These days, I can count the people in my innermost circle on one hand – but I’ve never been the sort of girl that is in loads of massive friendship groups.
Growing up, I’d go to the cinema with friends and things like that, but I was so busy with all my activities, I never really had a lot of time to socialise. Like a lot of kids, I didn’t love sleepovers anyway – like I’ve said, I’d get there and get that sick, anxious feeling and just want to come home! The parents would always have to call my mum back to pick me up.
It actually took a while for my anxiety around sleeping somewhere unfamiliar to go away fully – not until my parents’ divorce, in fact, when I had to quickly get OK with going to stay in my dad’s new flat. So, I’ve always been that person that hasn’t had loads of girlfriends around me; as long as my family was proud of me, that’s all that really mattered to me. I can definitely survive without having a large group of friends.
I also feel I don’t do well with a big circle because I can’t really give everyone my time, and I want to be a better friend than that. Plus, I don’t like drama – it’s really something that I just always like to stay out of – and I feel like when you have a large friendship group, drama often comes with that. So, I keep my very closest circle to about five people, being my family, Fran and Tommy – that’s pretty much it! Those are the people I’d call if I had a problem. Obviously, it’s nice to speak to your boyfriend about things, but sometimes you want to have a girl’s opinion, so I’ll call Zoe or Fran for that. Fran’s not only my manager but my friend; it’s good to be able to relate on that level, where you know she would feel the same way if something happened to her.
As for me and my sister, Zoe and I are really close. I can honestly say anything I want to her and she wouldn’t even bat an eyelid. Zoe’s the person who knows my deepest secrets, and I know she wouldn’t say a thing – I can trust her with anything and everything. Even now, every single Instagram picture I take, I send it to Zoe before I post it and I always ask if she likes it, because she’s so honest with me. She’s not afraid to say, ‘No, I hate it, take it again.’ She’s just that person that I’ll always be able to lean on and know that she has my back. At the PLT party to celebrate me becoming their creative director (more on that later!), they played a video of my journey with the brand, and Zoe was literally bawling her eyes out, crying with pride, because she’s seen my dreams come to life.
Still, we may sound sweet and lovely now, but, wow, when I say we used to argue and fight, we had some real tiffs growing up! Because we were so different, like chalk and cheese – still are, with her in the army and me doing what I do – we could clash. But now, she’s really happy to take me for who I am: she understands that we’re very different and that she’s never going to be able to change me – and vice versa. I’m just so lucky to have her.
As well as that close circle, I’m really lucky to have a very small group of friends that back me 110 per cent – they’re the kind of friends that I’m so glad I have around me.
From home in Hertfordshire, I have Grace and Natalie, who are really lovely girls who are not bothered about Instagram and things like that. Grace works for her family’s kitchen business and Natalie’s family run a local chip shop. They’re just two friends I’ll always be able to trust and love. They didn’t go to the same school as me, but we’re from the same area, so it’s really nice I’ve still got them. They’re really the only two people that I have kept in touch with from my ‘old’ life.
Then, some of my best friends now I’ve met through Instagram: other influencers. In the early days, I made a lot of friends online. We’d be commenting on each other’s feeds, DMing each other, just girls supporting girls and building each other up, then we’d go to influencer events and meet each other in person there. We all supported one another – which, really, is the secret of networking. Whatever you’re doing, whether that’s starting a business or working on an Instagram page, the people you’ll come into contact with through that will tend to be quite like-minded, because you share the same interests. The relationships you have with them just gradually build, and then you meet each other at an event, and before you know it you’ve networked without even realising it. ‘Networking’ is a scary word to a lot of people, but it doesn’t have to be!
One of those girls I’ve already mentioned briefly: Stephanie Lam, who was on Love Island before me. Steph actually lived in St Albans, which is near where I grew up in Hitchin, but I got to know her when I was up in Manchester at events. We realised pretty quickly that we were from a similar area and just had loads in common. So when we went back home, we’d occasionally take content together, and then we both moved to Manchester permanently at a similar time. We became really tight, and to this day she’s one of my closest friends. I’m really lucky that she lives just down the road from me now and that we get to see each other all the time.
Then, of course, from my own stint on the show, I have Maura. Of course, on Love Island she was interested in Tommy for a bit, but there’s just no issue there. After Tommy started getting closer with me, she said to me: ‘Look, I’ll never go near him again in that way, you know,’ and ever since then we’ve been best friends. She comes up here all the time to stay with me, and I go down and stay with her in Essex. She and Tommy are really good friends as well. They’re like brother and sister – they make fun of each other 24/7. I get a lot of questions when I do Q and As along the lines of: ‘How are you comfortable with Maura being friends with Tommy? Isn’t it weird to you?’ But when you have a friend like Maura you have that complete trust.
As for why we click, we are really different – again, like Zoe and me, we always say we’re chalk and cheese – but we just get along so well. She loves to go out and have fun, but she’s also happy to chill with me a lot, and I will go out with her for dinner or whatever. Likewise, she’s a few years older, but she acts (and looks!) super young, while a lot of people say that I act a bit old for my age. So it just works between us. We have gone our own ways work-wise, as well: she chooses a lot more TV work while I’ve gone down more of the fashion route. We deal with a lot of the same things in terms of the press, and we both take our work seriously, but we definitely have our own lanes, and we just support each other massively.
And I’m good friends with the girls who work with Fran, too – Erin and Ellen.
So, I definitely don’t have a girl group. Instead, I have friends from all different backgrounds – which is totally fine, whatever you might think your friendships should look like.
Honestly, the one time I struggle with it is on birthdays. I worry about this person and I worry about that person, because they’re all from different parts of my life, so I’m not sure if they’re going to gel with each other when they come together for me. But really, it’s kind of nice, because I feel like I’ve got people from every part of my life: girls from my old life, girls from my new life – and they’re all good.
Still, that’s not to say that I’ve kept every friendship – that’s just not realistic.
I’m just not a social butterfly. It’s weird for me to say that, because people might think I am because of my job, but I’m not really into going for dinners and drinks and socialising – it’s just not for me.
I think a lot of people need to have that time out of their working life to go and have a glass of wine with their friends. I have friends who work all week and then, at the weekend, all they want to do is go out and socialise. That’s not how I like to spend my weekends. Now, I totally see why someone else might love and need that. The thing is, when I don’t have to make chat, I won’t. I think because my job is so eyes-on-you – and part of that is to be smiley and bubbly when I’m out at events – when I can just be quiet and chilled, I always take that opportunity with both hands.
So, I very rarely feel FOMO. If I see that someone’s on holiday or doing something equally relaxing, then I might feel a twinge … But I don’t really feel like I want to be somewhere with people when I see they’re all socialising, especially now that my job involves being at events. The times I feel the most relaxed and happiest are not when I’m out socialising; they’re when I’m at home, doing absolutely nothing. I don’t know if that will change for me. But right now, going out is just not a priority. Because I am so career-minded, my social life has taken a little bit of a backseat in a way, but then again I have friends who like to work hard and play hard too. Ultimately, it’s just about working out what suits you personally.
My focus is just on work and my relationship and my family – those are my top priorities.
And I’m OK with that. I get more of a kick out of an incredible work trip than a big night out! Making polite conversation with people I don’t know well just doesn’t relax me – so, when I don’t have to, small talk is not what I want to do.
Still, by now, I genuinely could make conversation with a brick wall if I needed to! The trick is, it’s easier to turn it around on the other person and ask them questions. I already talk about my life all day, every day, on social media, so I can’t be talking about it anymore! So, my advice for socialising with people you don’t know is to take control of the conversation and ask questions, and let the other person do their thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I do like to have friends around me, but I just like things to be casual and not forced at all. I don’t feel relaxed and content when I’m out making small talk; I feel relaxed and content when I’m at home, surrounded by people that I know. I love having people around me where it just feels effortless – and I can be totally myself.
Even though I know what I want from my friendships and social life now, it has taken me a while to work it all out. When you’re at school, it can feel like being cool is everything – you’ll do anything just to fit in with the popular group and sit at the popular table in the corner. That’s all I wanted to do when I was younger – I wanted to be popular!
At secondary school, I was in a group of girls that weren’t the quietest, but we weren’t necessarily the really cool group, either. And I really do remember just desperately wanting to be like one of the popular girls. I used to think, God, I’d do anything to be that girl instead of me, as being part of the cool group felt so important back then. I always reflect on that now – how, if I’d actually got my wish and swapped lives with one of them, I wouldn’t have been happy. Instead, I have ended up just where I needed to be. Of course, when you’re younger, you’re not so rational, and you want what you don’t have.
The funny thing is, it took me a few years, but I ended up on that popular table in the end, for years 10 and 11 (years 7, 8 and 9, I didn’t make the cut …!). By that stage, I’d got rid of my braces, I didn’t have short hair anymore, and I’d dyed my hair blonde. So, maybe I’d started to look the part of that ‘cool girl’, even if that wasn’t really me, deep down. Now, I’m not really in touch with anybody from school. Even then, I was very aware that your school friends are your school friends and when you move on – as I did, to fashion school – relationships will often change.
While being in a certain crowd can feel so important at the time, gradually you learn what you really want from your relationships and the people around you. You realise that you don’t have to force yourself to like things that other people like if they’re just not you.
And whenever I have tried to force myself, it’s been a complete mistake.
For example, I only went to work that season in Ibiza because my friends were doing it. I thought, Well, if my friends are doing a season in Ibiza, I should go and like it – I need to go and drink and fit in. Everyone I mentioned it to reacted the same way, telling me I was the last person in the world who should go off and do that: ‘You’ll absolutely hate it! You hate alcohol. You hate partying. You hate late nights. Why are you going to Ibiza?’
I thought, Because everyone’s always telling me not to do it, I’m going to go and do it and I’m going to love it. I’m going to prove them wrong. And I’m going to come back every single summer for the next 10 years!
I really wanted to make it work. So I went and, as I said, everyone was right: it was not my scene at all. I think people out there thought of me as ‘the stuck-up girl’ because I wasn’t getting involved. Of course, I was never going to touch drugs, but I had hoped doing the season would force me to like alcohol and having fun with friends in that way. It didn’t – I just wanted to be in bed, watching films. I’ve always been that way. Even my mum was saying, ‘Don’t come home yet – you’ve got to give it a proper chance.’ But I thought, I can’t be around this, I feel like I’m letting my parents down, so I thought it was the right thing to do to go home.
When I told my manager at the beach club, they were quite nasty to me about it: ‘There’s so many girls that would die for this opportunity.’ But it just wasn’t me and I wasn’t changing my mind. I didn’t even tell anyone else I was leaving; after my shift I just packed my stuff, got on the plane and went. I had lasted two weeks, and I was so happy to be home – I’d hated every minute of it. Not for me!
In a similar way, when I moved to Manchester, I made myself go out on the weekends to make friends. I’d go to Chinawhite, the cool club to go to on a Saturday night, with a couple of Instagram influencer girlfriends and have a few drinks with them.
Looking back at the handful of times I got drunk during that period, I don’t think, That night was really great. Loads of my friends always have the best time going out, but personally, I would wake up the next day with a terrible hangover and a lot of regret, feeling awful and embarrassed about things I’d said or things that I wouldn’t have done if I’d been in my right mind. Especially now, being in the public eye, it’s just scary to me – the thought of doing something stupid on a night out. You know when your friends say, ‘I’m dying to go out and have a drink’? I’ve never, ever felt the need to do that. So, by now, I’ve accepted that drinking and clubbing just aren’t my thing. The most I would ever do is have a pink gin and lemonade or a pornstar martini, but those are when I am celebrating something, not all the time. I have no judgement for the people who do love partying, but I found that it just wasn’t for me, and that’s OK.
If you like watching Harry Potter on a weekend and eating a Nando’s with your favourite person and not leaving the sofa, that’s OK to do on your Saturday! You don’t have to go to a club.
The only major arguments Tommy and I have had have been to do with him drinking, which he only does a few times a year. He won’t even do anything wrong; I’ll just lose it at him because I hate it. I do have this anxiety around alcohol and the things I’ve seen it do to the people around me – I personally don’t think that alcohol adds anything good to a situation. In my experience, yes, it might temporarily make you have a better night out, but the next day you’re suffering the repercussions when you have a terrible hangover.
Maybe I’ve just never had a good experience with it. But over time, I’ve realised a lot of things about myself. It’s OK to prioritise what you like to do – and of course it’s totally fine if that involves having a big night out! Do whatever you enjoy and makes you happy. It’s just that I’ve realised that for me, drinking and partying isn’t really it.
I do feel like a lot of my followers, as well as the people that are in my life, know the real me. What I wouldn’t share with my audience is minimal. In fact, it’s something that I’ve always struggled with a little bit: holding things back that I should hold back. And sometimes I’ve said things to people around me that I’m not necessarily close with, then thought, Oh, God, I shouldn’t have said that! That’s something that’s happened on an almost daily basis at times. I’m not someone that’s naturally good at hiding things or being a closed-off person, but it is something I have become more conscious of over time: that sometimes you have to be careful what you say.
Sometimes I have said things that I shouldn’t say, I have given away things that I shouldn’t have given away, and I have trusted people I shouldn’t trust.
It’s been hard; my followers really bond with me because I talk about the arguments I have with Tommy, or because I talk about the fact that I’m about to wear a bikini and I’ve not shaved my bikini line. I talk about everything, and that makes me relatable to other girls – they want a girl who’s willing to share the things that aren’t perfect.
I don’t instinctively hide anything; if I don’t get a job, I’ll say on YouTube, ‘I had a really bad day today, I was up for an amazing job and I didn’t get it, so I’m really upset’ – whereas a lot of influencers would choose to not share that. And I probably wouldn’t change that side of me because it’s helped me build a relationship with my followers. I’m not just that one-dimensional girl on Instagram. When you go onto my YouTube, I don’t hold back! In the same way, opening up and sharing all sides of yourself might help you build deeper relationships in your own life.
Still, being too open has affected me sometimes. Say, I’ve been with friends I’m not close to and I’ve talked about private things I’ve got coming up with work … and then I have that moment of thinking, You know that person, who knows that person, who works for that business … Hang on a minute, I should not have said that! So it can come around to bite you in the bum.
Someone could tell me something, and I would never ever use that to stab them in the back – but sometimes I forget that not everybody has the same mindset. The way I deal with things is not the way someone else might deal with them. I’ve had to learn that I can confide in the people in my circle – but I can’t trust everybody.
Anyone who’s close to me knows that I don’t do well with conflict. Even with stupid, small things where, say, I need to speak to someone about something for work, I can struggle. Back in the early days, when Fran and I were first building our relationship, if I ever actually needed to say, ‘I want it done this way’, I wouldn’t be able to tell her because I was so petrified!
I do really struggle not just with confrontation but even just the awkwardness of having to say how I really feel – having to say, ‘Actually, I’m not happy with this. I’d like it to be this way.’
When I first started shooting with PLT, I was a bit more shy about giving my feedback and it used to be a running joke that even if I wasn’t totally happy with what was happening on the day, I wouldn’t tell anyone. Their creative manager would always ask me, ‘Are you happy with everything going on?’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah …’ I would reply.
‘Well, even if you aren’t,’ she’d say, ‘I know you wouldn’t tell me, so I’m just going to hope that you are!’ Because everyone knew that I’m a bit of a people-pleaser. But the more I have grown as a person and into my role as creative director at PLT, I have definitely learned how to speak my mind and share my thoughts with the team, and I actually love being able to give my input to make the shoots as amazing as they can be.
Whenever I do have any conflict with someone, I get the same feeling I would when my parents would have arguments when I was younger: that sort of sick, stomach-in-knots feeling that I’ve mentioned before – almost anxiety over the idea of conflict. So maybe that’s got something to do with it … or maybe I just don’t like arguments! The only people I can properly argue with are Tommy and Zoe. (Maybe it’s because I’m so close to them both – I know that it’s not going to be a massive deal. Or maybe, when it comes to Tommy and me, my mum’s got it right: she thinks it’s all about the passion in our relationship, because one thing we do is make up really quickly!)
I’m still not good with conflict, but over time I have developed my own ways of dealing with it. If I feel like I’m going to have an altercation with someone, or even if I just want to say something that might not go down too well, I’ll plan out in my head what I want to say before I come out with it. I’ll sit on it for a while and think, Do I definitely want to say this, do I definitely want to say it like this? So, for example, I won’t just say off the cuff, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ In the moment, I’ll think, Oh, I actually don’t want to do this … And then I’ll consider afterwards, How can I word this? Should I text it?
That’s the other thing I do – if I decide I do want to say something, I might send a text or a voice note (that I can delete and do over if I want to). Because sometimes my voice goes really nervous when I’m addressing something face-to-face with someone: I’ll try to speak and nothing will come out, or it does … but really shaky-sounding! I remember once, I wanted to tell Fran about something – I can’t even remember what it was – and I was on the phone to her. Of course, I’ve known for her years, but my voice was literally trembling – it was weird. I thought, I will never do that ever again – I’m just going to text what I want to say or record a voice note that at least I can redo if I need to!
Similarly, I’m not someone who tends to just explode, either. If I’m having a bad day, I will let out what I’m feeling but only if I’m with people that I can trust and I feel comfortable with – Tommy or my sister or my mum. Then I would! But I never really row with friends. What I do do is write texts that I never send, because I can’t deal with the fallout! I write down what I want to say … and then I just delete it. I’d rather write it in my Notes app than have the aggro of starting a bit of an argument when it wasn’t a big issue. I’ve even done that instead of tweeting something, and then at least I’ve got it out of my system without any unwanted consequences.
In recent years, I’ve definitely faced a few incidents of people wanting to be friends with me for what they can gain. And I’ve definitely lost some friendships after seeing a different side to people. I don’t think some people ever expected me to go off and do what I have. A lot of people viewed me as this girl that would always be a smaller influencer, then the next thing they knew, I went on TV and came out with a much bigger following, which then kept growing. I think some of the people in my life didn’t know how to handle that – at first, I didn’t really know how to handle the change, either.
When you come out of a show like that, it sounds cliché, but you really do see who your friends are. I remember, for the first collection I did with PLT, we threw a huge party where I realised that not all of my friends were happy for me and my newfound success. Of course, I had plenty of friends who were unconditionally supportive, but there were some who seemed to be bothered that I had been catapulted into a new world. I didn’t want to believe it, but maybe they weren’t the friends I thought they were. It upset me, but it was also a good reminder that, really, how people react to your success is all about them, not you.
And the friends that I had who were so chilled about it all; who knew that they weren’t going to get a reply from me for weeks; who, if they were my home friends, I now lived four hours away from; and who didn’t distance themselves from me because of all that … they added up to a very small number of people. I never had a big circle, so it wasn’t as if I actively eliminated people! But with some of those who I was more acquaintances with, we did sort of naturally part ways – while my true friends just carried on the journey with me. They were all so supportive, so I was really lucky.
Real friends don’t change when you find success – they’re just supportive.
Of course, it’s not always low key when a friendship ends. I actually fell out with a very good friend of mine recently, someone I’d describe as a best friend. We had been really, really close but completely grew apart, and now we’re not friends anymore. It was all a bit tricky: she felt I was unsupportive because I’m not always great at keeping in contact with people … but we had both changed. Every day I was waking up thinking, Is this the day that our friendship’s gonna end? Is this the day that we’re going to have the big fallout? That’s not how you’re meant to be with your friends. Friends are supposed to add to your life, so that you really want to see them, you want to hang out with them – and that’s partly why my circle is so small, because I don’t feel that with everyone.
I’m still grieving that friendship and think about her most days, so falling out with her was really a significant event in my life. It has really underlined for me that people and relationships can change, no matter how close you may be in the first place. I do like to think that everything happens for a reason, and I am not rigid about closing chapters in my life – I don’t hold grudges – so who knows?
I still get upset about that friendship ending now. The end of a friendship can be like a breakup: you have to really process that you’ve lost someone in your life, you’re not going to speak to them anymore, and you’re not going to know what they’re up to.
But sometimes a friendship ending can be for the best – if you’re really not getting on with someone, if they’re not adding positivity to your life and making you happy, then they need to go (and if it’s got to that stage, it’s probably not working for them either!). If anything in life doesn’t work for you, it needs to go, if possible – I am such a strong believer in that you get just one life, so every day needs to be the best it can be. And that doesn’t mean that everyone’s ‘best version’ has to be the same. Make it what you want it to be.
The reality is that you don’t hold on to every friendship – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing; that’s just life. It is a really hard thing to accept, though, because when you make an amazing friend, there’s no thought in your mind that that person isn’t going to be there for your whole life and be there to celebrate your successes and your milestones. You don’t enter a friendship thinking that person is going to be temporary. But whether a friendship breaks down dramatically or you just naturally grow apart, you have to accept that sometimes life can take you down separate paths.
None of us can predict where our lives will take us – everyone’s so different and we’re not going stay the same forever. That means the person who might have been a good friend to you when you were 15 might not necessarily still be when you’re 23. You might no longer have the same morals, for example, or the same approach to life.
A lot of romantic relationships don’t work out because when you’re with someone for so long, you may naturally just grow into different people. And it’s the same with friendships: sometimes we just have to accept we’ve grown apart, value the good memories we shared, and wish them well.
Knowing that you are OK on your own means that if a friendship does end, you’ve got the space to let it go: you’re not frantically trying to hold on because you’re worried about being lonely. And over the years, I have got very comfortable with my own company.
Being an influencer may look social – all those events! – but that’s not the full story. Like anyone who’s self-employed, you’re not in an office environment where you have colleagues who are doing the same thing: you’re on your own journey. And not many people can relate to your path, because it’s an unusual and really a very new job to have. In my case, I’m so lucky that I’ve got people around me that I really, really trust and lean on. But the truth is, I also just like working mostly alone as well.
Still, it was a big adjustment when, after first moving to Manchester, I found myself alone all the time – I’d say 23 hours of the day. Sometimes I’d sit there on my sofa, thinking, Oh my God, I’m such a chatty person, and I’ve not actually opened my mouth to even speak to one person today, because I’ve been by myself all day! I had to become very OK with being alone, even though I do like being around people. But again – and I think this is down to my non-sociable side – I didn’t really care. I didn’t get lonely. And, in time, I actually quite enjoyed it.
If you are thinking about living alone and have the means to do so, I encourage you to try it. But even if you’re not able to, I think it’s so important to do things that force you to be more independent and happy with your own company. Because you have to be enough company for yourself before you meet a guy or girl or let whoever else into your life. What if that guy or girl were ever to leave you?
I think you have to get secure with the idea of being alone, because when it’s all stripped back … you really only have yourself, so you have to get comfortable with that.
One tip that I always give to people who are living by themselves for the first time is: play music. I did that all day, every day, and it really gave me a sense of comfort. I didn’t even have a TV in my apartment when I lived alone – I just had my computer – so I’d have Drake on repeat non-stop. Or I’d play YouTube videos – shopping hauls, anything at all – just to break that silence. I think that really helped me, because silence is what can really kill the mood and your energy when you live alone – it’s a bit tiring, in a weird way.
I don’t think I’d necessarily want to live alone again, even if I wasn’t with Tommy – but I still love being by myself. Even now, I’ll always take time out to go to places by myself. I’ll take myself shopping in town for hours, or even just head to the supermarket for some solo time. Living alone definitely made me love my own company and become very comfortable having days by myself.