The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Davina McCall: “I was doing cocaine with my mum at 15!”

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

Davina McCall has been an icon of television for 40 years. The host of Big Brother for over a decade, tens of millions of people looked to Davina to bring a national obsession into their homes. But few know the real story of Davina. From a heartbreaking childhood that saw her take drugs with her mother to hosting one of the biggest shows in the world, she’s come a long way. At every step along her journey, no one was going to define her but herself. No matter how many times she got hurt no one could take away the one thing she could control, her resilience. Consistently breaking down barriers and forging new paths, Davina was the first female television host to put her bubbly and occasionally feisty persona front and centre, and she was the first mainstream figure to create a fitness platform that has inspired millions of people to get active in the fifteen years she’s been in the game. Having consistently inspired so many people in her life, she dropped by to gift us some of her inspiration too.  Davina: Instagram - https://bit.ly/3GCcF7P Twitter - https://bit.ly/3XafyCp Davina's book: https://bit.ly/3WNHhc9 Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to amazon music who when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all

of you that listen to this show let's continue i think out of everything she was worried about me. Do you know what I mean? Like, that was her last thought, like... Davina McCall! She's a TV presenter, a fitness fanatic. Multiple time best-selling author. Rarely off our televisions, and what you see is what you get.

It's good to be back. After Big Brother, I thought, what else can I do to get famous? So I was always a bit of a show-off. Mum, you made a mistake. Look how great I am. That's at the back of everything. Why? I did coke with my mum at 15.

I did it with my sister at 14. You were doing drugs? Yeah, like all drugs were my problem. I left my job, no money, had nothing. I would literally do anything to stop feeling like this. I'm going to phone someone for help. I'm fucked. Ten years ago, you lost Caroline, your half-sister.

It was definitely the worst thing that ever happened to me. I was just trying to be really strong for her. And I kept saying to her I'm gonna be fine. She put a fence around her and I thought I'm fucking climbing over the fence and I'm gonna get in. Don't wait for somebody to say that you've got six weeks to live because the best seven weeks of my life with my sister were those last seven weeks of hers Davina what was your first defining moment oh um definitely uh realizing the moment I realized my mum wasn't coming back to pick me up so I got taken to my granny's my paternal grandmother

most amazing woman called Pippi got taken to her house in the country which I knew really well I used to spend quite a lot of time down there with her and my mum wasn't with my dad she was with another man but I didn't kind of question that they'd split up but I didn't I didn't know that or kind of understand I don't think in my head I realized what was going on and she said I'm going on on holiday and you know I'll be I'll be back and I was like okay great and I stayed with my granny and then after a couple of months I thought is she coming back but then I thought I didn't want to this was such a different time you You know, I'm 55. So this would have been over 50 years ago.

It was such a different time that you didn't ask people. Children didn't go, where's mummy gone? Or when's mummy coming back? I knew that I was a guest at my granny's house, but I wasn't. It had all been planned. My granny had been given my custody my dad was coming down every weekend to be with me they were sort of sharing custody but my dad was trying to make money in London and my granny was taking care of me day to day and it had all been sorted

but I didn't know that because they just thought well she's young she won't really remember or realize let's all just brush it under the carpet and it's so interesting because nowadays with my I didn't know that because they just thought, well, she's young. She won't really remember or realize. Let's all just brush it under the carpet. And it's so interesting because nowadays with my children, everything that happens, we're like, how do you feel about that? Are you OK? Let's talk it through. But it just didn't happen back in those days. So I grew up thinking that my mum had left me and had never come back. So at about probably four, maybe six months after she'd gone, I realized that I wasn't going to live with her again, but I was left feeling guilty

because I felt like my granny was looking after me. And she didn't want me in some way. Not that she didn't. She was so loving to me. But somehow I was overstaying my welcome. So I think that was a defining moment because it set up a chain of events, a fear of abandonment that kind of made me make some really stupid decisions all through my teenage years into my 20s. And something that I've worked diligently on since my early 20s to let go of why did your mother do that well my mum grew up in France with two parents who were very loving but didn't know how to um give her their time.

So I think my mum needed time and contact, but they just gave her a lot of money. They were quite wealthy and they just, you know, at 18 they gave her a lump sum of money. She went and spent the whole lot on clothes in the East Saint Laurent. She got a food disorder. She was very thin. It was the 60s.

She was like a model. She had a Faye. She was very thin. It was the 60s. She was like a model. She had a Faye Dunaway nose job. She was incredible looking, lots of drugs, quite a lot of drink, like crazy fun lady. Met my dad. My dad was super hot, like young guy. They were an it couple. He was so in love with her.

She was completely out of it of probably a sex addict. When I when I look back at her life, and unashamedly, so the French are very she's French, French are very different about sex. She was kind of, you know, she was it's only bodies. That was her catchphrase, like, you know, oh, it's only bodies. And you'd think, no, that's someone's husband. Like that is, you know what I mean? So looking back, she wasn't well herself, but she was so young. Like this was, we're talking 22, 23 when she met my dad. She'd already had a child at 16,

been forced to marry the father of that child. They'd got divorced. Then she met my dad. So she was troubled herself right and my dad tried to help fix her but it just wasn't going to work and she ran off with someone else um having had several affairs and everything and my dad was broken-hearted absolutely broken-hearted and the courts in the uk because i was born in the uk and had been brought up here, gave my granny and my dad custody, which was so rare. So I'm not sure how hard she fought.

I'm not sure that she did, but that was what happened. But I did go and see her in the holidays, but that was quite crazy. What did you see i oh my god like what didn't i see i mean my mum would she would wear this was quite a funny story i mean and some of it makes me laugh now but it would be she'd go out with me like in a floor-length electric blue coat and we'd get out and then she'd go like that to someone and And I'd think, oh my God, she's naked. Yes. Like she'd be naked underneath her coat and she'd flash someone. She'd think it was hilarious.

And I'd just be like, oh God, somebody please make the world disappear. But at times, it's really hard to explain, but I loved my mother. Like I really wanted her to pull some mummy business out the bag. Like, I was like, come on, you can do this. And sometimes she'd give me a hug and I think, oh, my God, this is it. be like, well, I've got to be, I've got to be sweet little girl. Oh no, I'm going to have to take care of you would be funny for a month when you came back from France you'd be a little bit on edge and we'd have to just really get you back into your favorite foods a routine at bedtime safety reground me so when I said I'm half nun half wild child it's because of that life that I've had like drugs at 12 with my mum like you were doing drugs yeah like smoking weed at 12 coke at 15 14 with your mum I did coke with my mum at 15 I did it with my sister at 14 you know it was like it was there was no and then I'd get back

to the UK and it would it would be back into your secondhand clothes and sort of safe small life like simple my life was very simple I mean I say secondhand clothes just to give you an idea I was in my granddad's jumper and an old pair of jeans and I get to Paris and they go what are you wearing here's loads of money go and buy some posh loafers and get your hair done. And I'm 12, like I look like a proper Lolita. And I'd quickly realized that my life in Paris and my life in the UK, they must never know about each other. Because if they knew in the UK about my life in Paris,

they wouldn't let me see my mum. And I didn't care how mad she was. I still wanted to see her. Does that make sense? Yeah. So my sister also was my lifeline in Paris. So my sister, who's six years older than me, even though we did do drugs together,

and I know that sounds bad, but she was my rock. Like she was my, she grounded me when I was in Paris. So we stuck together. We understood what mum was like. We worked her together. Caroline. Yeah, Caroline, yeah. she grounded me when I was in Paris so we stuck together we understood what mum was like we worked her together Caroline yeah Caroline yeah and then my mum you know but I I did like going to Paris

and also because I was young and they didn't stop me from doing anything it was crazy having sat here with um stand-up comedians I remember Jimmy Carr said to me he said often it's assumed that comedians themselves are depressed and that they're cracking jokes to kind of cheer other people up in an attempt to cheer themselves up. But he said to me, you should actually ask them which one of their parents is depressed. Which one of their parents were they trying to please and entertain?

You said earlier, you know, did I have to be this one day? Did I have to be a joker? Did I have to take care of her? Was your personality shaped by that desire to sort of keep her in good spirits or win over her her affection I think it taught me some amazing skills in reading people so um also my granny was unbelievably good at this as well so people used to think my granny was psychic because somebody would walk in the room and she'd go are you okay and they'd walk in smiling but there would be a an eyebrow raise or a flicker of an eye or something. And she'd go, you're all right.

And they go, oh God, is your granny psychic? She can read me. She can see straight through me. I feel like being with my mother, I could hear by the way she walked what person she was going to be when she walked through the door. I could hear the steps coming and I'd think, I know how to behave the minute she walks through that door. So that's an amazing gift. And that's how I choose to see everything that's happened to me. I am absolutely not a victim. Sure, some of it's been hard and it's like you said i'm happy we were talking just before we started i'm happy and yes life throws me curveballs but i choose to learn from those

and still be happy rather than cling on to the curveball and let it pull me down but i often wonder whether it's it was the hardship that made me, when, you know, small wins or little wins in my life were massive. Oh, yeah. You know, a hug from my mum that felt a little bit like a parental hug rather than a needy or an angry or, that would be a huge, like, I'd done out on that for a month. I'd be like, yeah, but I got a hug two weeks ago that was epic. You know, so I think you hold on to these little things.

But I don't know, some kids might not, they might not see or feel that thing because they don't have that in them. I wonder whether we are born with it. It's such an interesting concept, positivity. Can you make yourself positive if you aren't that have you ever spoken to the speakmans i remember going on this morning the speakmans are a couple nick and eva they're on this morning as kind of psychology experts they kind of they're like they help you train yourself out of patterns of behavior those guys said something that if you are a negative

person at the end of, you know, it's raining and it's rained for the third day in a row, you finish your negative sentence with, but luckily. And you have to say, but luckily, and then think of something, but luckily. But luckily, it was so dry in the summer, it does mean that the reservoirs will be full and you finish every negative thought with the positive and they said it takes about two to three weeks to naturally start thinking but you know that's probably not a bad thing but it's just remembering to do that is so hard when you were when you were like 16 17 you know you said you'd started doing drugs with your mother in in france but what did you want to be when you were older? If I'd asked you at 16.

I probably need to clarify actually that me and my mum only did drugs twice. Okay. I mean, I know that's twice times too many in my book, but I don't want to give this impression that she and I were taking tons of drugs together because that would be a false impression. Okay.

I just needed to put that there. Yeah. But what did I want to be when I was 16? Yeah, I was quite nihilistic, I think, in a way. I wasn't thinking about anything except for the weekend. And where was I going to go and what club could I go to and how could I go out and how could I party? And that was beginning.

I moved to London when I was nearly 14, and when I moved to London, suddenly the safety of the country had disappeared, and I started finding ways to go out and take drugs and find people that took drugs in London. I was living with my dad and my stepmom, and they were very kind of solid, straight people, but my life did slightly change then.

So I wasn't really thinking about anything at that point. Really, the time when I started forming an idea and I was basically just a show-off would have been 18. I was basically just a show-off. Yeah. Because I think because I had this fear of abandonment if I was if I did look at me look at me enough look at me I'm here everybody don't leave me ah needy people pleaser everybody like me like that time was they made me feel safe.

They made me feel like I was being hugged in that maternal way, that they filled this hole that I had here. And then as soon as the drug started running out, the hole would be there again. And I think, oh, my God, where's the nearest thing I can get you know um man laughter attention drug like help fill the hole so I was always a bit of a kind of you know bit of a show-off and at 18 you drop out of university never went nearly went to university, didn't go to university. And this is always something that I want to say to kids. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was an absolute car crash, I would say, until I was 23, 24.

So when I was 19, I'd left school. I went to Australia for a few months I came back and I thought I'm going to save up money I'm going to go working I'm going to save up some money I'm going to try and get enough money to go back to Australia and live there I loved it out there

I was clean I wasn't taking any drugs I was just driving to the beat I mean it was such a different me and I liked that me that was the nun like my nun was freed in Australia and I thought I quite like this person I like who I am and then a girlfriend of mine said I'm going to Saint-Tropez for two weeks do you want to come and I was like yeah but I haven't got much money because I had all my savings and stuff and I

didn't want to delve into that she had quite a lot of money and bless her, she came on the coach with me from Victoria down to Saint-Tropez and her parents had a house there. And then I started dipping into the savings. And then in two weeks I'd spunked £800 that I'd saved up for my flight to go back to Australia. And I never went back. And that was a kind of, you know, that was the wild child me, on tables in Le Cav Joueur in Saint-Tropez till God knows what time in the morning, hitching a lift off people in Ferraris trying to get back to, I mean, awful danger, danger, danger path. But that meant that I never went back to Australia. And I got a job as a waitress.

I was a really, really good waitress. I loved waitressing. Did you ever do that? Well, my mum had a restaurant when I was super young. So I did it a little bit. But I was so young that I was more just of a gimmick. You know, he'll get loads of tips because he's 11. But not properly, no.

I learnt a lot lot I bet you did um I learned a ton from working in that restaurant yeah about people in customer service and stuff and then I worked in like you know there was a shop called Republic like retail a lot I worked a lot I did that as well what did you learn um well just people I mean people skills and what people want and that the customer is the most important person you said people pleaser yeah I mean that's my natural that was my natural habitat so I'd go and I'd like make people feel amazing while they're having their meal and make sure that they had the best service ever and it felt like a win to me you know at the end of the night I thought I've done a really good job

I've made loads of people really happy and that made me feel good about myself so it was a great job for me when did you first realize that you wanted to do something in media tv um or was it more yeah no so that that's quite a good story so i was working i got a job at models one after the after the and it was by chance it was complete fluke i got a job at models one working on stephen the male model section at models one i was a booker for the male models i mean i'm telling you 19 or 20 year old me walking in there i was like this is the best job ever all these gorgeous men okay i fell in love every 30 seconds for the first week um and then what was interesting it just became they just became normal i was like oh there's another good looking guy whatever um desensitized yeah it's fun it's so funny though

how quickly that happens but i'm still friends with loads of them now again it was a great time in my life slightly car crash lots of drugs lots of kind of, but also a very kind of good time in terms of work and having fun. So I was at this agency, loads of beautiful models everywhere. I get approached by this guy who knows I love music. And he said, do you want to run a club with me at Subterranea? And I said, yeah, great. And he said, bring all the beautiful people. So these club nights caught the attention of somebody at mtv who was going to launch mtv europe and they needed to for the launch of mtv europe in amsterdam get loads of celebrities from the uk to amsterdam but do it in a really cool mtv way

so me and this girl called sarah blonstein and um a guy called Graham, we were in charge of entertaining the celebrities from Victoria train station to Amsterdam and back. And it was like Duran Duran, Zodiac Mind Warp. I mean, it was really, really fun. And I dressed up as a cleaning lady, lipstick on my teeth, curlers in my hair, a tea urn full of champagne, and it was riotous. And at the end of that night, when we were heading back from Amsterdam on the plane,

I thought to myself, I'm going to work at MTV. That is the best place. Those are the best people. And while I was there at that night and this is what this is another defining moment that night when I'd gone I said to someone can I get your number because I'd love to kind of look at job prospects at MTV would it be all right and he's like yeah sure I had the number and I thought I'm gonna I'm gonna call this guy and then I called him and I said you know would it be all right can I um to sort of send you a showreel if I did a showreel

because I'd like to be a presenter on I didn't even know the word vj then on mtv and he was like yeah sure sure and I started making showreels and I must have sent him like three a year and relentlessly called him until he said please stop calling me after a couple of years he said could you just like I can't give you a job at the moment we only want European presenters and I said can you give me someone else's number and I'll call them instead and he went yeah you can take Mike Caffman's number so I took Mike Caffman's number and eventually a year later Mike Caffman said there's a vacancy so I'm 24 I've just got clean I'm I'm six months clean and sober I'm absolutely radioactive I can't believe I'm sober I'm still can't believe I'm waking up with dry sheets that my pillow you

know we're talking about small wins my sheets were dry in the morning and I'd sober. I still can't believe I'm waking up with dry sheets. That my pillow, you know, we're talking about small wins. My sheets were dry in the morning. And I'd know when I woke up and I saw daylight. And I think, I know this is morning. This is amazing. That's such a win. Sheets are dry. Yeah, sweating.

I used to sweat in bed withdrawing at night. And my sheets were dry. Is this, what drug causes that? So heroin. and my sheets were dry is this what what drug causes that so heroin so i i was um in the end um addicted to heroin for maybe the last three months of my using but the nun took over i think at that point and was like you are addicted now you have to stop what what was that moment that where and what was can you really zoom in on that moment of you reach a point and you go this has to change so my best friend had said she was going to take

me to santana she didn't use or drink really she'd had a brain injury when she was younger and she couldn't for 10 years so she didn't and she got me into her car and i was like i'm so excited about going to see santana i was probably what's santana um it's a band oh stephen bartlett i know sorry i go and do some revision okay i'm so santana can i just say something you're gonna really like them santana i'm gonna like them really okay um and i got in the car and she shut the doors and she said I'm actually not going to take you to Santana I need to tell you some things I was like yeah and she said I know that you've been lying to me weirdly I'd been off heroin for a month at that point because I'd been away I'd done a geographical

I'd gone away looking after someone's uh nannying for someone for two weeks and got clean. And then I'd also been with my mum in Morocco. So I had no heroin for a month, but I had just come off the back of a 24-hour cocaine bender, which had made me realise that heroin wasn't my problem. All drugs were my problem. If I wasn't taking heroin, I couldn't take cocaine normally either I couldn't just take

it for four hours and then go to bed I had to take it for 24 hours I was an animal I thought oh my god I'm I'm not just addicted to heroin heroin's not it's all drugs I've got to stop she gets me in the car and she goes I know you've been lying to me we all know you've been lying to us all your friends and you are the topic of conversation at every dinner party I go to and this shame starts piling on and I I started feeling a bit well fuck you to her and this is this is virtually my only friend I've got left and I do say well fuck you like fuck you I didn't really know what to say because I couldn't really argue with what she was saying and I said yeah I didn't want to go and see something really

childish like I didn't want to go and see Santana anyway get out the car I'm trying to get out the car she slightly shut the doors it's all eggy awkward slam the door walk away from her immediately burst into tears and think I'm not going to turn back around and let her see I'm crying you know get inside go straight to bed my parents you know I was um sleeping on a camp bed in my in my dad's sort of wardrobe I'd move out of my boyfriend's home his fault that I was using I'd got worse I'd left my job I thought that was the thing that was making me use. I'd got worse. I had a car, but no money to put petrol in the car. I had not put nothing. I was on this camp bed and I would sort of walk into the, like my room, which wasn't really a room, it was a cupboard,

sit on the bed, go to sleep. And then an hour later I wake up and I think I'm going to phone someone for help. I'm fucked. I can't do this anymore. I ph up and I think I'm gonna phone someone for help I'm fucked I can't do this anymore I phoned this woman who I knew was clean and it was as if she'd been expecting my call she goes oh hi Davina and I was like I was just wondering if you're going to a meeting um tomorrow she's like yeah yeah I'm going at six o'clock you know world's end come and meet me there I's like, yeah, yeah, I'm going at six o'clock, you know, world's end. Come and meet me there. I was like, oh yeah, you know, I'm just interested to see what, you know, like what it's like. She's just, yeah, great. Come along if you want. She didn't ask me what's going on. She didn't

ask, which was exactly right. And the next morning I woke up and I felt so full of shame, and I thought, I'll go and see Sarah, so I went to see Sarah at work at lunchtime, sobbed, I said, I'm not expecting you to believe me, and I know I'm going to have to prove myself, but I just wanted to let you know I want to change, and I want to do something about it, and I'm going to go to a meeting tonight, and I could see a slight sort of, are really like is this really going to happen I just thought I I don't know how much more I can give you tell you but I really really mean it so I went to a meeting that night just spent the next two weeks going to meetings every day well and for 90 days after sobbing just sobbing in every meeting of surrender I don't care what I have to

do I will literally do anything to stop feeling like this and NA taught me how to live and how to change and how to heal myself I I owe NA my life, but it also gave me my career. And weirdly, having tried to get a job at MTV while I was using all those years, the time they say, come in for an interview, we're going to finally screen test you after three years of trying. I was six months clean and I didn't mess it up. You know, I turned up on time. In fact, I turned up a bit early. That was new for me. I turned up clean and smelling like flowers and with a smile on my face and colour in my cheeks. That was new for me. You said NA taught you how to heal. What did you learn about healing? And what did you learn about why you were addicted to narcotics? listening to other people talk about their experiences sometimes I think oh no that wasn't quite my experience I don't think that's why I used and then I remember hearing someone and thinking that's exactly me that hole and it never fills up and you're constantly trying to fill it with

anything and then when they said here is where I'm learning to fill it myself. And I thought, that's what I want. I want to line the hole with something impermeable that means it will fill up and never empty again. And there are steps in Narcotics Anonymous and any 12-step program. And, you know, if you work through these steps, and it is like people would go, oh, it's like a cult you know it's really bad but I did replace my addiction with addiction to Narcotics Anonymous but I know which addiction

I'd rather have like I went all the time often twice a day because it was the only place where I felt completely normal I'd be around other people going yeah I felt like that oh yeah i did that oh god i've messed up this or oh yeah i had um you know liaisons with people that i didn't i didn't care about i didn't know but i thought it would fix me you'd think god these people are so honest it's i've i realized the power in honesty i mean that's your thing right speak your truth yeah it's powerful yeah freeing oneself isn't it so I learned I learned everything to help me I did have like another transformational moment uh when I got hypnotizedized for a job that I was doing about eight years ago and that was like that was when the impermeable seal went on my fear of abandonment and it was

unexpected because I wasn't going to the hypnotist about that I was going to the hypnotist about not feeling anxious going in a submarine to a thousand meters under the sea tiny three-person submarine where you can't stand up and there's no loo and it takes 40 minutes to get to the surface again and I thought I don't get claustrophobia but I don't want to find out at a thousand meters under the sea that I am indeed claustrophobic. So I thought I better go and get hypnotized just to make sure. And that was, have you ever done hypnotism? No.

Oh man. I mean, if you've got an issue that is something that you've worked on a lot and is hard to let go of. I mean, I didn't even think really that my fear of abandonment issue was still there, but I do think, I do think it was. And we did some regression work where I went back to me in the kitchen, looking at my granny, thinking my mum's not going to come back. And I don't know what to do. And I feel a bit guilty. I think I've overstayed my welcome. And the hypnotist said, go get that divina. Take her by the hand.

He said, where's your favorite place in the garden? I said, the oak tree. So he said, take her to the oak tree. So I took her over to the oak tree. Little me, four years old. And he said, OK, sit her down. I sat her down. And he said, you know, come know comfort I said she looks worried and he said comfort her I said I feel silly I don't know what to do it's me

it feels weird and he said imagine she was one of your own children comfort her as if she was your child so I put I put my arm around her and I thought okay this is easier and then her head went on my on my chest and I was stroking her hair I said I don't know what to say I kept thinking he's looking to me to say something profound and I've got no idea how to do this and he said well why don't you tell her it's all going to be okay? And I really started crying, like really crying. Right. And he said the same thing. And I said, it's not going to be okay.

I take drugs. I make stupid decisions. I put myself in danger. It's bad. And he went, but look at you now. And it was like, my god look at me now I'm great and it was like everything went you know all the cogs and the wheels and my brain all went click I am gonna be okay I looked at her and I got like her head in my hands and I was like, you are going to be okay.

Your life is going to be amazing and it will be full of ups and downs, but you are going to be okay. And he said, you can take her back. Let's take her back. so i went back to the kitchen and i put her down in the seat and she's smiling at me and then he says we can leave now but he said before before we leave i want you to just turn around and look at her one last time and tell me what she looks like i said she looks happy and he said great and then he brought me around I was like

bawling this is amazing what's happened what's just happened and he said we've planted a seed and he said let's just wait and see what happens there he said this this was basically to stop you feeling like you're gonna be abandoned at the bottom of the sea. But actually, I think maybe we've done something bigger here. It might be kind of amazing what happens. And a couple of things happened after that where I said, actually, it's not OK to treat me like that. I would never have said that before because I was worried you'd abandon me. If I stood up to you and said not okay I'd think

oh you might not like me anymore I it was very important that everybody liked me and suddenly I was like actually I can stand up for myself in a non-aggressive way and not actually mind if you like me or not, because I'm doing it for me. Oh my God, it was mega. And I feel like from that moment, I've been a different person in all of my decisions, in my outlook on life. It's been mega. So your career then in TV, one of the things i read is that it was heavily fueled we kind of talked about this before we start recording by your desire to be famous yes i mean that the first mtv thing so i i'd wanted to be a singer another desire to be famous i wasn't good enough i was like i would be an amazing backing vocalist my my nickname at home is the harmonizer I can't

listen to a track without harmonizing to it I absolutely have to that's annoying at some point isn't it yeah because all my kids are like oh my god in in the car I'm always like you know like they're going oh my god like stop if I could have turned my family into the Von Trapps, and I really tried, or made them all do choir, I all had to kind of do singing lessons. They just weren't buying it at all. And I'm so upset about that. But if I could have had the Von Trapps, that would have been my dream.

Anyway, failed singer. What else can I do to get famous? All of this, obviously, mum, look at me. You made a mistake. Look how great I am. That's at the back of everything, right? And I mean,

for example, when I was 15 or 16 and I, I did quite well in my O levels, they were O levels back then. That's how old I am. And I called up my mum to tell her I'd done quite well in my own levels she was really angry because she felt like I was just trying to show her up or that you know don't think that you're she was drunk she was drunk she took it badly she's like felt

that it was me trying to say that she wasn't good enough or that she'd done something you know and I was so confused by that, that I thought I'm going to show you like I'm going to make you want to. Anyway, my aim was I want to get my own show on MTV. That's what I want. And I got my own show on MTV and I presented the first show and I went up to the dressing room afterwards and I cried and I cried and I cried and I couldn't figure out why I was crying and I called my sponsor which is something you you have in Narcotics Anonymous who's there to help you decipher yourself and she said right you know we picked it apart and picked

it apart and I said it hasn't fixed the hole it it didn't make me think oh my mum's gonna want me back and then to top it all off my mum did call me and say she'd seen it because you could see it in France because it was European and she said what you know you think you should stop pulling the faces you pull these faces and I was like that was not the desired effect I did not want you to think that. I wanted you to think, wow, you are amazing, you know. And so it was a really heavy moment. And then I thought, wow, I need to warn everybody, you know, being famous, you've got to do it for the right reasons i did it for the wrong reasons and now i'm here and i've got this job and i'm on the wheel and i don't know how to you know i can't get off i didn't want to get off i mean i was enjoying my job don't get me

wrong working mtv were some of the greatest years of my lives my life but actually it probably is lives I've had lived about 10 different lives in my lifetime and MTV was one of them but I think that that realization that the thing that I'd been aiming for that I thought was going to fix me and it didn't was like again the end of something and the start of another phase of my life okay well you're gonna have to find it inside somehow and that that hole you you referred to is that hole filled now filled yeah i mean i've 100% i've never been so happy like i can't even I sat oh do you know it was really funny because I said I said to my boyfriend this morning I said I'm going to do this thing with Stephen Bartlett this morning and he was like oh my god I said I am not going to cry I'm like I haven't done Piers Morgan specifically for this reason because I was like I am not going to sit under but it's weird because it's the thing

it's talk I could talk about my pain till the cows come home and not feel a thing because it's so far removed from me. And it was a long time ago. And I've processed and processed and processed it. But feeling happy, like, is so alien. Like 100%, like, joyous. Sitting on the train and just feeling so good this morning. And it's not like euphoria or a druggie happy or a fake high.

It's content. Oh, my God. It's like I can't, I cannot quite believe it. And I don't, you know, I've been been walking forwards but I don't know how I got here just walked forwards you know but settling settling down um I feel like I've I've grounded in a way that I've never had before. And, you know, I think it's so important to talk about this stuff because at 55,

if you'd have said to 30-year-old me, what's life going to look like when you're 55? I'm going to say really sad. I probably won't be doing TV anymore. It won't want me. And I'll be really boring. And I won't be having fun anymore. And so, and I think,

my God, I couldn't be wrong, more wrong. Like I've got to go and tell everybody quick. Tell everyone it's going to be okay. Stephen, it's going to be okay. I've never heard someone say to me that their feelings of happiness make them emotional oh when I think about it well because I'm grateful and I think because you know we were talking about what makes you a positive person I think it's because you think it's been a roller coaster right it's for think it's been a roller coaster, right? It's for you.

It's been a roller coaster. But like, it's not about the Lambo or the house or the mansion. It's about this and your roller coaster and your journey to money and making it and then realizing it doesn't fix you and then you fixing yourself by being on a journey of self-discovery which you massively are by talking to all these different people you're like taking little bits from everything that somebody says to you and thinking i'm going to use this for me that was a great tool thank you very much i'm going to have that it's like you are healing yourself this is your na meeting this is this is your this is your recovery i feel like you just blown my cover yeah this is your recovery and how amazing is that

it's crazy privileged yeah but in you know and it's just gonna these are all seeds that are planted in you that just continue to grow so life gets better you You know, Mother Nature throws you crepey knees and crepey elbows and crow's feet. But it also throws you a full heart and a peaceful mind. Your career, your career in TV, that whole journey, it's been one of the most incredible careers that I think most people could ever hope for in any industry ever. You know,

the top of your game. I first came to learn about you because of Big Brother, but there's a career before that and there's a long, long career after that. When you reflect on what advice you would have given yourself or like why you made it to the very top of that that pyramid what is the answer Davina I mean this is another thing that I marvel at every day because I've been many times in my career where I've thought this is it. It was interesting. After Big Brother finished, I contacted a friend of mine who was like a tech, a techie person. And I'd had this thought, like after Big Brother,

I thought, who am I? And where am I going to go? And it could all end. And as the person that was providing the roof and the food on the table, it was on, like me, I had to think of my next step. What was I going to do? I'm not sure how long television's going to last. I mean, it's still going, which is amazing for me,

but I thought I need to get into technology and the internet and I need to go online. And I came up with an idea for, I thought about it in terms of an exhibition centre, but you could put that online where you would have everything from money, advice, personal advice, mental advice, kids' advice. And I went and talked to a few people about it and for whatever reason it didn't happen

but it wasn't meant to happen I tried to get it off the ground for like two or three years I tried to make it a tv program I tried to make it an exhibition I tried to make it an online thing and you know when you're swimming against the tide with an idea and at some point you've just got to take your hands off the steering wheel and go like that wasn't meant to happen but then I got offered long lost family now long lost family I've been filming that program now for 13 years it makes me feel so good that show and I've helped so many people on it which has been so wonderful to be part of that moment in their life where they learn something that's been a niche that they couldn't scratch for years and years and we can provide that scratch um so i always think well just start

walking in that direction and something else will come along but never just sit down and wait you know i've never sat down and thought oh i, I'm just going to stay here and wait for something to happen to me. I've got no embarrassment or shame about emailing a TV company or a head of a TV company and going, have you thought about this? What about this? Can I present that if it happens? Can I do this? I'm literally begging ITV to let me present Midlife Love Island. I could fill a villa in Love Island with middle-aged people with the best backstories you have ever heard in your life. They've lived a

life. They're widows. They're people who have been through horrific divorces. They are people who have split up with somebody and decided they want to try going out with somebody the same sex as them. They're like interesting people. I'd watch that show that's really interesting yeah and i was like i need to present it please what are they saying they said oh we're looking at something else that's quite similar we might consider you for that well if i hadn't sent them that email in the first place they wouldn't have thought about me for the other show maybe you've got to make opportunities happen they never just come to you keep walking i'm always talking to my kids just keep walking something will come kind of form build the foundations and

just keep walking as you're walking you're laying more and more path don't sit and wait for the path to be laid because it'll never come to you. There's this word manifestation you've used in this conversation. What role and what does that mean to you? You know, you're talking there about proactively like attacking the day. I almost liken it to the analogy I've given before is when you get in your car in the morning, you set the sat-nav, which is the manifestation, but then you've got to drive. If you just do one, if you just drive, you're going to get lost. If you just set the sat-nav, you're going to be in your garage all day you have to do both together you've

talked about how you attack like send the email make the phone call pass to the person at mtv but then what role does like the manifestation play in all of that it's interesting because you said you've got it's all very well putting it in the sat nav is the manifestation but then you've got to drive the car yeah but in in in my mind i see that if you start if you know where you're going your car self drives like you you almost are always walking in the direction because you can see it. I know that at some point I will do this. So I've sent this email to this woman and I've just told you about it because this was a manifestation. It's triggered my memory that I've told this.

I'm going to send a follow-up email today. Now, is my car self-driving? It kind of is because I've been telling you about a manifestation because i had it in the first place you've just reminded me i'm going to send the email that for me is the difference though because there's so many people and we all know them that have sofa ideas they'll turn to you while they're watching you know i've got this idea for this tv show sometimes they're really good right fantastic but it doesn't matter because they don't have the the next bit which is i'm gonna get up and send an email and like you've just said i'm gonna send another one that for me is turning the

key in the ignition yes maybe yeah some there's a lot of people that are going oh i'm sat down tom tom this is where i want to go someday and then they just relax back into the chair in the car and nothing happens and then there's some people I meet tends to be the people that sit here with me that took that weird kind of um nothing to lose first step and you go that was rude or you go oh really you just like showed up there or you just begged them on email and those are the people that I tend to sit here with so Anita Roddick started the body shop and she lit kind of my um lit the wick of kind of interest in lit the fuse I mean of my interest in activism

and she was saying um you know if you don't think that you have the power as one person then you've never been to bed with a mosquito she said be as annoying as a mosquito and i was like i think that's me i am as annoying as a mosquito and that when i meet somebody and i bet you're the same steven when you see a kid and a kid comes up to you and goes steven can i have your number because i've got an idea and i want to come and pitch it to you you would go yes absolutely whereas other people might think oh I can't do that because he's Stephen Bartlett or I'll have to email him or oh no I've seen him on the telly I can't approach him but when you meet a ballsy kid yeah and they go can

I come and shadow you for a day or um uh give me a number I want you think yeah sure because I always respect the the tenacity and the asking I see myself in it a little bit exactly yeah I remember I was doing this podcast one day and um I was I was recording with a guest and then I got up to walk out and the person they brought with them in their entourage was their niece and she goes to me hi Stephen I know this is I know you're leaving and I know you've just interviewed my auntie but I have a podcast I've just started and I would like you to be on it so can we record it now did you say yes I was like of course I was like let's sit down and we sat down and recorded for like 45 minutes for her podcast stop it her podcast is killing it

Shivani isn't it she and she's killing it now like when I say killing it she's actually killing it she's like killing it now but I remember doing a post on LinkedIn about that moment tagged her in it and said I just respect the ask you know because my life has been riddled with moments as I saw in yours, where I just sent the email, I had nothing to lose whilst fucking stealing pizzas on my own in Manchester. What did I have to lose at that point by just sending loads of emails? I remember Samsung, I think it was Panasonic or Samsung gave me free cameras. I sent an email. They were like, here's all the free cameras to start your business. When I 14 i sent these emails to this vending machine company they fit our secondary school with free vending machines that we made profit from so i i'd learned the power of just like asking

nothing to lose maybe my ego might take an l but he gives a fuck i've got nothing to do what's the worst that could happen but i think also when the worst has happened. Yeah, you're not scared of it. It's happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, getting a no to me is just a yes that hasn't happened yet. I'm always like, oh, you're saying no, but... You mean maybe. You mean maybe, right. You mean ask again. I sat here with Professor Galloway, Scott Galloway,

and he told me about the arc of happiness, where he says, you know, his idea was that our happiness kind of looks like a bit like a smile where we kind of start happy at the start of our life. It gets a little bit difficult in the middle. And then at the end, the kind of 50-ish age, when we go into that second spring,

it's happy again, typically. Again, this is not the same for everybody. It's kind of a generalization. But at the bottom of the arc of happiness, when things are most difficult, is when we start losing people in our lives that we love and I know 10 years ago you lost Caroline your half-sister um talk to me about that that experience and also generally the process of how you've dealt with that grief

it was definitely the worst thing that ever happened to me. Still to this day, like the worst. So I told you a little bit about Caroline with my mum and that she was six years older than me. And she lived in Paris. She was the result of my mum's pregnancy when she was 16. And she endured a lot, well, a lifetime with our mum. And that was very hard on her.

And she was left with many hang-ups from that. She used to find it hard to be completely honest all the time. So she'd tell big exaggerations about things or make up stories but this is because she'd had to lie to cover for my mum her entire life not all the time but just she'd make her life a bit more exciting by telling untruths and I don't want to do her a disservice in her death because we talked about this when she was alive and I go is that a poor key and she'd start laughing she'd go well it did happen but this didn't happen you know but it was just trying I understood her and she understood me and all my defects of character

and she knew exactly why I did things and she was an insular person quite an insular person and her favorite thing would be to go she lived with me always we had six dark years when we didn't live together but she lived with me when I had a two-bed flat in Hammersmith and we were very funny together like I just understood everything about her and she understood all my idiosyncrasies and I got all of hers and so her favorite thing in the evening you know I love socializing I'm a people person I like going out I am touch she would be tv dinner food on lap foie gras a ton of butter french bread glass of red wine spliff if I would say to her do you want to come for a walk around the garden? She was French, fully French. So her mum and her dad were French.

And I'd say, do you want to come for a walk around the garden? She'd go, no. You know, exercise, not her thing. Absolutely hilarious person. So funny. But very secretive. And I was bleh. I would tell her everything. She would tell me nothing. It was very annoying. I would walk around naked in front of her all the time. I'd phone her up.

I'd go, Caroline, come and talk to me while I have a bath. I mean, I was so annoying. I was an annoying little sister right until the very end so she'd come over to the house and she'd sit on the floor and I'd go like talk to me tell me everything what's happened at work blah blah blah and then I'd share something or I'd talk about a problem and she'd help me iron it out she was amazing so good to talk to so kind of wise always a bit painfully honest with me yeah but you know you're overstepping the mark or you know you shouldn't be doing this she's the only person that could do that with me but because she was so secretive things were going a bit awry so she just had her 50th birthday and she sort of walked into a door once a door was half open and she sort of walked into a door once.

A door was half open and she kind of walked into it. I was like, didn't you see that? I thought she's been smoking too much spliff, you know. And then she was sitting at the table and she was talking to me and she had a glass in her right, her left hand. It was her left hand. She had a glass in her left hand. And as she was talking to me, I was watching the glass.

Her left hand was tipping further and further over to the side and I was watching the glass and the water was just about... And I went, Caroline, your hand. And she went, oh, but she had to look at it to tip it back up. And I was thinking, that's very weird. And she became a bit clumsy. And I thought, too much weed or menopause or something. She became a bit forgetful. She kept going off.

Menopause. I can't remember what's going on she had a sore back and she'd fallen over we'd been in the garden and she'd fallen over and she kept going you know when I fell over my back's like still not right she used to cane the Advil I mean she was terrible with like painkillers she used to take sleeping pills you know she slightly medicate herself weed sleeping pills Advil like all the time I just thought she's on another planet but it got to the point where I thought something is up and I'd invited her to come to France with us for half term she always came on holiday with us and she said no which was very unlike her and I was like are you sure she went I just want to stay here I'm so tired I don't feel just feel like I've got flu coming on I was like okay

I got back she'd had flu all week she'd been in bed all week I was like well Caroline like I think maybe you should go see someone she said no I think I'm coming out of it then the next morning someone had been walking past her window and they said um davina i think you should come i can hear caroline shouting for help i got the key open the door she'd been on the floor all night um she was in her pajamas she'd soiled herself she couldn't move she was paralyzed down half her body and i was like it's a stroke quick call the ambulance the quicker we can get her seen the better the rat car comes you know stroke expert he walks in he goes I don't think this is a stroke I was like but it must be a stroke because half her body's gone like this is what happens in a stroke they get

her in an ambulance I'm now a bit worried I'm thinking if this isn't a stroke what is going on but I was just trying to be strong for her just go it's gonna be fine we're gonna get you to And I'm thinking, if this isn't a stroke, what is going on? But I was just trying to be strong for her. I just go, it's going to be fine. We're going to get you to hospital and they're going to get it sorted. It's probably, you know, a bit of menopause, a bit of whatever. Maybe you're smoking too much. We get out of the hospital, test after test after test.

And I was thinking, brain scan, I understand. And then they said, we'd like to do a chest X-ray. And I was thinking, why are you doing a chest X-ray if it's clearly neurological? Off she goes for the chest X-ray. And then about an hour later, we get a doctor come in and he goes, we've got something to tell you. And we're both thinking, yeah, we're in A&E, right? And he goes, yeah, you have primary lung cancer in both lungs and you have

two brain tumors it's metastasized to your brain and the pain in your back is where your lung cancer is then going into your bone so you probably have bone cancer as well I was like, that can't be right. And she went lung cancer. And then she looked at me and she went, it's all my fault. I went, it's not your fault. Like, it's not your fault you've got lung cancer. And you could see her just going tick, tick, tick, smoking all those years, smoking the smoking, the weed. And I was like, stop, stop. We need to think, like, what are we going to stop we need to think like what are we going to do like okay what are we going to do in the meantime I have to I just

said I'm just going to go and call um my mum and dad I'm just going to go and call them and just let them know what's happening and I called them I couldn't breathe I was like in the corridor going I think I'm I think I'm I think I'm gonna have like some kind of attack like I can't I can't process it I don't understand what's happening that I think they're telling me because they hadn't said the word die. I think they're telling me Caroline's dying, like she's got so much cancer that she's dying. I said, I'll keep you posted. I go freshen up my face. There was a nurse there that I've seen a couple of times since when I've taken my kids into A&E

and I always give her a bit of a special hug because she came up to me in the corridor and she was like, are you okay? okay and I was like I'm not okay she was like what's going on I said well my sister's got this and this and she was like really sorry she just gave me a hug and that was it and then she went I've never forgotten it you know that hug I needed touch I needed someone to I went back in kind of tried to dry off my eyes or what have you we just sat there in silence, really. And then lots of people came in and were looking at her.

One of the saddest things was someone lifted up her back to put the stethoscope on her back and listen to her. And I saw, I know this is going to sound so weird, but I saw a blackhead on her back and it was massive. And it had grown into kind of a sore. It looked horrible. And I thought, no one sees you. No one, no one sees you naked. No one. You don't let anyone in. Like I am the closest and even I am not in because you are so protective of that painful child she'd never done the work she'd never got to NA or AA she wasn't really an addict I mean you know she smoked a lot of weed but I didn't I didn't see her as that she wasn't

an alcoholic she wasn't but she she had she'd put a fence around her and everybody was at the fence and she had so many friends that loved her so much but nobody got inside the fence and I it made me so so sad and I thought I'm fucking climbing over the fence and I'm going to get in for however long you've got left because you are not shutting me out. We had the best talks. She was in hospital for a month. We had the most amazing, brilliant talks. I thought, God, why is it that when you're dying, we get to do this? Why did we not do this a year ago like if anybody's

listening and they feel like they've got a relative that they want to get into or get do it now don't wait for someone to die because the best seven weeks of my life with my sister were those last seven weeks of hers and so she had a month in the hospital and then we i said i want to get her home to her cottage i had to go around and find all her weed and it was everywhere i literally could have you know started dealing she had that much weed squirreled away i think she'd forgotten half of the places that she'd had it squirreled away i chucked it all away um I wasn't I didn't find that hard at all like I wasn't I was never interested in weed so it was easy for me I um set up her house got the plumber in put in things for her to hold um occupational therapy came and told me all the places where I need to put stuff

harnesses hospital beds blah blah blah set up her whole cottage got her back home and just hung out with her and we got a carer and she she had chemo booked in but the first chemo was booked in for two days after she died and we thought she had six months we wrote a bucket list and on the bucket list was just the sweetest stuff like go to France one more time and see the kids we tried to make as much of it happen get loads of her friends down a lot of the stuff we couldn't do again like why do people do bucket lists when they're dying like Like, do bucket lists when you're alive. And also, I would challenge anybody listening to this podcast because this was a real thing for me. If somebody said to me,

Davina, you have got six months to live. What's like the most important thing to you now? Like, what really matters? Don't wait for somebody to say that you've got six weeks to live say i love i say i love you to all of my friends all of the people that i love non-stop check in with people call people make sure they're okay spend time with people make the decisions where you think if I was to die tomorrow is this the decision that I'd be happy with equally if you've got somebody very toxic in your life and they are really ruining your life you know if you had six months to live you would be the first thing

I'd do is let go of this toxic person do not wait you know do it now and you deserve to be happy you deserve to not have this toxic person in your life and Caroline again I guess you know I'm always looking for lessons she taught me so much in her death she was so brave she never once complained she never once got frightened she never cried and she tried to look after me. And one of my most, I'm sorry, Stephen, I know I'm talking a lot, but there was one moment I do want to tell you about. So obviously no one had ever seen her naked. And she had this amazing carer called Claire.

Oh, my God. She was the best ever. She was the most gentle. She understood respect and dignity and she knew Caroline almost straight away she knew what kind of person she was and Caroline would not let me get her undressed or ready for bed it was like I don't want you to see me naked and the night that she went to sleep for the final time and then three days later she died she was doing this kind of knitting thing with her hands she was really

uncomfortable you could see there was something something had changed a bit and I was like hey you okay and Claire didn't come until maybe seven or eight in the evening to put her to bed with the district nurse. And she said, I want to go to bed now. Oh, no, Claire was there, but she needed somebody else to put her to bed because there was hoists and everything. And I said, well, look, Claire and I could do it, but it would mean that it would be me. And she went, okay, but laughing. And I was like, are you serious? she went yes and I went oh my god Caroline

thank you thank you but at the same time I was like well you know I'm gonna cry like this is the this is Mecca I've arrived you know this is my pilgrimage to my sister. I crawled over the fence and I'm now at her body. And I said to her, would it be all right if I did the diprobase? Because I needed to diprobase her before she got into bed so she didn't get bed sores. And that's like moisturizing every inch of her body. And she went, yes, but you're not going to do it again. Like, this is the only time i'm gonna let you do it once and i said oh thank you so much and i got to she had the softest skin i'm very furry

my my sister had no hair like at all she was bald as a coot and her arms and stuff was so soft i got the dip brace i was like oh my god Caroline your arms are so soft and she was laughing away she's going oh my god you are ridiculous I was going this is amazing and I got to cream her whole body and it felt like she'd given that to me and it was hideous for her. And even when she was dying, she gave me a bit... ...of herself that I had never had before. And it was so nice. And she went to sleep that night. And actually in the middle of the night then they came and they gave her a bit more morphine.

They said, OK, she was really distressed. She was calling me mummy and holding onto my hand she'd never been like that before and she they gave her some morphine and it calmed her down a bit and then for three days she just slept basically but I was with her when she went and it was really lovely and I kept talking to her the whole time because they say your hearing is the last thing that goes and I just wanted her to know I wasn't crying I was just trying to be really strong for her and I kept saying to her I'm gonna be fine because I think out of everything she was worried about me do you know what I mean like that was her last thought like

are you going to be all right because she knew how much of a backbone she was for me that's what I meant about it being a reciprocal agreement like it wasn't just me taking care of her she was taking care of me and she it was a reciprocal agreement and she wanted to make sure that I was going to be all right and I kept going I'm going to be all right. And I kept going, I'm going to be fine. And I talked out all the time, but in the last five years, so I had a huge grieving thing. Seven years after she died, I went like all summer. She died on the 1st of August and all summer,

I couldn't shake off this cloud. And somebody online, interestingly, had said often seven years after someone's died it's like a bang and I was like this is what's happening to me seven years it's like so painful again but since then you know and me being in a good place I keep telling her I keep going oh man like I wish I wish you were here like so I could show you how great it is she'd be living with me now and you know she'd be so happy we'd be good I imagine myself I always thought that I'd be wheeling her around I always imagined she'd probably get emphysema and she'd have an oxygen tank and I'd tell her that I'd go if you carry on doing that, you're going to get blooming.

And I said, but I'm happy to wheel you around. I am. We'll go and live by the seaside somewhere and you and me can be a couple of old grannies and I'll, you know, I'll take care of you. But I didn't, never thought she'd die at 50. But she was a great person. And, but her passing, my dad, you know, when he died,

he had Alzheimer's and it was expected. We knew it was coming. We'd spent 10 years preparing for it. It was still horrific, but he was 78. And I knew he'd lived an amazing life, but I still felt my sister had so much more to give, you know what is that process of grief like uh you know I ask these questions because I've been fortunate enough to not go through that arc of grief yet and

I think about it it's been like I think it haunts me a little bit in my head sometimes um that process of grief what you learned from it what you would um what you might impart on me do you ever feel like an island in your life like that your family are around you but you're not quite attached like you are slightly on your own 100% I always felt like that too so i'm sort of attached but not quite attached and other people are attached but i've never and it's not a bad thing it's not because anybody's tried to detach me i just feel like an island maybe you didn't in my case i feel like i didn't learn attachment i didn't learn how to to you know i call my parents by their first names and i do you know i don't

you know i feel like we're in a family of islands that's called an archipelago is that what it's called yeah a group of islands all grouped together it's not too much so i i don't so your partner i know you don't talk about personal life but is it like two islands have come together so you've formed a like a little it's interesting like i said to michael like michael's a beether and i'm forman tara oh yeah i'm the like the really kind of gorgeous like hot beautiful unsport island next and he's quite a party island and we've formed like we've now formed a beether and forman tara but we are two islands that have come together but i i feel like as as just to talk about the grief thing i've my mum died my dad's died my sister's died i have an amazing stepmom who i love very much she's still with me um but i have a half sister out in australia who i love very much, but I don't speak to as often because of the time differences and everything.

And so now I really, I feel like an island. I've got very close family and stuff. It's not that I'm not close to my family, but I do feel, but I've got all my kids are on my island. They're with me. They're in me.

They're part of my DNAna um but it's just an interesting concept that feeling though but when you meet somebody and you really get on with them you can form a little bond but you're still two islands but there's a bridge but there's a bridge my funnily enough my girlfriend is the opposite which is funny because i sat here with a relationship matchmaking expert and he talked about these three different types of attachment that we have one of them is like um evasive i think that's what he said where you're kind of trying to avoid the prospective connection you self-sabotage you're always trying to kind of run away from commitment the middle one was, where you're always very nervous about attachment,

and that makes you needy. And then the third one, he said was, I'm going to paraphrase, basically a stable. We all know those people. All of their parents are together still, they have, you know, their parents seem to be best friends and work together they they end up being like best friends with their partner they seem to have no problems and he says it's it's a risk when two aversives get together it's also a risk when an aversive and a nervous get together because you have someone who in my case is trying to run you have a girlfriend who wants attention and quality time and i'm trying to run and she's trying to he said you have to both together get to becoming a stable together and i thought that was interesting because she has helped me to become stable I don't run away emotionally open affectionate but we managed to get there together and maybe that's the bridge maybe when you feel

you know does any of that resonate with you yeah totally yeah i mean i think i've probably i'm in a stable for sure yeah were you always were you always a stable attachment type in relationships no because i had the fear of abandonment yeah but then this this i feel like this hypnotist kind of transformed me to be able to form healthy friendships um changed my whole outlook i think on relationships you wrote a book it's here in front of me called menopausing why why did you why did you want to write a book on it writing books is a lot of effort yeah you know so you have to really want want it and you're you're now in a very intentional phase of your life so this must have really from everything i've learned about you so far must have really mattered totally i mean i think i did um i did two documentaries which were eye openers for me

the first one was a huge risk and i thought oh am i literally committing professional Harry Kiri here is is my entire career going to implode now that I am banging the menopause drum and telling everybody that I'm menopausal because I'd hidden it for so long I thought is this going to be a bad thing or a good thing I had no idea but my life was heading to in this direction where I'd been talking to doctors and learning things and I thought I've got a platform and I don't understand when it's something that happens to every single woman it's not even like it happens to some women it happens to every single woman and some trans men and we know nothing about it this this is a crime to womanhood. And it is also not good for society

because women are behaving in a bizarre and irrational and over-emotional way sometimes. 75% of women have symptoms, 25% of women don't. That those 75% are going to be behaving or going through things that either will affect their jobs their work certainly will affect their relationships certainly will affect their children's lives if they've got kids and yet we don't know anything about it neither did you or you or anybody else know anything about what was going on and i thought i have got a platform and most of the people that follow me on

this platform are women i i've got it i've got to do something about it so i did this first documentary and i kind of watched that at home like oh my god this is good oh god then i went out for a dog walk the next day it's always on the dog walk stopped three times yeah it's always on the dog it always goes off and when i walk the dog it's like amazing no and i got stopped three times and i was like oh hi yeah hi and they went oh my god we watched it last night i was like oh wow did you and then one person cried another was a guy that stopped me and said oh i watched it with my wife and then we called my wife's sister because my wife's sister's definitely you know she's been like lost for so long and it's so good and I thought god I think this is going to be great I think this is going to really help people this could be seriously good but like page one

of menopause questions I still get asked can I take HRT while I've still got periods yes that is exactly when it's the best time to take HRT oh my GP's told me I'm too young no 45 is a completely normal time you're thinking wow I'm not reaching as many people as I thought I was I've made these two programs and I've talked about it and I've shared about it and I've shared about it online and I've said you can watch it on all four and all of that but I just thought there needs to be something where it can be on a table or in a loo or in a library or in an office space where people can go and reference and look something up and know that they are getting 100 correct facts because the doctor that i wrote this with is unlike me extremely fastidious about telling the truth and about getting correct scientifically

validated information out there so me and her make quite a good team because i'm all the kind of huge feelings and passion and anger and laughter and silliness and she's the science what are the symptoms and what symptoms did you experience in your life because there'll be people listening to this now that are thinking oh they might have seen someone yeah you know i thought about people that i know when i first started learning about menopause from actually gabby logan who said she actually you played a huge role in in her journey and her sort of figuring all of that stuff out. But what are those symptoms to be looking for? And how much do they impact one's life and relationships? So the symptoms can be varied.

They can, you can just get one symptom and it can absolutely floor you, or you could get five symptoms and they don't massively bother you, or you might not get any symptoms at all. So 25% of women go through it with absolutely like sail through, don't even know that it's happened until their periods have stopped then 50 percent of women struggle a bit like i would put myself in that 50 i struggled quite a bit and then 25 of women it will be so bad that they will think extremely dark thoughts often suicide um will feel complete hopelessness have to leave their jobs have to leave relationships or get left um it has catastrophic effects on their life so the

the symptoms oestrogen depletion in oestrogen affects every organ in your body so forgetfulness brain fog i mean that is chronic yeah where the fuck are my keys yeah where the fuck are my keys well done chapter in the book love that steven thank you um you know that the the forgetfulness is epic um and embarrassing and also another thing that makes you feel old overnight your body starts changing um a bit of extra weight around the middle because um professor tim specter now explained to me that women metabolize sugar differently uh in midlife and estrogen and um the way that that affects your digestive system and your gut changes in menopause that's like fascinating so many changes happen and so I had night sweats I had the mood

things I had um but all of this the the brain fog was the thing that was really affecting my work and I just thought I'm not even sure that I can continue working but I did end up through a long process and it's all explained in the book but end up seeing a private doctor and I'm sad that i had to go to a private doctor but i seriously thought i was going mad and somebody flagged up maybe it is the perimenopause but i said i've been told by my gp i'm too young they said well maybe go you know pay and go see somebody so i did and they said immediately your perimenopausal i had i've got hyperroidism. I've had that since I was 28, where my thyroid is underactive. And apparently people who have hyperthyroidism can start menopause early. I didn't know that. And they talked me through all the perceived risks and the benefits. I didn't

know there were any benefits to taking HRT either. I thought it was only going to give me breast cancer. I thought it might take away my symptoms, which would be the only benefit. But actually, there are health benefits to taking it. And I weighed it all up and I thought, I'm definitely, definitely going to go on HRT. You can take it for the rest of your life. We get asked that a lot. You get asked, like, does it postpone your menopause? It doesn't postpone your menopause.

But if you stop taking it, you wean yourself off, you can occasionally get an odd flush even after your periods have stopped. It's just the oestrogen depletion in your body. If you keep taking the oestrogen, you probably won't have the hot flushes. But some women have to stop because they do get breast cancer that's oestrogen receptive and then they are required. But I met somebody the other day who'd had breast cancer that's estrogen receptive and then um they are required but i met somebody the other day who'd had breast cancer and um she'd gone on hrt because she felt the quality of her life was so bad that she had sat down and weighed up look if it comes back how are we going to deal

with it what would i do how many times do I get checked a year? She weighed that up herself. But it's a very personal decision. Some women would be like, I don't want to take that risk. I don't want to take the risk of getting cancer just to make myself feel better. But for her, she felt so bad that it was worth the risk.

So it's a very personal journey for so many women. But it is a journey that when you know about it and you know what's happening to you is an easier journey to take what about men you talk about men in the book yeah so they're like really important i'm going to tell you a story about a guy the other day he sent me a tweet and he said i got your book and i went to the living room door and i opened the living room door i chucked in the book and i ran away and it made me laugh when i read it and and i thought oh you know banter hilarious yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm

terrified and then i thought actually do you know what i'm gonna send you a direct message so i messaged him because he was following me. So I messaged him privately. I said, are you okay? And he went, it's actually quite hard. Like, I don't know what to do. And I thought, oh, that was a bit of banter, but actually you're struggling, right? So I was like, hey, listen, I've got a great tip tip leave the banter at the door of the living room and why don't you go in and you can pick up the book and sit down and read it with her she'd absolutely love it i can't tell you how much it would mean to her if you said i'm i don't know what to say or how to help you and i'm feeling tell her how you feel um but in a non-comedy way like really tell her how you feel and then say what can i do to help can i can i read this book with you can we

you know what can i do anyway the next day he sent me another message and he went oh my god i did it and it was so good and we read a bit of the book together and i feel much better informed and i don't feel like it's me because i think he thought it was him you know and being it's hard to explain when you're being a bitch that it's not their fault but that everything that they do makes you want to like run away or shout at them but it's not their fault how can that not feel like your fault when you've got somebody doing that to you and just knowing that it is a thing that happens and that there are things that you can do about it makes all the difference you know to a man so i think and to the woman you know for a man to

then go oh i see it's like oh he gets it do you know what though there's um there's a fear i have about this because even in the case of him buying the book and then running in i know it was a joke running in there throwing it in there and closing the door as if it's a grenade or something there's a there's a fear as a man that if i was to approach my partner with the book it would be me saying there's something wrong with you yeah i mean see what i mean that is why um an honest and open conversation about how you're feeling not like you've been a bit moody recently i bought you this book just say look yeah like say if a man was listening to this and he thought that his partner was perimenopausal and they've maybe noticed three or four symptoms

buy the book read it or have a look at the symptoms if you're worried about what they might think hide it and read it look at the symptoms. If you're worried about what they might think, hide it and read it. Look at the symptoms, do a little mental checklist. I think you've got this, this and this, and then go, look, I've been feeling like this recently. I've been feeling like you don't love me anymore. And I really miss you. Say something nice. Say something about how you feel like we've grown apart a bit and i want to bring it back and i've been thinking and i listened to some stuff and i heard something on the radio or you know how did you hear about this book so then you say well i was listening to the podcast i have a ceo and i subscribe and i like and subscribe and so i thought i'd buy the book

and have a look at it and i think some some of this is, can I show you something? Can we sit down? I'd really like to show it to you. And if they get annoyed, don't worry. They might get annoyed and walk away and go, I'm not perimenopausal. And then come back and secretly read the book. Or they might come back and go, I'm sorry. I was annoyed, but I think I am.

And then they might have a cry. It can work out a million different ways, but it just needs a bit of patience, a bit of understanding and no banter. Banter is like bad in several situations. Banter is bad around periods. Do banter about periods. You can do banter about haircuts, clothing, loads of things, but banter about periods. You can do banter about haircuts,

clothing, loads of things, but banter about periods is not funny. Banter in childbirth, not funny. Unless wife has given you permission to bantz, or unless she bants at you, then you can bant back and banter during menopause, unless sheants first i always go by the way because these are times of great vulnerability and sometimes a bit of banter can really hurt we used the word mission earlier on we used it in the context of once you decouple from the need for validation or to fill that hole you can have a much more intrinsic internal mission to set your life um in a new trajectory what is your mission now as you sit here you said you're 55 um what is your mission i really like helping people so I think that's a general mission if I can help in any way like what can I do

to help you I think I've got a platform you've got a platform you're helping people you know that's like I feel like that's your mission to spread uh spread good using your platform I guess like I've i've worked hard all my life to get a platform now i've got a platform what am i going to do with it do i want to make more money or get more followers not really i'm not really bothered do i want to help people yeah so everything is like is this going to help anyone is this going to do any good even something is kind of you know lingerie to me is a superpower. Like lingerie is one of the most important builders of self-confidence.

When I was single, I used to wear badass lingerie because the first act of self-love is what are you going to put on underneath your clothes that's next to your skin that no one else is going to see, that only you know what you're wearing you know i see women who look absolutely amazing on the outside but they're wearing gray holy underwear and it's a act of care self-care is looking looking nice only for you it's an amazing act of love so i want to help people feel good about themselves i want to get the message out there. And I also... What do I want to do? Yeah, I just think that is my mission. I'm always thinking about jobs like...

Because of my sister, I was thinking about a TV programme I'd love to do called Legacy. Because my sister was a beautiful person and I never think she felt it but my god her funeral was amazing and she was loved so much and I kept thinking why aren't you here oh my god you'd love this you had no idea how much you were loved how what a huge impact you had on so many people's lives I thought wouldn't it be great to do a sort of this is your life type TV program

where you bring all the people together, but for somebody that is life limited, somebody who has a year left and you do their funeral before they die. Have a living wake for them. Wow. Yeah, it's like, it's horrific, but great at at the same time and if you found somebody that was willing i would love that yeah i was thinking about it from a tv tv perspective but wow what

a range of emotions this is your legacy look all these people and getting the roses while you can still smell them yeah so that's kind that kind of thing like i can do a job and and do something lovely i mean i'm not sure if i would find anybody to get that off the ground because it's it's quite extreme but this is you're manifesting yeah i've said it out loud on here someone might hear it you never know you are you're such a legend for so many reasons you have a real talent which I didn't realize until I'd really met you here having watched you on tv but there's just something really quite electric and and wonderful about you but that's probably why you were so successful on on tv in the public domain because there's this electricity to you

I don't know if anyone's ever told you that before it's real just like brilliant engaging electricity so um it's been an incredible honor to meet you i've learned so much i felt a full the full range of emotions your podcast is fantastic which you do with michael making the cut yeah can i tell you something funny please on apple podcast they michael my partner is called michael douglas and they've got a picture of actual michael douglas and they've got a picture of actual michael douglas with me and i keep thinking katherine zeta jones is going to come over and let me go are you doing something with my husband i go no they've got the wrong picture i've written

to apple so many times i've gone yeah i have i keep writing to apple podcast going mate please swap michael douglas's photo for my michael douglas i'm gonna get into trouble with katherine okay but it's a fantastic podcast you sit there with your partner and you talk about life recommend things so we recommended in fact this specific episode and we were recommending your podcast in general but the specific one was the jimmy carl one which was he was a great such an interesting mind-blowing right like mind-blowing yeah yeah i saw that i think i dm'd you after yeah you did you did if it was straight after that no it was after that it was after you done a story about it as well and yeah yeah so thank you for that we all freaked out a little

bit because you're such a legend international treasure that we're like oh my god davina mccall is listening we're like we need to step this up it is like that's super surreal for me because you know i've watched you on screens and i've admired you for so long so to hear that you were listening it's like oh my god what did we say you know so thank you for that good things it's okay and your book is amazing we were talking before you um we started about how the way you've designed this book from the colors to the cover to the structure of every page and how engaging and unintimidating it is and accessible it feels

is also intentional you've done it all for a reason i want it easy to read i was just saying earlier about the the hands on the front you know i wanted those two hands at the bottom to look like i'm gonna help you out of this and we're going to do it together. And that the messaging is positive because I think people, I had viewed the menopause as an incredibly negative thing in my 30s and 40s. And actually it's been a time where you're actually talking to me here and asking me how I feel and I'm saying happy. I mean, you know, this is what menopausing has done for me. I feel so happy.

So I wanted to kind of convey that in some way and make it a book that when you are feeling diminished and invisible, that you can pick it up and it's easy to read and you will see yourself in every page. When I do this podcast, sometimes I have moments where I'm so grateful to get to do this because because I meet these amazing people but then I learn about things that are like like it's like I'm in a hall and I thought the room was fully illuminated and then I have a conversation about menopause and then another light goes on that I didn't even know you know and it's like the room has just got bigger because someone has turned the light on for me and learning about menopause over the last from you from this book from over the last from what gabby said and what you'd said

you know the influence you've had on gabby it's maybe you're fucking oh so many things make sense now i mean well my mum had a medical hysterectomy at 28 and would have been plunged into the menopause and didn't get hrt so imagine what impact that had on her and her behaviour and her actions. You know, I've forgiven my mum a little bit for some, I mean, not all of it, but I've let go of it. But it explains some of it. I actually did want to talk to you about that situation of forgiveness with your mother, because many people can relate to having someone in your life that you fight to change you try your best and you know because they're your mum um and at some point sometimes we have to say listen

we've done more than we can possibly do to the point that we're actually hurting ourselves now and we have to kind of cut ties as a bit of a drastic way of saying it but we have to kind of start protecting ourselves did that happen in your situation at some point so with my mum um she'd she was an alcoholic i then got into recovery and then came the thing of how long do i go along with my mum being an alcoholic without saying you're an alcoholic? And you need to do something about it because it's getting really bad. And after a few years of being in recovery, talking to my sponsor, going to meetings, sharing about it, I thought I'm going to confront her about it. And I said, you're an alcoholic.

You need to do something about it. And then she got really fucking angry with me and she didn't do anything about it. And I saw her another couple of times. She was stationed abroad. She'd married somebody that worked at an embassy. She couldn't move around. And eventually I just said, look, I can't see you until you get sober. And a couple of years later, she went to live in South Africa with her husband and she got sober and I invited her to my wedding to Matthew and she came and she was sober and we went to an NA

meeting together and we held hands and we shared And then Matthew and I went on honeymoon and we went to Paris afterwards. Saw my mum again. It was kind of like amazing. It was kind of as I had hoped it would always be. It was like a miracle. And then six months later on my birthday, on the 16th of October,

just in case you want to send me a card next year um on the 16th of October I'm away in Edinburgh and the paper comes upstairs and it says mummy I need a meeting on the front page of the mirror and I'd never spoken about going to NA because it was an anonymous fellowship. And the point of being an anonymous fellowship is that nobody knows you go. And she had sold a story to the papers about us going to that meeting. And the papers had twisted it so that it was like I was about to relapse before my wedding. And that she'd taken me to this meeting and, you know, sort of saved me. It was like that kind of tone. And then inside, because I'm like you, you know, I've never printed pictures of my children ever. I've never even posted a picture

of them on Facebook, not even on my private Facebook page ever. There's never been a picture of my kids anywhere. Now that my kids are are 19 and 21 the older ones they can choose i will never post a picture of chester online there's pictures of our honeymoon i like i hadn't i wasn't posting i wasn't wouldn't i mean instagram wasn't around but there was she in the newspapers of us like together with her I was like somebody took my heart and grabbed it and ripped it out and I felt the shutters coming down I thought I trusted you and I was you know I'd let you back into my life and I'm gonna put the fucking shutters down because you're not gonna get back in again and I called her up and I was like what are you doing she said oh it was the celebratory thing you know that we'd gone to this meeting together. I said, nobody knew I was in the fellowship. I said, you go to the fellowship,

you know, it's an anonymous fellowship. It's not like you're new to it. You've been clean for a year. Like, what are you doing? I was so upset. And my sister, who had always felt a bit invisible, was not mentioned in the article once. And my mum hadn't said, I've got another daughter or my daughter lives with, you know, Davina and Caroline live together or nothing. She said nothing about it. Like she was invisible. It hurt her so much. She never spoke to my mum again, ever.

From that moment. She was going to go over and see her in South Africa. They had a plane ticket booked and everything. And then she realized she probably bought the ticket with the money that she got because my mom didn't have any money. I was giving her money for medicines and things like that. She just was, they didn't have much money. And then I carried on giving her the money because I thought,

who do I want to be when I die? Or when she dies, I want to have been the person that I respect so I thought I'm not going to pull the money and not give her meds so I kept giving her the money and then every now and again she'd kind of reach back in I'd think oh my god this is different then she'd do something else so another story would come out or every time I kind of reached out another story would come out and in the end I found out she was dying of cancer in South Africa and I lay in bed in England one night and Matthew was asleep and I put my hands out on top of the bed with my palms facing upwards. And I closed my eyes and I imagined shoots of light of forgiveness coming out of the palms of my hand,

going across the world to South Africa, to Pretoria where she lived, and straight into her heart in the hospital. And I just kept saying, I forgive you for everything. I just totally fucking forgive you. I don't care anymore. Forgive you. Go in peace.

And then me, my sister and my husband and our kids all went away for a wedding in America. And my sister and I got the news when we were together that she'd gone. And I looked at her and I said, she's gone. And she was like, wow. And then we both had a little cry. And then Caroline looked at me and she went, I feel relieved. And I said, so do I. Is that terrible?

She went, I don't know. And I said, God, it's,'s please don't let and i said to her quietly then please don't let me be a person that dies and anybody ever feels relieved about don't let me ever live that life and caroline said me either and caroline definitely didn't we were fucking broken when she died so she she achieved that and i hope that when i go i don't ever like leave anybody feeling happy that i've gone well i'm not happy but but when she died she freed me up to remember funny times as well as all of when she was alive i could only remember the bad and what i was missing and when she died you know i was able to remember

her being hilarious and arresting people drunk as a citizen's arrest or things that were just funny did you go to her funeral no and again will i regress it no we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest and the question left for you very good handwriting is what makes you most angry about society? Cancel culture. Have you been on the receiving end of it? Yeah. When? I wrote a tweet about

Sarah Everard's death when it was getting really nasty online about men. Yeah. And I said that Death when it was getting really nasty online about men. Yeah and I said that That Abduction and death from abduction is very rare and we don't need to

Completely panic about that situation. I wasn't talking about any other kind of things that happened to women. I wasn't talking about domestic abuse or any of the other awful things that happened to women. I was just talking about abduction and death from that. It is rare. And we just have to not start blaming all men because, and I was thinking about my son, my son was really cut up about it and he didn't know how to behave. He felt like the enemy suddenly. And I was trying to explain to him that he wasn't, I to behave he felt like the enemy suddenly and i was trying to explain to him that he wasn't i said you know we've got brothers and husbands and kids that are worried and what they want to help let's not demonize all men my god like i got 200 000 likes

um but i didn't see any of those I just saw the 10,000 comments asking for me to be murdered or burned at the stake or you know I'm a woman hater or I'm a hashtag not all men person and you know don't understand about domestic violence they don't know anything about my life you know I've I've like I've lived a life and I've experienced a lot of really terrible things and many terrible things have happened to me but I just didn't feel that this was the moment to attack all men because in life I have discovered that we need to come at life together men and women segregating everybody into groups, separate groups, separatist groups. I think it's anti-society. We need to all work together.

And alienating people and entire sex is not a good idea. You know, like, you need to have our back and we need to have your back. I know lots of men that really changed their behaviour after hearing about how frightened women are in the streets. And, you know, like if they're walking towards a woman, just go, it's okay, or cross over the road to walk on the other side. And maybe they didn't do that before. That's a good thing.

Like, we need to commend that rather than, well, you know, if we weren't frightened of you in the first place you wouldn't have to do that as you guys you know I just think there's got to be a more open conversation anyway council culture so that's only happened to me once I didn't take take it down I went to bed for a weekend and um I was ashamed I was ashamed and frightened to go to go shopping in my local supermarket. I didn't want to go out in town because I felt like everybody had read it and hated me. And then I read quite a few articles afterwards where they were saying,

no, completely understand where she was coming from, she was right. And I was thinking, oh, oh, right. And so I kept the comment up there because I do stand by it. But I wish that, I think my big mistake, and the thing that I should apologize for, is that I posted it three days after, four days after she died. And it was timing. My timing was shit.

And it was way too soon. And I did, again, out of something that was really bad, a bad experience for me, I did learn something from it and i won't do that again but i don't i think cancelling somebody doesn't let somebody learn something and ruining someone's life which happens a lot somebody's whole career gets finished you're never letting them learn the lesson they gotta you gotta let them learn the lesson come back and give them the space to say i could have done it differently and i've learned something yeah so it's i think

it's a sad thing that and also it means that often in the public domain i won't say something that i think or believe in because i'm really frightened i'm going to get cancelled for it and it might be something quite mundane or small or a topic, but I think we must avoid that. I don't know how we change that. There are some people in our society who just don't give a fuck. You change that by stopping social media. Because for the 10,000 people that are verbalising how much they hate it,

200,000 liked it. so they agree but you only hear and there'll be a lot of people who couldn't even like it touch it yeah because of the fear of like because of the fear of getting cancelled that happens a lot none of us are saying yeah what we think or believe in or questioning something you know it's terrible when you can't question oh why are you doing that like is that a good idea i mean when we stop this podcast i'm going to talk to you about a couple of things that happen in the moment which i think are interesting but i can't say anything i can't form an opinion about it because i can't talk about it anywhere i need to i need to find

somebody i can actually air it with you know it'll get clipped and then it goes yeah yeah it's terrifying isn't it's crazy because we progress comes from that debate the conversation the questioning all of our progress in society has come from that a conversation brave conversations with ideas that at their time were maybe denied or um not believed in but because of conversation and progress because of the fearless nature of some people in our society whether it's martin luther king or you know the suffragettes whatever things changed and we we can't do that anymore with the nature of the world so and how so how are things going to change there is there are some amongst us the brave ones who who seemingly don't give a fuck and they are taking all the arrows as they go and we've got a like

yeah it makes you ask questions about yourself yeah yeah there are you can think of those people i'm just wondering like at what point at what age am i because i've got a feeling i'm gonna get to an age where i'm gonna go fuck it i feel like jk rowling just kind of went for it at one point yeah but i feel like that is another story altogether I was just about to enter into it I thought nope yeah yeah don't want to get cancelled yeah okay well we'll finish there I want to thank you so much again it's a real honor to meet you and have a conversation with you and um I hope we do this again sometime because I feel like we've got so much more to talk about yeah well we won't be cancelled thanks for having me I've really enjoyed it and thanks for letting me in to a bit of your life as well it's been nice at all it's been a been a huge honor and i've

really it's been a very enriching conversation because of your energy but also because of your wisdom so thank you Thank you.