The Life Of Bryony - Ashley James Tells You How to Stop Hating Your Brilliant Body

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

This week I’m joined by broadcaster, DJ and author Ashley James for a big, honest conversation about women and the shame we’re taught to feel about our bodies. We talk about how that shame starts in girlhood – from periods and pubic hair to the way we’re told to shrink ourselves and ‘bounce back’ after birth – and why so many of us learn to make ourselves smaller to be lovable, acceptable, or just left alone.​ Ashley shares how diet culture and punishing exercise ruled her life for years, what finally made her say “enough”, and how she slowly unpicked all the messages that told her she should hate herself. If you’ve ever hidden a tampon up your sleeve, worried about your “belly fat”, or felt like your body was somehow wrong, this episode will help you feel seen – and maybe start being a little kinder to the person in the mirror. BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEAshley’s new book, Bimbo, is available to buy now. WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xx CREDITS:Host: Bryony Gordon Guest: Ashley James Producer: Laura Elwood-Craig Assistant Producer: Tippi Willard Studio Manager: Sam Chisholm Editor: Luke Shelley Exec Producer: Jamie East  A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Now, I have only got one aim for this podcast, and that's that everyone who tunes in feels a little bit better at the end of each episode than they did at the beginning of one. With that in mind, today I have the incredible Ashley James for a conversation about the shame so many of us feel about our bodies. We are going to go deep into where that shame comes from, how to fix it, and I pray. promise that when you come out the other side of this episode, you're going to feel like a different woman. I got to a point where I couldn't take hating my body anymore. I stopped like the cycle of diet culture and exercises punishment and now, because I don't think I need to be smaller, to be either loved, to love myself, to be confident or to be worthy. I don't have that noise in my brain anymore, which means that I can like focus on all the other things. My conversation with

Ashley, coming up right after this. Ashley James, welcome to The Life of Pryony. Thanks for having me. I'm wearing my special necklace just for you, because you did give this to me. So it's, and it says bimbo on it for anyone who's listening rather than watching. And that is the title of your absolutely fucking fantastic number one Sunday Times bestselling book. Thank you. I'm actually just annoyed that I forgot to wear my necklace.

It's okay, I'm wearing it for you. Thank you. So I love this book, but there's so many aspects to it. And what I specifically wanted to focus on is shame about our bodies, which is so kind of inherent in female psyches, right? Yeah. And the purpose of this podcast for me is that I feel like each week I want people to feel a little bit better at the end of it than they did at the beginning of it, you know, because that's important

to me. And I've made my career talking lots about the things that have made me feel bad about myself and the hopes that they make other people feel better about themselves. And the body image conversation is so central to women's lives, whether we like it or not, you know, and I think a lot of women feel a lot of shame about that. And you really explore that in this book. And you really talk about sort of the objectification and shaming of women and how it starts so early on. Like, no wonder none of us like ourselves, right? Yeah. And it's so funny because when I was trying to think about my book,

so a lot of it I actually wrote when I was a single woman from 27 to 33, which I feel like a quite pinnacle, a pinnacle timeline for a woman to be single because you're really swimming against the current of outdated expectations and sort of pitied for your relationship status. And it's assumed that you're always lonely, even though lots of us will know people who are in relationships but feeling very lonely. So originally loads of my notes were around singlehood.

So what became the singlehood chapter? And then I saw my little girl, Ada, she's just turned three. I saw her looking in the mirror. and she was like really looking at her face, really looking at her tummy. And now when we sit in the car, she's got a mirror on the back of the seat, mainly so I could see if she was napping or I could see her when driving. And she asked to sit backwards, which is great, much safer. But because she likes to look at herself in the mirror.

And I thought, wow, that's so interesting because I remember vaguely doing that as a little girl. So why are we slowly taught to hate ourselves? And most of us, I mean, I think creeps up on you slowly, doesn't it? Body image issues. But I'd say most of us, by the time we're 20, have learned to fully hate ourselves or to feel like we should be the most shrunken version of ourselves or zooming in on all different parts of our bodies. We don't like.

Yeah. Thinking if I change this, if I shrink this, if I pluck this, then I'll be more confident, then I'll be happy. then someone else will see my value. And isn't that just so sad? It is. There's a great line right at the end of the book, as this doesn't spoil the book, by the way.

And I wrote it down, which was, as you say, once I was a two-year-old girl who was loud and who looked at her reflection with awe. And I wrote that in caps because I was like, I loved that. And it's so true. And it's like, how do we lose that? And this book really explores.

how we do lose that. Yeah, so it looks at how, like, obviously not just body image, but outdated labels. And also the fact that so many expectations are still very outdated, so even though we think of ourselves as very liberal and equal, we still do have so many phrases and expectations from motherhood to singlehood, like being left on the shelf or don't be too picky. And like, is he your hands on dad? Oh, God, don't.

Yeah, and I am a hands-on mom. Yeah. Because there is no other way to be. But yeah, so that part of that exploration of why do we go through, come out of girlhood, hating ourselves. Part of that is like this physical need to shrink ourselves and where we pick all of that up. Also, the moment that our bodies start to change and we go through puberty, all the language around the processes that happen, happening are so. euphemistic and like cloaked in shame. So you talk, you have a chapter I think that's called Auntie Flo is coming to visit.

And it's like, what the fuck? You know, like, I remember boys would be like, oh, you riding the crimson way. Ew. That's a terrible one. But it's all of this like, be ashamed. Be ashamed of what your body is doing, you know. But still, I think, I remember in my 20s and 30s, I'd like hide a tampon up my, up my my sleeve because I didn't want people to see that I was, it's like, what, what?

Like, this is what we do as women. And I'm not bleeding openly in front of you. But I shouldn't feel this internal shame about these very fundamental processes, right? Which is so mad when you think, like, let's take periods. None of us would be here without periods. That's just a fact. Yeah. And I think I put in the book, like we wouldn't call it like duddy digestion.

You know, like, because we just, like, it's just a biological thing that happens. But with like, it aren't flows coming. It's like such a weird thing. But we do it even in girlhood, you know, how many of us were taught to say vagina. Volva, I only found out what it even was when I was 35. And so we're already putting shame in the fact that it's like a female body part because we shouldn't talk about it. And I noticed it even when I was pregnant or when I just had Ada and, you know, when the people are like, how are things down there?

And I'm like, are we talking about my toes or my knees? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously, we know what they're talking about, but it's like, even in a medical setting, we can't say that word without shame, which is why with Alphaneda, I've really tried to like, because I do find myself cringing. To be fair, not with vulva.

I feel like there's something quite poetic about vulva. Do you? It sounds a bit like pansy or, I don't know, I feel like it fits within that, like, hoo-ha. So let's talk about genitals and the language, because this is the thing, I do think it's like, you make the point. There's a great chapter called Velvas for the Win.

I love. And you talk about being at school, you went to boarding school, right? And obviously, though, you went to a co-ed. So it just started accepting girls the year that I started. So I was 14 and there were 37 girls and over 500 boys. So you went to a boy school. Yeah. Right.

I don't think co-ed gives us. enough of a context. The context. And you talk about just what that was like. And you, but you also talk about, so the teachers tried to keep you apart. There was like a six-inch rule. And obviously that just, that did not work. That failed.

So obviously, you know, there was a lot of sex. There was a lot of, you know, mixing. And you talk about in this chapter about how girls would get like nicknames. Like there was a girl called uni. Can you explain what that was about? Yeah. So just for context, the six inch rule was the rule that the teachers brought in in a way that they were obviously one of their biggest concerns when opening up the school to girls was probably how can we make sure we don't have any teen pregnancies. So they were like, we'll invent a six inch rule.

So not only did that make like it made for an abundance of jokes about guys being like, oh, I'm going to have to cut a bit off. But also it meant that, for example, when I was really upset one day, my brother came outside of my boarding house and gave me a hug and I got detention, notably not him, I got detention for, I quote, canoodling with a member of the opposite sex. What? And I said, but he's my brother. And they said, yes, and do people in the town, no, it's your brother?

What are they going to think when they see you canoodling with a member of the opposite sex? He didn't get detention. And that was quite a prevalent thing at my school that boys, it was like boys will be boys. So girls need to know how to behave as ladies. And so therefore, like a lot of male behaviour is inevitable. You need to change how you react to things. So another disgusting thing that happened at school was something called de kegging, where the boys would pick a target, always a woman, a girl, because we're talking about teenagers.

And they would basically charge at them and pull down their first. pants. That was dekegging. So I remember once being in my tracksuit bottoms, coming back from sport, and the first 15 rugby team had just finished playing and they saw me. And so just like running for my life. And whether I was screaming or whether I was laughing, I ended up getting in trouble for my reaction because the teacher said, you're encouraging it, you're attracting attention, you're encouraging it. And I remember being in the fetal position on the floor with my knees up, like, as they were trying to get my pants down and me just lying there. But because of my reaction, I was the one that got in trouble. So that was like very much the attitude of school. So as people started

to become sexual, and like, by the way, I wouldn't say necessarily that it was like any more sexual than probably any other school teenagers. But the problem I have, which is a lot of hormones. The problem I have, the six-inch rule was that for me personally, when I met the person that became my boyfriend, we were doing quite innocent things like holding hands, got kicked out for breaking the sixth-inch rule because we had these things called visiting hours. So therefore, we went to his boarding house and got kicked out because we were caught snogging, again, breaking the six-inch rule. So that then led to us going further and further away from adult gays, and then that's how I lost my virginity. So it wasn't like a planned thing, and I still think,

even though I have no regrets, I wouldn't have done it then if I was just allowed to hold hands watching the Holyoaks omnibus on a Sunday in the first place. You've taken me right back. So, yeah. So that's my issue with the sort of approach to sex education or to teenagers, that actually if you're stopping interaction in an innocent way, people are going to go off and do it elsewhere. And so Uie or uni was one of the girls at school who ended up,

I don't know if she had sex, but she did stuff with a guy. As teenagers do. And he then went and told the whole school that her pubs went all the way to her bum, like a uni brow. So that's why she was called uni. And that stuck with her the whole way through school. But I remember thinking, oh my God, I've got that. And it was in the days of like J-17 and all those.

magazines that we'd buy where it would have like tips for blow drops but also like how to make sure you have never have any pubic hair because it's disgusting. So pubic hair is this thing that you were really ashamed of and I'm sure that there still will be a plethora of girls who are ashamed of it. Although I do think like the hairy armpits and the reclaiming of the muff is probably a little bit more there than maybe when we were growing up. Yeah. I've never, I've always been like love me, love my bush. Oh, have you? I love that for you. So we really want, I've really, really wasn't like that. But then I lived in terror that someone would discover that I also had a unibrow. And this is, again, with school and sex education, why are we only taught about the

female body in a sex education way in terms of like, and then the penis goes in and the man adjaculates and that's how a baby's made. But if we were taught about our actual body hair, there was another case of a guy telling everyone that a girl had white spots all over her vagina. And that's obviously like the hair follicles or something else. Yeah. Perfectly normal. Yeah. Again, completely normal.

Yeah. That I also, like when you're looking in a, like with a microscopic detail that you do as a teenager, I lived in fear of. Why aren't we just taught about all of those things in school and taught objectively about our bodies with boys there? Because that would have just taken that power dynamic away and taken that shame that we all collectively felt about our bodies or what boys would discover as we were like, navigating relationships.

And, you know, the book, I would say it's the book I wish I had as a teenager, but also as someone as a single woman and as a new mom. But that big part of my school experience and that initial shame I felt as a teenager was because of this power imbalance. Yeah. Because boys will be boys and they could experiment both sexually and with anything. But then we were always the ones that were being shamed for it. But you couldn't win because you were either a slut.

or you were frigid. Yeah. So I feel like we have to sort of like navigate this very like impossible tight rope walk. Well, but also it just makes me, and also the thing is that now we can see objectively that that was wrong. But at the time, there was no one saying that that was wrong. There was no kind of, as you say, just 17, the magazine we all rushed out to buy every Wednesday or Thursday, or whatever it was, was, yeah, giving us tips on how to give blow jobs. And it was all about all of you get your pleasure by giving pleasure to someone else, right?

And I, you know, and when I look back at that time, I think to myself, God, no wonder we all had such vanishingly small self-esteem and how we still, as women now, like I'm in my 40s, there'll be people listening in their 50s, who, you know, who still feel that. This lasts a lifetime. And I wanted to talk to you about something that happened to you when you were a teenager, which you kind of, is a paragraph in the book. But I think it, to me, it really stood out because you ended up having a sort of what you described as a breakdown and being hospitalized. You fainted. And they didn't really know what had caused it. But you think, you say, I think I probably was having some sort of breakdown. And I think back to all of the,

we know in our bodies, we know in our bodies when stuff isn't right, you know. So we were all having to internalize all of this kind of misogyny that was just accepted and normalized. And when I look back to my life and my experience of, say, alcoholism, addiction, obsessive, compulsive disorder, which took up so much of my teens, 20s, eating disorders. I think, well, of course you had that briny, because we were all having to push down these deeply terrible things. Yeah, but even if you think like back then, there wasn't any talk about consent, it was very much your value is in being virginal and being like men won't respect you if you put it about. so if somebody asks you to have sex you say no and it would be like no no no no and then if you

eventually give in because they keep suing then it's like well that's your fault you were gullible or you shouldn't you shouldn't have given in and so I feel like there was all of that going on but then like I had it because I won a scholarship to boarding school and I felt very much like I was straddling two different class systems that you know I talk about it again in the book like at school it was like when I got detention for snogging my boyfriend at the social, how dare I. And if you got in trouble, you'd have to go see the deputy head. And I remember him saying to me, people might behave like that where you're from, but in this school, we don't accept that behavior.

And so I also, but then I had it at home as well where, you know, I'd go home and my parents would be like, well, you think that's normal. That's not normal. Your friends aren't normal. And I, there's the theme of normal. kind of runs through the book because as a child, because that's what we are when we're teenagers, I was trying to, I was wanting to be the good girl and wanting to fit in in every sense of the world, to teachers, to parents, to my peers, to boys. But I didn't know which normal to be. And then you

had like slut shaming and obviously like I had big boobs. From the age of 14, I was a 30-D, and I couldn't wear all the nice licenza bras that all my friends were wearing. But I was constantly being told, don't distract, don't get an moment of detention, don't distract the boys, don't distract the teachers. Leave something to the imagination. Who do you think we want to be imagining us? No, thanks.

But obviously, you don't question it back then. That's just the way it was. You just feel ashamed. And I felt so much shame, so much shame for my body. but when therefore there's a chapter in my book called Silly Girl where I look at all the experiences I had of sexual assault in my teens and early 20s and a lot of it is because when we do it now even well-meaning we're like we tell girls all the time don't go out like that you don't attract someone to attention so it's like the onus is on us

rather than telling boys and men stop objectifying girls well I was thinking about this it was recently it was the fifth anniversary of the murderer of Sarah Everard. And I was thinking back to that time, that awful time. And I live, she went missing from a couple of streets away from where I live. And I remember the posters are up. And I remember trying to explain to my daughter what was going on. But I remember then at the time, and a lot of this has been kind of forgotten about. There was a lot of discourse, like discourse about why was she walking home alone.

at that time. And I'm like, no, no, no, why the fuck did someone abduct rape and murder her? You know, that's the question that we should... Someone in uniform. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a whole other thing. But yeah, the onus always being on the woman. And it's normally like, she did everything right. She did everything right. She took the well-lit route. She was wearing trees. Okay. So what about the women leaving nightclubs? I know people don't really go clubbing anymore. But back then, there was a very strict dress code of an expectation of what women and girls should be wearing in those settings. So what then?

Yeah, that thing about women taking the blame for just kind of existing. And, you know, on a serious note, because the chapter about breasts really chimed with me. And I think it's whether you have big breasts, no breasts, whatever, you know, like we are defined by our body parts, right? And I also, very early on, grew massive boobs and was a pair of boobs. I remember in my 20s working at a newspaper and I sat next to this woman who was very beautiful.

And we were called Beauty in the Breasts. And Private Eye, which is like a magazine which kind of satirizes the media and they have like a section all about newspaper, gossip about, you know, Fleet Street. And I remember it ending up in there that I was known as breasts. And I remember the worst thing about it was sort of trying, was also being expected to sort of think this was a good thing. You know, and I look back on that and I think, and that wasn't that long ago. And I remember that thing you write, you write about it. It's like if a bra strap was showing or I would put on a t-shirt that would at school and be told off for showing too much cleavage. And I was, I was like, I'm not trying to.

This is just my body is like. And then on the flip side, you have people who have no breasts who are, you know, who are called flat chested or pancake chested. Or I know the producer earlier said to me that she was told at school, I hope she doesn't mind me mentioning this, you know, told she had a concave chest. So we're all defined. This is the thing. We can't win because our boobs are the too big, too small.

And I remember having big boobs and being like, hate it. I always hated it. I always hated the unwanted attention and not just by the boys, which was really bad, but I felt like it was backed up by adults because they were constantly saying, well, if you don't want the attention, put them away. At one point, I wore two sports bras underneath my shirt. Yeah. But it's like, but it taught me that my body was bad or my body was sexual.

And therefore, if I was sexualized or objectified, that was my fault. And teacher would say, you know, actually, you've got a choice. You can be beauty or brains. you're an intelligent girl. Like, do you want to be taken seriously? And I did want to be taken seriously. But then I feel like when I started Maiden Chelsea, it was almost like the rules were completely ripped up.

And it was like, if you want to be successful, get it out, be sexy. And so I was really confused about like who to be and what version and also what I wanted to do. And I hate the thought that one day my daughter could have my size boobs. and not only will she be told by other women, like, don't, you love it, stop pretending. Of course you love the attention or like, who have you got the girls out for when you're literally in it? That's such a terrible phrase, isn't it? Horrible, but I'm sure you know, like, sometimes when you're getting ready to go out, even now, I'll be like, is this too much? Do I look frumpy in this?

Too much. Is this too much? Like, yeah, and you're trying to find that balance between like, well, I'm wearing a tank top, but my, yes, I do have cleavage. But you see it in the press. Like it was it Lisa Nandy who once turned up to the House of Commons and she was wearing like a vest top. Oh yeah. And there was an arrow being like, whose boobs are these?

And that made like national news. And it's like we just let us live in our bodies. And I remember leaving the house to go out. And maybe I'd have got changed like five times. You step out the door, you get cat called as soon as you leave because some van would be like, oh, hey, nice tits. Yeah. And then that makes you feel like, oh my God, I should have worn the other top.

And then you get to the pub and, like, you order and someone's looking at your tits whilst you order. And then the girls are like, oh, who have you got the girls out for? And it's like, oh, my God, I just, I don't want any of this. I remember as a teenager feeling actually quite petrified walking down the street because of all the catcalling. And then being told to sort of almost like, well, it's a good thing to be cat called. Yeah. And, you know, it's why Ashley now I run in my underwear because I want to show people. that like what a body looks like there's that

but also kind of of superve all those expectations I get told all the time oh that sports bra doesn't doesn't do you any favours women are quite often are sending me these comments on Instagram because my boobs move up and down

when I run like no shit Sherlock that's what bodies do like we are so unused to seeing bodies move as bodies do because it's either photoshopped or held down, you know. And I'm like, for me, it is more comfortable for my boobs to jig around a bit than it is for me to, as you said earlier, put on two sports bras. And sometimes those sports bras, they're so restrictive. You feel like your diaphragm

can't move and you're running. Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, do, can you just stop sending me messages telling me that my body is somehow wrong just for kind of, and I kind of, that's the fury that fuels me and that makes me want to do it more because I'm like people don't see people people don't understand how much this stuff is ingrained in them you know and also for most big boobed women they'll be like I've lived with this my whole life and I realized something that when I was breastfeeding so I've got two kids I was um what they'd call a geriatric mom that's really great but I think with Ada I was probably I'm 30 I'm going to be 39 this year, so I think I finished breastfeeding maybe 37,

and Alpha would have been 35, let's say. I would always get accused of attention seeking, because if I was ever breastfeeding online, which was usually the only time I could be on my phone, so I'd be like catching up on stories or whatever. And it becomes very much your normal because you're doing it all the time, and people would be like, oh, attention seeking. And I remember thinking, like, who did they think I want attention from in this situation?

and a lot of what I do now, of course I want attention because it's my job, but do you think I want attention from like creepy men online? Or do you think I'm trying to normalize something for other women to feel comfortable breastfeeding? Because that is mad in itself, that a man can walk around topless. And if Tommy walks around topless on a hot day, I'm like, oh, asking for it. Because it just shows how ridiculous it is that no one would ever say to him he's asking for it. They'll be like, hot day, yeah, why have your shirt on if you're in a park or if you're going running? I still think it's disgusting, but anyway.

Whereas I have to almost justify my right to feed a child. And I realize that the commentary around my body has never changed from when I was a 14-year-old girl to a 37-year-old breastfeeding women. It's this idea that we exist for the male gaze. So if we are existing in our bodies, whether it's you jiggling around on your run or me breastfeeding or me being a teenage girl who accidentally picked the black bra instead of the white bra and it showed my strait. showed being called Tarty, it's always assumed that we are doing it for men. And yet, I don't know any many women who are actively trying to get that sort of unwanted attention. No, we don't want it because we're terrified of it. Yeah. Because it was just terrifying when we were younger, you know, and I worry, like, I don't want my daughter to have to almost like just constantly

justify her existence. Like even when I went on this morning and it was when Hannah Waddinger was objectified by the photographer when he was like, get your leg out. And I was discussing that and saying how women are objectified. And I came off air to people objectifying me because my cleavage was showing. I was wearing like a three-piece suit. And to be honest, I was breastfeeding at the time. And I was so delighted that I'd managed to find a bra that didn't show like with the suit. I even went to a bra shop. And I was like, yes, I can wear it. That I didn't even like clock the fact that I had a cleavage. But also I was an H-cup at the time because I was breastfed. And I was like, it's just exhausting.

Like I want to be thinking about any other thing in my life. Already when you're breastfeeding, you're having to think like, what can I wear where I can like get my boo-about but also not feel exposed. But like on top of that, I'm having to worry about what other people think about my body. And so I say, I think I say it in the book that I can't guarantee that I will never get a breast reduction because sometimes I'd just like the noise around my body to go away. But then I think actually when I break that down, how sad that I would have to mutilate my own body to stop people talking about my body? Well, I think this is the interesting thing, isn't it?

I was having this conversation with someone the other day where this woman, she was talking about body positivity and sort of saying, well, it's all a bit of rubbish, isn't it? You know, people aren't really happy at a larger size. you know, I'm happier when this woman said, I'm happier when I'm smaller. I'm just more comfortable in my body. And I was like, why do you think that is? Why do you think you're happier, smaller? It's because you are validated more. You aren't slagged off as much, you know.

And why the huge amount of energy that women are expected to put into weight loss, as you say, mutilating and harming our bodies, because we've been told that if we're smaller, we're better. We take up less space. We're more worthy of existence. Like, if you feel that you are more comfortable smaller, just sit and question for a while why that is. Yeah, and I, again, I think of my little girl and her love of food

and the fact that there will be a day, obviously in my heart, house, there'll only ever be food freedom and she'll see me eating normally, which is something that I'm sure lots of us didn't get to grow up with. I was chatting to my mum the other day about her weird diet, that she'd always just be eating like pots of cottage cheese. Were you right in the book about how you would eat cotton wool soaked in orange juice to suppress your appetite? Yeah. So that, you know, in a way I feel lucky that as a teenager, maybe because I was like really sporty like body image issues didn't really get to me apart from my boobs but not so much what I ate but when I um when I when I I think it was when I went to

union I sort of took on the disordered eating of others and it would always be like a big talking point of like how little we could eat only eating lettuce for the foreseeable future so then obviously it would mean that you'd only ever think about food because you wouldn't finish a meal and be satisfied. So you'd end up thinking about that food. And then if you did eat, then you'd have to punish your body. So exercise became this form of punishment. And I remember fainting once on a treadmill because I was like following the calorie count.

I don't know if you've ever been on a treadmill following a calorie count. You have to run a really long time just to like burn off an avocado. But I fainted probably because I wasn't eating. But when we discovered the orange juice cotton wool tactic, it felt like a real win because it suppressed our hunger. And it's just so mad that that's what we used to do as like a norm. And then we'd feel content that we could get through. And I remember we'd all like kind of be like, like, feel good about ourselves.

We'd have like a black coffee in the morning. And it would almost be like, let's see how long we can. last throughout the day. And then I think then when I came into this industry, it almost was heightened because then people were talking about my body. And I remember once my mum rang me up to be like, Ashley, have you seen what they're saying about you? If you're all considered big, what on earth would I be? And I was like, mum, got to stop reading these comments to me. But it took, it's like, you can blame the individual people who feel the need to go on these diets or to be, to shrink themselves. actually look at the reason why because look at like even like do I look fat in this not thinking

about the fact that if you're saying that someone who might be in a bigger body than you, you're essentially saying that bigger is bad. Yeah. And like fat moniker and friends. Like we just absorbed it all like shallow how was another big movie of the time. Even now though, like you don't have plus size women on Love Island and that's sending a message that if you're in a bigger body, you're not. is equally deserving as of love.

And it took me a long time and probably when I got to my smallest before I realized, and I think it was when I went for a breakup at 27 and I became really obsessive food. But it was from this idea of like, if I can just be my smallest, the smallest version of myself, maybe I'll be loved.

And at the time I was always GQ Women of the Week or Esquire Woman of the Week. And I think GQ even did an article saying how to date Ashley J. James. My love life was like, I couldn't, I felt like my relationship status was a sign of failure and anyone I tried to make love me didn't. And I felt like there was something wrong with me. And I was like, I remember having like Emily Rattajowski as my screensaver. Sorry if I've just absolutely butchered her name. Being like if I can look like that. Really? She was your screensaver. And that was like my, my thinspo. So like if I was going to eat anything, I'd be like, oh, no,

not if I want that body. And it was only when I really hit. rock bottom that I was like enough because it dom it what was the rock bottom I think it was like the combination of having my heartbroken so many times the exhaustion of only thinking about food and exercise and I got adult acne probably because of like strain I was putting myself under and that's when I look back and think I was never my happiest. when I was my smallest and also it occupied so much like I wasn't a good friend

I remember even like when I was dating it if it interrupted with like I remember once someone I was dating coming into the kit into his kitchen and I was there like doing sit-ups at like five in the morning because I thought oh if I can get it in then

because I won't be able to go to the gym because I'm at his house so it's like it just dominated so much of my brain and now because I don't diet And I don't think I need to be smaller to be either loved to love myself, to be confident or to be worthy. I don't have that noise in my brain anymore, which means that I can like focus on all the other things. And I started eating pasta again and I eat pasta every single day. It's my favourite meal.

And I always think, I can't believe I went a decade without eating that. Do you think, because people often like, I want to ask you the question, of how you go from obsessively doing sit-ups at five o'clock in the morning and eating cotton wool to the person you are now who is confident who eats pasta every day and who is, you know, and I suspect it's, is it to do with what, when you learn about the patriarchal root of all of this stuff? Are you kind of fired by anger? Is that what fuels you?

Because it's what fuels me. I mean, definitely, I think since becoming a mom, sometimes, you're not. Sometimes like having a bit of a mum-tum feels like an act of rebellion. Especially now we're going back into like the sort of, well, instead of heroin chic, it's like a Zempic chic, isn't it, era that, you know, I think when I had kids, I was so in awe of my body and I really did feel like one of those Greek statues. And then I was like, why aren't people like worshipping me and feeding me grapes and whatever I want and instead every interview I did is like are you going to bounce back but you're almost

considered like a bad woman and a bad role model if you say you want to bounce back which I think is really hard for women who by the way hate the term baby weight because what the fuck is that term like sorry your body's just prepared to give birth and then the moment that baby's out it's like baby weight like this can I just tell you something my baby will be 13 next month and I have still not lost whatever weight, you know, like, fuck it. Like, your body is supposed to change. Yeah, but also like it's so, it's such an unhealthy, like, I feel like, you know, this is why I talk so much about the fact I had prolapse and piles. Because it's like, I don't, at the time, all I wanted to do was bounce back in. I didn't care about what I looked like, but everybody was

like, oh, are you worried about what you look like? And are you worried that you're not going to lose a baby weight? Are you worried that your partner's going to leave you if you let yourself go? And it's like, no, I literally just don't want to shit myself anymore. Okay, so this is another quote that I wrote down because I just fucking loved it, which is why are we still dicking around with talk of belly fat? When the real symptoms post-pregnancy, the leaking, the tearing, the prolapse, the fear of going to the toilet are still considered too much information. Mm-hmm.

And can we talk about prolapse? And you talk about also the sound of your vagina tearing while you were giving birth, you know. And these are all, I mean, we laugh at it. about it, but these are all things that happen to us. And then you also talk about how, you know, and then they're just sort of dismissed as negative birth stories. So like, oh, let's not, let's not, let's not upset people by telling our negative birth stories. Yeah, I don't want to scare anyone. Like, like, people always say, oh, a negative birth story obviously makes a better story than a positive one, as if it's like just us with a shit mindset. Well, also as if you, as if all you care

about is the ability to entertain people. Or to one up someone. Yeah, you think your birth birth's bad. Did you get prolapse? Did you hear the sound of your vagina ripping? No. Like, it's just ludicrous. Like, don't you think we all want a positive birth experience? And my second pregnancy was a positive birth experience, but also I had an elective C-section, which comes with so much shame as well. Like, what do they call it like? The sunroof. The sunroof. Or taking the easy way out. I'm sorry. Imagine a man going for open abdominal surgery. in any capacity and being like, oh, taking the easy way out, are you? Okay.

What? But also, I wanted to talk about when you, when you talk about when you found out you were pregnant and you say that you took photos of your body from each all angle. So you could remember what it looked like before you were, quote unquote, ruined forever. Yeah. And I do think that that looking back at the way we are conditioned to think about ourselves is nuts. And you also talk about. Viginal tightness.

Viginal tightness. that was, you know, you were like worried, oh, so my vagina going to get all like floppy. I remember feeling that. But it's because we put so much emphasis on having a tight vagina. And when you think about that, it's actually disgusting, especially now with like the Epstein files. Like the backdrop of why we focus on vaginal tightness is disgusting. Like this obsession with virginal women and girls. disgusting. But I remember, like, one of my friends had a baby, and she was like, oh, but don't worry,

I had a C-section, so my vagina's still intact, because that was like a real fear of hers that people would like think that she had a loose vagina. And I, yeah. I want to know, okay, anyone tuning in to this episode, okay, because I think this is probably something that more of us have worried about than we care to admit. And, yeah, and when you really do dial down on why we worry about this. It is awful and shame. So like if you two were worried about vaginal tightness, just know you're not alone and maybe message message me at Life of Briny Pod. But also this is part of like the sort of like gender pain gap. Like you have these stories of doctors. I don't think it happens so much anymore but like being stitched up and they called it

like the husband's stitch, didn't they? Which was like an extra stitch. So that that your vagina was nice and tight for your husband. And it's like, oh, don't mind the fact that it might make sex really uncomfortable for me. And then there was like a scandal. Again, I write about it in the book about the vaginal mesh scandal. So all these women who had prolapses were essentially getting this mesh that was like stapled into them. And lots of them were complaining about pain and were being completely dismissed. And it ends up that the staple was going into their bladders.

And this is really recent. This was just a few years ago. This all stems back to this idea of tightness and preserving it. Because there was all these like comments of people saying like to their husbands, like, oh, it'll make it better for you. I'm sorry, that's disgusting. And I think I've also put in the book that if your vagina's tight or something, it means that you're not aroused.

So any partners who are like, oh, yeah, she was so tight. I'm like, maybe you just didn't do a good job. Sir, do you know where the clitoris is? So, and also the expectation that, so we're like told, oh, enjoy pregnancy while being told that it's going to ruin our bodies. It's like, it's such a head fuck being a woman, Ashley. Yeah, but then it's like, but be grateful, be grateful. Okay. So what I want to know is if there are people listening who are kind of punching the air and being like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

us. What is your advice to someone who has felt all the shame about their bodies but wants to feel better but just doesn't know where to start? I think it's just not, I'd love to say it was like, read this book and it'll change your life. But for me, I mean, obviously read my book because hopefully I try to in a very non-judgmental way, like point out all of the things that make us feel shame. But for me it was, I got to a point where I just couldn't hate, hating myself anymore. I couldn't take it. And I remember, I was like, if I have one more heart break, I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. Like, I just couldn't do it to myself anymore. And I couldn't take hating my body anymore. And it was just this like slow unpicking. And I remember I started a point

system in my head where if I was horrible about myself, I'd take away one point. And my goal was to finish the day on zero. So it was like, if I was like, oh, why have you got pubic hair sticking out your tummy? Disgusting. Pluck. I'd be like, no, it's normal to have hair on your body. So then I could like go back up a point. And that kind of helped me retrain my brain from just picking myself apart. The other thing I started doing was like living my life. Because when I stopped like the cycle of diet culture and exercises punishment. I actually started like taking on hobbies, you know, like I learned how to like go diving. I learned how to DJ which ended up being like a career that made me money and and I started hanging out with like girlfriends and part of that was like

decentering men because I was like kind of had to get used to not having this person to text or the drama of it all the time. And also like think about yourself as your best friend which really is what you should be because you have to live with yourself all the time. And if you said to me, oh, some, my nephew would ever call me fat yesterday, I wouldn't be like, yeah, well, you are, which is what you would say to yourself. Like maybe I do need, I'd be like, oh, my God, that's awful. But remember, like, fat's not a bad thing. And so that's, as cringe as it is to say, I started trying to, like, treat myself like a best friend. And even in terms of, like, respect for my body, if that negative self-talk comes in, I think, like, number one,

like being bigger is not bad like look around there's so many beautiful women who are in bigger bodies and different like different skin color like we have this like really narrow idea of beauty but it's actually it's everywhere so i feel like and remember that you can control your social media feed yes so get rid of all the apps of the people who are telling you that to be happier you need to be two stone less and start following people who not only for their bodies but that is obviously helpful in the early days. Like I followed all these like different plus size models or whatever. But also we don't just talk about their bodies either because actually we don't need to

think about our bodies. And I think about my body in terms of like health, strength. And sometimes I think, okay, but my body gave birth to life and not that you need to have babies to be to respect your body. But I'm like, oh my God, like if men gave birth, I mean, case and point, the fact that dad bods are fashionable, but mum bods are. considered grotesque and lazy, I think sums it up. Like, we are, we are allowed to go through different seasons in different bodies. And also, we're not meant to look like a 14 year old girl.

No. Because we're women. And again, going back to things like the Epstein Files, it really makes you think about the people who were setting our beauty standards and why they all wanted us to not age and to look like children. Yeah. Also, I mean, absolutely. The other thing is that I didn't know you can do this now that you can actually manually on things like on Instagram now you can go in and choose what you want in your algorithm can you can block I know you can block certain words you can now go in if you go to um there's a you think you go to the reels and then you go to like a dot dot dot and it shows you your algorithm so it shows you your personal algorithm and what you are being served and you can put in what you don't want to be shown and I think that is really important because

we are, like it or not, we are all living much more digital lives. And I think we talk a lot about what we consume in terms of food and drink and, you know, and having healthy bodies. But what we don't think about so much is what we're consuming through our eyes every day and how, and the huge effect that has on our mental health. So go in and manually put into your algorithm that you just want to watch videos of bad bunny. Because that's what mine is now, basically. Love that for you. It's you and bad bunny, actually.

What more could you want? And actually, that is a really good combination for a happy life. Yeah, I can imagine. I might add Harry Stiles into the mix. Yeah, it could be who you want it to be. But like, but you, that's the thing. Again, it's like about choice. And I think often as women, we don't think we do have a choice, you know.

But we do. We have a choice about what we want to look at. what we want to read, what we want to do with our dates, you know, and how we want to sort of think about our bodies. And I think as well, like I said, I don't think there's a quick fix. And I have even felt, and I say even, because I feel like I've done over a decade worth of work on body acceptance. And I think I went from like body confidence, they call it,

to kind of like body neutrality, where I'm like, I don't need to love my body. Like I don't need to look at my tummy and be like, I love my excess skin. But it's like, but who care? But it doesn't impact my life. And actually I see it especially now so as a sign of rebellion. But I do feel pressure that everyone in my industry is slowly shrinking. And sample size are smaller again.

So when I go for fittings, if I've got red carpet events, I have less options because I don't fit in the sample sizes. But you can I ask? I mean, I hate even ask. this, but you're not, to me, you're not big, you're not big at all. No, I'm not big at all, but I'm also not sample size. What is sample size now? UK four or six? I don't know.

And also, I have, like, I have a tummy and I have skin, but, like, it's not, like, comparable, because I also appreciate that I'm in a smaller frame, but it's like, I don't want, I don't want to feel the pressure. And I do feel the pressure, but I don't want to feel like I have to take a drug to be the most shrunken version of myself. And I have to sometimes talk myself out of that because I'm like, I've done this before

and I'm not doing it again. And especially at the moment where women's rights are being revoked around the world, I don't want to focus on being a smaller version of myself. I want to focus on making sure that we maintain rights. Yeah. And I want, and also what example will I be setting to my daughter if I'm back in disordered eating? And, because, you know, it's one thing saying something to them, but they

pick everything up. I remember I was an au pair in France when I was 20 and the, I gave the, six-year-old chips and she was like, my mommy said that if you eat chips, you get fat. And she was a six-year-old girl. And, you know, I don't want, I just want my daughter to see I'm eating pasta with her. I'm not skipping meals. I'm not injecting myself. I'm not shrinking in front of her because I would hate, as I'm sure all of us would, the thought of any children, and there's so much research that comes out that shows how young children are picking up this idea of hating themselves. And I don't want my son to also think that women need to be a smaller version of themselves to be loved or lovable. And so it starts at home with me, not being weird

about food and bodies and diet or being like, look at that person, isn't she fat? Which is what my nanny used to always do. Yeah. But we're all so much more than our. Our bodies are amazing, but we are also so much more than just our bodies. And I think that this book and the work you're doing, Ashley, is really helping women to see that we don't have to be one thing. Yeah.

I mean, the more of us that speak up against it, like what you're doing with this, It's like we're trying to fight, we're trying to change cultural norms and we can't do that on our own. No, we can't. It's, it's, and we can't do it hungry. Exactly. Ashley, thank you so much. You are beauty, you are brains, you are just a wonderful human. Beauty, brains and breasts.

Breasts, but you know, like we're beauty, we're brains, we're breasts, we're everything. You know, it's the whole package. And I hope that everyone listening feels a little bit more rebellious now at the end of this episode. I hope so. That's one of my favourite things from my book that people say, I feel like you've lit a fire in me and given me like language to fight back. And I'm like, love that. Yeah.

Go fight back now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ashley, for such an honest, beautifully vulnerable conversation about labels and the way the world still tries to keep women small. Let me know your thoughts over on Instagram at at Life of Briny Pod. I want to hear about the words that have been used against you and how you're starting to take your power back. Ashley will be back on Friday for our special bonus episode, The Life of You, where she'll be talking about the things that keep her grounded. In the meantime, don't forget to subscribe, follow, rate, rave about us to all of your friends,

because it really does help. But most of all, you know what I'm going to say? Keep being you. I'll see you next time.