love the thought of having a romantic fairy tale and happy endings for me is what really, really gets me going. And whether it's just some wild fantasy that I've ever been searching for, that might be the case. But I love living in that fictitious world where, you know, maybe I might get the fairy tale.
Starting point is 00:14:16 I'd rather live thinking that one day I might. I'm writing in that my characters might. Yeah. Being realistic about everything and thinking well actually that man might be a pig and I might have to leave him or I might never find my soul mate you know it happens but I love living in a world and perhaps it is a dream world but maybe that's why I love romantic fiction so much because I'm able to use it not only as a creative outlet but I absorb it that's what I do in my spare time I like watching soppy movies and books I like
Starting point is 00:14:50 reading books with happy endings. I wonder has that kind of level of romanticizing the world has that ever hindered you in romantic relationships because you've kind of always seen the best in people and believed the best in people and then they haven't quite met your expectations as people often don't yeah I think so however like I always think about this I don't know what I've done but I've been really blessed with like men that I've been with yes I've had quite a few partners that it hasn't worked out with but I look back very fondly and I've been treated very kindly by men which is a really wonderful perspective to have particularly you know I'm 26 now I'm not that young anymore I dated quite enough men and I have had very good experiences and I wonder whether I would have a
Starting point is 00:15:36 a real mind shift if I was to have had a poor experience and maybe I'm still allowed to romanticize everything because it's kind of gone that way even if the relationship hasn't been successful it's been healthy and there's been love and there's been respect so maybe I've got to imagine if I have like a savage dumping maybe the next set of books would be would be terrible and full of hate. That's good. That's good. I'm very pleased for you.
Starting point is 00:16:10 It's a little rarity, isn't it? Yeah, it is actually really surprisingly rare. Like particularly, I think, to have a healthy breakdown of a relationship. We're so often quick to resort to these kind of dramatic tropes and these kind of toxic um dynamics that we see in popular culture um you know I know one of the topics that you touch on in the book is heartbreak so I suppose it's hard not to address that in any kind of romantic fiction um so I guess I was going to ask if you drew on your own experiences when you were writing about that at all but it sounds like you haven't really had that much to go off but tell me I've had immense like painful heartbreak like the worst kind when you are mourning the loss of something that you thought was so wonderful and perfect and lifelong of course I have had that but I do separate that
Starting point is 00:17:03 I think heartbreak is something that we all have to come to terms with because unless you are so fortunate and you meet your soulmates at the age of 14, like you are going to have the heartbreak and I've lived it. And it's horrendous, that feeling of sickness and you dream about them. And, you know, and you think, I mean, we've all been there where you genuinely think that feeling of tightness in your chest, the feeling of being sick in your tummy is never going to leave you. And I remember saying it to my friends. You don't understand how I feel. This is never going to go away. And then one day it does. And I think it would be foolish of me to write romance and not age draw upon my experiences with heartbreak and be addressed it in the books it's an inevitability that we all have to come to grips with but I do separate the
Starting point is 00:17:53 two I think the way that I perceive men and the way that they've behaved towards me it's very separate to mourning the loss of a relationship in my mind that's interesting because I think they are if someone behaved just because someone behaved well that doesn't mean that you still can't be heartbroken by the fact that relationship didn't work like people don't have to behave abhorrently in order for you to be devastated that a relationship just hasn't worked that could just be you know a real incompatibility between two people just a distance that has formed or you know people fall out of love with each other it's a big one for me that I keep on thinking of that I just it was so awful at the
Starting point is 00:18:30 time but he handled it so well he basically met someone else that he was like I really think that I am falling for another person you know I'm being honest with you I think we have to break up because of it I mean the heartbreak that I had was so horrific, but I still respect him for the honesty. And also he did come back in six months and begged for forgiveness. So I won in the end. But you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:18:56 Like he did not behave in a disgraceful way. I can't hold a gun in someone's head and say you've got to stay with me because it makes me happy. I've got to get over it and grow up and that is life that's so that's such a good position to be in though in a sense because it's like you have full clarity on why this person no longer wants to be with you it's literally completely out of your control it's not like you've done anything wrong they've been completely honest with you and yes you're still allowed to be incredibly devastated by that but at least you're not kind of left wondering and questioning and because I think
Starting point is 00:19:30 that's the worst thing isn't it when you're like wondering oh god what lies have I been told and how do I try to wrap like because I think the brain deals with certainties so much better than uncertainties and it's the uncertainties that leave you kind of spiraling but sometimes the certainties are awfully hard to get over but once you've done it you're clear you're on the hair straight I think probably imagine if one of my exes is listening to this and they're like god she's so stupid like I played her played her like a fiddle when you're in that process of heartbreak what are kind of like do you have like go-to strategies do you have go-to methods because I think you know everyone kind of has these like rituals when you've been when you've had your heart broken so many times it's like okay I now know what to do with myself this is
Starting point is 00:20:13 what I should not go out and get drunk every night I should make sure I'm surrounded by friends all the time I should you know try and do all of this have you got like a strategy that has come into place now any tips the strategy is to get looking banging so start working out cover up the spots get the roots done and I would try to be healthy however for me it has never worked all I do is slip back into a routine of going out on the piss all the time because I'm just trying to replace something that I've lost because naturally when you're happy with a partner I end up staying in a little bit more but deep down I just love being in like a dirty nightclub down the road like that is who I am as a person so I just slip straight back into that and then starts the cycle of you know loads of binge drinking far too many shots
Starting point is 00:21:00 because I'm thinking solid but no one to go home to anyway you know so I stay out and then I get all pissed and then I wake up next morning and then I'm eating all the crap food and it's just a hideous cycle but it is my inevitability that I just I do that and I do that for a few weeks and I think right come on now it's time but then I think not to play it down but like that period of being completely frivolous and naughty and going out with your friends on like monday night when you know you shouldn't be doing that it actually does ease the pain a bit and time i hate the phrase because it's so corny but time does heal you it is just a fact and then you're out of the woods and you're like right come on we've got to clean up the diet and
Starting point is 00:21:39 get moving you know all of that but yeah that's that's kind of what works for me i don't want to go through that again it's horrible it's so horrible but I think you are right unfortunately it is one of those things that you can agonize and read as many books about how to overcome heartbreak as you want but really the only thing that helps is time and I'm also one of those awful people that super stalks like I cannot help myself and that is not good for anyone yeah I think most people are like that though you know I write about this in the book with like Instagram you can you can block someone all you want you can block their friends you can block their family there is nothing to stop you getting another account and looking and
Starting point is 00:22:20 seeing what they're doing and watching their stories through a secret account like everyone does that it's impossible not to like it's what these apps are designed for they know what they've done to us it's it's impossible um I want to talk to you a bit about dating in the public eye because I think it's it's an incredibly difficult thing anyway but I'm interested by your experience because you've had such an interesting kind of evolution. Like your first TV appearance, you know, you said you were 18, 19 on Made in Chelsea and then, you know, you're 26 now. And since then, you've gone on many other shows, including Winning I'm a Celebrity. Your platform because of that has obviously grown exponentially. for me so I wonder how that kind of changing degree of exposure has impacted the way that you date and how easy or difficult as I suspect that has been for you yeah it's it's an interesting
Starting point is 00:23:12 one I've really grown with so sort of like fame hate the word but it's true so that's kind of kind of gone up like up and up and up and up and up and I've had to change my way of thinking about men um as it's increased because there was a period sort of just pre-jungle where I know that there were certain men that were coming up to me and approaching me because I was on Maiden Chelsea and they wanted to be on it which is just oh really yeah 100% like yes there's so many people that were dying to go on the show at that point. And maybe I was a little bit naive, but whatever, it worked for me. If a man came up to me now, I would know within probably 20 seconds whether he was talking to me because of I am Toph on the telly. Or whether I am Georgia Toffolo, who's just like a normal girl who loves a bit of romance.
Starting point is 00:24:01 Thank you. Here's what I know. What are the kind of giveaway signs for a guy like who just wants to talk to you because you're 12 off the telly which is such a great phrase by the way they're like overly thrilled to be in your company like no one is that excited to meet someone that they that apparently they don't know so it's just like that they're always a bit like oh hi how are you like can I buy you a drink and blah blah blah and it's not a guy coming on to you it's such a different feeling and I just be like it's so obvious that one there'll be a group of guys out eight of them someone said oh that's top she's on
Starting point is 00:24:33 that show and then he's been like oh I'm gonna go over there and try and get her number it's like so transparent so that's the big one going back to your question I've had to realistically date men that have a deep understanding of the industry like not reality tv not I'm a celeb not the jungle but they've got to understand that I've got to behave in a certain way and we can't do things that perhaps would be seen to be negative or they've got to be fully signed up to my world and so far so good it just makes things easier you know if I'm like oh I'm off grid all day because I'm doing press for my book or I'm doing I'm going off to film something up in wherever I've got to miss your birthday you can't then have a man that's just like oh well why are you
Starting point is 00:25:22 missing my birthday you need someone that's just like oh great go do your thing you sit around at home and have a cup of tea at 11 o'clock most days so go and do your thing and be supportive that's the one thing that I found is that I mean I if I'm completely honest with you I've really changed um sort of how I discuss my romantic personal life in the public domain because I'm so scared of getting hurt and it being dragged through newspapers um so that's just me being brutally honest and I also really hate how every single interview I do is obsessive as to who my partner is now why is that relevant like I'm not sat here being a raging feminist but it really rubs me up the right the wrong way and I don't know why there's such emphasis placed on men being with someone like me like surely I've
Starting point is 00:26:12 worked so hard to be who I am and I hope that I've produced some really amazing things that I'm proud of it's like why is always the first question like why don't you put your boyfriend on social media it's like well how why don't you ask me anything else about my life and it's verging on obsessive that it's also seen to be like I'm doing something wrong by not publicly parading my partner around when he might not want that and what if he dumps me and then it's like everyone knows yeah it's horrible like dating dating is already like it's fucking horrible it can be so hard and going through heartbreak and when someone fucks up and but imagine I can't imagine what it would feel like to have all of that play out in the tabloids and not only have it play out
Starting point is 00:26:56 in the tabloids but probably be lies and probably be fabrications that are kind of like you said designed to make the women look bad because unfortunately we do live in a world where you know a lot of a lot of this tabloid culture is fueled by sexism so it's and like you said it's incredibly demeaning to be constantly asked about your personal life if it has like when it has nothing to do with the thing you're there to talk about absolutely zero connection the one thing I wonder whether I have used my writing because I okay you probably someone like me wouldn't be in my position if they weren't quite public like I don't mind putting myself out there and I am very self-aware in that respect and I wonder whether I have used because I am such a hopeless romantic I've used my romantic
Starting point is 00:27:43 fiction to shout from the rooftops in a really roundabout way without hurting myself or anyone close to me and that goes to say not just you know my partner or whatever um it's you know my family I don't want to talk about them it's not that gig like I've made this decision to lead a life where I have got press intuition which is by the way a wonderful thing because it means I can bring coverage to things that I care about and causes. It's amazing. But you've got to draw the line. I think if I want to do what I do long term, which I really do, I've got to keep a little bit back for me. This Giving Tuesday, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health is on a mission to make better mental health care for all a reality.
Starting point is 00:28:26 And we've made incredible strides forward, breaking down stigma, improving access to care and pioneering research breakthroughs. But now is the time to aim even higher. Together, we can create a world where no one is left behind. Donate at CAMH.ca from November 25th to December 3rd and your gift will be doubled for twice the impact. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly.
Starting point is 00:29:09 Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The way that I've kind of dealt with it, obviously'm not in the public eye but I do talk about my personal life and I have talked about my personal life on this podcast a lot and I do it in the book the way I kind of see it is that I will never talk about a situation I am currently going through because that's not what I want to do because obviously I because first first of all I won't have a proper understanding of that situation until it's, unless it's in retrospect, you know,
Starting point is 00:29:49 like you can never process something as you're going through it. And I would never talk about a partner really who I'm like currently dating because also it's incredibly disrespectful to them. But like you said, you know, they didn't sign up for that. But I just think it's you just have a better understanding of all of this stuff when you talk about it in the past. And you just have to be so careful. You know, if you are an open person like you are, like I am, you have to be so hyper aware that just because you're like that, the person who is in your life might not be like that. And so you have to be very careful about the way that you talk about these things. You really do. And at the same time, it's amazing that we can draw from personal experience to be creative and like that's an amazing thing but I think you've got to have control like you said how clever of you drawing upon your experience but just leaving it a bit and then you've got
Starting point is 00:30:38 amazing objectivity to actually analyze it and be like god God, did I think the right thing? Was I behaving the right way? I think it can be quite cathartic. Maybe we're very lucky to have some creative outlet to be able to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Have there been any particular incidents in the press where you've seen like a story kind of inaccurately reported or like something really nasty about your love life that you know how I'm sure you have but my question I guess is how do you deal with that and how do you kind of
Starting point is 00:31:10 rationalize that the pain you're going through is being splashed across the kind of public consumption in a way that is incredibly seedy and it's kind of like entertainment fodder that completely I imagine belittles the real pain that you might be experiencing. Yeah it's kind of like entertainment fodder that completely I imagine belittles the real pain that you might be experiencing yeah it's what I really struggle with is inaccurate reporting I love facts like I can live with my life if they wrote what was true I can live with that but it's just it's so fictitious most of it and the way that I have remedied it is by putting a massive wall up and guarding that's part of my life because if I never comment on it publicly if I never confirm anything it is true speculation then so that's how I sort of make a difference
Starting point is 00:32:00 and I make it in my mind it all makes sense that is a load of rubbish this is what is real and those are two separate things and do you do you have like conversations with people that you date and just kind of establish okay this is what's going to happen there might be these stories in the public eye and do you have do you kind of have to like be really forthcoming early on with all of that yeah it's horrendous like 10 days two weeks in because what if what if it's like a real shock for them for me it's not a shock at all and by the way you can get away with dating secretly for ages but sometimes you get caught out and it will be unfair to me not to warn that person what they're signing up to but how like imagine being
Starting point is 00:32:39 in that position where you've just met a man that you really like god knows whether he likes me as much as I like him and I'm having to bring up something that it might be part of the future but it might not and it puts you on the back foot already but you've got I mean they're not stupid surely they would know that something might come out but I have to verbally say it because I don't want to be blamed for I don't know people losing a job over something I don't know like if we were nipping out like naughtily when someone should have been at work or you've got to be super aware of these things and it's it's the only negative of what I do everything else I feel it's a real privilege that I do and it's overwhelmingly positive but it is something to be mindful of when
Starting point is 00:33:19 I'm fully signed up you know but not everyone is yeah it's just so interesting because it's such a it's become like talking about celebrity relationships in the public eye it's become it's such a dehumanizing thing and it completely detracts from you know there's a real human being going through that very pain that is being used to make you laugh over your morning coffee or just make you feel like it's gossip. It's just. It's a clickbait, most of it. Yeah. It's quite scary, but it is what sells newspapers. Like, yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:55 That's the thing. It's like, it's, it's kind of chicken, chicken and egg. You know, it's like, that's what people want to write about because they know that that's what people want to read about. You know, it's no secret that the most read website is the mail online which is probably you know I'm not going to say anything that's going to get me in trouble but it's it's full of those kind of stories isn't it I know and if I'm completely honest I checked the mail online once a day so I am feeding into that critical like yeah I click on it yeah it's impossible to avoid um I know you've
Starting point is 00:34:30 spoken a bit before about how people have lots of like preconceptions about you before they meet you um and I know you've spoken about that not just in a romantic context but have you ever kind of encountered that in terms of people have seen you on the TV and they've they've got a really firm idea of who they think you are and how have you reacted to that I guess? So I mean the first thing is my surname I mean my nickname Toph just I mean without me even opening my mouth is just horrendous so that's something that I've had to navigate um I mean the big thing that like really frustrates me is that I really love current affairs and I love being vocal about anything that gets people engaging in politics like I don't care whether you're right wing left wing floating voter as long as you're talking and because I behaved in that way I am I mean today I've done loads of
Starting point is 00:35:21 interviews and twice I've been asked about being described as Boris in a bikini. And it's just like, oh, my God, why do you why is that comparison made about me? Because I've spoken about anything that's remotely intellectual, by the way. It's not heavy stuff. You know, I've just said, like, there's voter apathy amongst the young. Go out and register to vote. Go tell the middle-aged middle-class men of westminster why they are not representing you and then suddenly i'm boris in a bikini so it does that is such a sexist description of someone what like obviously a bikini what so you're semi-naked as well yes but of course but i couldn't possibly be prancing around on a tv show
Starting point is 00:36:02 in a bikini but also want to talk about politics at the same time that's not allowed of course um but it does yeah that side of me I feel like I've just been on a quest for the past like eight years to prove to people that you can be like a vacuous showbiz celebrity but there are other sides to you and you might want to talk about something that might be different to just filming TV shows which by the way is my bread and butter it's what I love doing it's what I'm good at but I might want to talk about something that might be seen to be a little bit serious um so yeah I do like I want to prove to people that I'm I can be multi-dimensional I feel like I'm still on this quest and you know the
Starting point is 00:36:41 books have helped me kind of establish myself in a more serious way but I also don't want to be seen I want to be both I want to be everything I just want to be who I am yeah that kind of feeds into the way that society just pigeonholes women though doesn't it I feel like that's not something that men in the public eye have to deal with to a degree it's like women aren't allowed to be seen as doing multiple different things and dipping their toes into other avenues you know what you just described it's kind of the perfect depiction of like oh you know like scarlet curtis's book feminists don't wear pink you know it's like that kind of dichotomy can't exist um and we do see it perpetuated all the time i want to ask you a bit about maiden chelsea um i know you haven't
Starting point is 00:37:24 been on the show for a while and I know but it is it's obviously where you started on TV and I think the reason I want to ask you about it is because obviously it a lot of it is about relationships and I know that the show is structured and not everything is you know necessarily exactly how it plays out in real life but there are some things that that happen on that show that I suspect are actually really difficult personal things to go through and then to have to film it must be incredibly difficult so I'm thinking of like one specific part uh where you were dating this guy called Sam Prince and he told you that he had slept with someone else
Starting point is 00:38:05 in your own bed and this was on the show so I mean obviously that's obviously despicable but and you know it seems like kind of funny but it's not funny I mean how would I deal with that? But remember I've got a normal amount of perspective because that was like five years ago so I'm laughing about it now at the time completely mortifying of course and to live that embarrassment and they are very clever like I didn't have any inkling that that had happened so I really am told with my microphone on and the cameras pointing at me I mean it is quite mind-blowing I mean that was quite a bad one there was a situation with France like there's always one that sticks out in my mind
Starting point is 00:38:45 Francis Bull and Liv Bentley and they like ran off together behind my back and it really really threw me and I think the big element with that was the embarrassment and I didn't want people to know that that happened and then lo and behold quite interesting this is the good thing about Maiden Chelsea it's one of the things that I do love about it six weeks later it was put on the television and I was dreading it for six weeks because I thought it's just fucking like so embarrassing how could that happen to me and the tweets and the instagrams that I got about it the level of support because quite frankly everyone has been done the dirty on and we have all had that where someone's been duplicitous and I'm not blaming it on either person because it really was both of them
Starting point is 00:39:28 and just for I think other women and men to see that it's not just them actually do you know what it happens to off on the telly it's fine and it made me rationalize the whole thing I was like you know what I'm not mad yes it's okay to be sad yes it's okay to be humiliated because quite frankly it's been broadcast to like millions of people so of course that is okay that's a normal emotion it's also okay to be sad but get over yourself because it happens to everyone so you and Francis were dating at the time and he was secretly seeing Liv that's what happened yeah I mean it was so long ago now I can't believe like we're all really good friends it really doesn't matter but yeah we were we were living down the south front like that is what happened and there was this big dramatic scene where he like chose to live over me and I was like oh my god it was so bad oh god how do you
Starting point is 00:40:14 do when you because obviously you're experiencing that and it's horrible but you're also kind of experiencing the horror of everyone's now going to see this and are you are you kind of thinking about that as you're experiencing it are you like oh god this is horrible and there's that extra level of humiliation because you know that eventually everyone's going to see it or are you kind of just do you just numb it out after you've been on the show for a while no I didn't really because you know the two scenarios that you that we've spoken about those are really I mean I went on a couple of dates with Richard Dinan apart from that because I was the horror of the embarrassment and the heartbreak I really put my foot down and didn't get involved with men on camera because I protect myself I wonder whether I probably shouldn't say
Starting point is 00:41:01 this but I wonder whether it's why I was on the show for so long because I I didn't I didn't dumb myself down I didn't just go on a date with someone for the sake of it you know there was no one that I was in love with on that show yeah the horror humiliation of a man that I quite liked going off with someone else fine but I never went through what some of the girls went through on that show which is deeply distressing immensely public breakups with a man that they'd been with for a very long time and that I never lived and I to this day I'm really grateful that I didn't because I can't imagine the the toll it must have taken on their mental health because you're not processing a breakup you're processing backstabbing you're processing the humiliation
Starting point is 00:41:48 again everything is so mentally public and you're not with the with the scenarios we've spoken about it was just touching the surface yeah it was ever on that program well because that's what I was going to say to you like considering you know most most of the women on Made in Chelsea they like you said they have gone through these horrific heartbreaks on camera and actually considering you know I was looking for things relationship storylines for you on the show and there really weren't that many and like you said it's I think I think that's really clever because not only does it lend itself to longevity but for your own mental health because they like it's people again it goes back to seeing relationships and the tabloids and I think with these structured reality shows it's so easy to
Starting point is 00:42:29 forget that these are very real experiences that human beings are going through and and but you know I'm pleased that you had that social media reaction after the Sam Prince thing because I can imagine that can be incredibly validating and you can feel this kind of rallying of support behind you um but you don't know how you'll be portrayed in that situation you have no idea they can do a lot in the edit you never know because you might thought you come out top dog but then you don't it's time for our lessons in love segment so this is the part of the show where I ask every guest to share something that they have learned from their previous relationship experiences. So Toph, what is your lesson in love for us today?
Starting point is 00:43:12 Can I have two? Yeah, of course. The first one, it's rather minor, but I think it's important. So find someone who enjoys listening to the same radio station as you, because I'm a Radio 4 girl. And so any potential suitors must kind of engage with you know the archers women's hour so that's quite important to have a chance and actually prevents arguments long term so that's just a silly top line one the other one I love that can I just say I love that and I think that is not silly at all because one of my favorite things to do on a Sunday morning and you know if you're in a
Starting point is 00:43:45 long-term relationship those Sunday mornings those rituals become very important uh is to listen to Steve Wright's Sunday love songs on BBC radio too I love Steve Wright it's so good and I always and because I love it because they play great songs but then you also listen to these amazing messages that people send to their loved ones and they're so sweet and it'll be like you know oh I just wanted to tell my wife on our 15th anniversary how much I love you and you know I've left a cup of tea for you in the kitchen and they're just so sweet so I want to be able to listen to that with someone if no one wants to listen to that then they are definitely not right for me anyway continue you know music pairings if they don't like ABBA they're not going to be
Starting point is 00:44:24 my boyfriend like it's not going to work so that's that now in a more serious note i would say now i'm very biased with this because i love intelligence i think it is so incredibly sexy to be clever and it makes up for the lack of a six-pack um which i find a total turn off anyway because they spend too much time in gym but on top of all of this I think the only character traits that I've found that can trump everything including intelligence sexiness all of those things is kindness and I think you know whether you're with a kind man or not and if you're not with a kind man rip the band-aid off and get grieving quick because if you're going to have a long wonderful relationship with someone they're not kind I don't really see the point in being in it in the long run because lots of the other things come and go yeah I completely agree
Starting point is 00:45:16 I think that's so important kindness is absolutely I think the most important quality that you can have in a partner but it's it's hard to sometimes they cheat and they lie well exactly exactly and then you never know wolf in sheep's clothing so you've got to be you've got to be careful so I say be savvy as well you trust your instincts like if you if you if you get an inkling that someone you're with is not the person they purport themselves to be, then trust yourself because you don't necessarily, you can't necessarily trust someone else. You don't always have that niggling feeling, never open your mouth. You're always right.
Starting point is 00:45:59 That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you're a new listener to this show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or anywhere else. You can comment and leave us a rating too so that more people can find us. Keep up with everything to do with the show on Instagram. Just search Millennial Love. See you soon. This Giving Tuesday, the Center for Addiction and Mental Health is on a mission to make better mental health care for all a reality. And we've made incredible strides forward, breaking down stigma, improving access to care, and pioneering research breakthroughs. But now is the time to aim even higher.
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