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the creative director of pretty little thing like i'm not just an influencer anymore this is just the start for me i'm only 22 i've got so much more to
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learn we literally only are given one life we have to just go to the extremes i've worked my absolute ass off to get
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where i am now a lot of people don't believe that but i work i spend time with my boyfriend and i go to bed that
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is actually my life i can't have anybody knowing where i live i actually have close protection security now and really
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there's no price on feeling safe that was like a really really low moment for me when we got back it just felt cold
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and eerie and it just didn't feel like home anymore he can literally go away for weeks on end and there's not a doubt in my mind
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that if he was to be around a load of girls i could sleep peacefully at night knowing that he's just he's for me and
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i'm for him and that is literally the key you've got trust you've got everything there's so much more to it than people see they have no idea what
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really goes on i mean i would never say like i've had like a mental breakdown but that was close to it because i just went crazy
00:00:54
[Music]
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molly may she is in my opinion and according to a lot of
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the data the uk's number one instagram influencer creator right now
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she started out many years ago on a show called love island but many people have been on love island and nobody ever has
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had the meteoric rise in their brand their career their profile like molly
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has so as much as it's easy to say well okay you know she had a boost from love island that does not explain what's
00:01:35
happened in her life subsequently so i wanted to sit down with her today and find out exactly what's driving her
00:01:42
what's caused this meteoric success almost 10 million followers in no time
00:01:49
at all 25 000 new followers a day just imagine for a second being thrust
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to the number one spot in terms of influence and having tens of millions of followers online
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becoming a multi-millionaire overnight and being 22
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years old imagine imagine the mistakes you would make
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it's absolutely fascinating and the way she deals with it i think you'll find
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incredibly inspiring and what comes with that success recently her house was burgled and she
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reportedly lost 800 000 pounds worth of her possessions and had to move immediately to a new home she now has to
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have 24 7 close protection security and i'll be honest with you this is
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something molly and her manager and team shared with me before we started recording molly doesn't do interviews
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like this so this really is in many respects her first real in-depth
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interview of this kind and i can't wait for you to hear it so without further ado i'm stephen
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bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are
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then please keep this to yourself [Music]
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kitchen that's where you're you grew up right um take me back to hitchhiking what was
00:03:11
life like when you were growing up there hitching i i actually still am extremely fond of hitching and it was a really
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it's a really really special place for me i spent 18 years there growing up in a very normal house with a very normal
00:03:25
family doing very normal things in a very normal school not private school anything it was just
00:03:30
an extremely normal um yeah area to live in i loved it and um i got my first job there i i had a lot of
00:03:37
firsts there and i think it will always hold a special place in my heart i was a lifeguard there at a swimming pool for
00:03:43
four years um i had a job in hairdressers i worked in a gym
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it was all going on in hitch and that's where it all began obviously is the air family dynamics brothers sisters mum dad
00:03:54
tell me about your your family what they do who they are what their character so i have one sister she's actually in the
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army she's three years older than me people are always shocked when i say i have a sister that's in the army because obviously it's so
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so different to what i do um but i'm actually really proud of that i think it's it's um i never really say that but
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i'm super proud that she she is who she is and we've grown up to be such such different people but both parents were in the police so that
00:04:19
was interesting growing up something else that i'm really proud of actually having two parents at police offices
00:04:25
because i don't know i quite liked it at school like sort of being known as the police officer's kid like i i kind of liked it
00:04:30
no one really messed with me it was quite yeah like even at parties like i think even a couple of times my
00:04:36
dad actually when i remember one time my dad actually showed up to shut a party down that i was at um yeah yeah it was
00:04:43
um that kind of thing having um parents as police officers but i didn't mind it and at that age when you're in
00:04:48
hitchhiking what is it that you you want to be when you grow up oh god i mean
00:04:53
i i always wanted to be doing something different i mean i went to fashion school um for two years because i really wanted to
00:05:00
pursue a career in fashion um all my friends sort of stayed on and went to sixth form and college but i again i
00:05:06
wanted to do something different i wanted to do something outside the box so i had an interview at the fashion retail academy in london and i
00:05:14
got got a spot there and i ended up going there for two years and studying there i was commuting to london every day at like 17
00:05:21
so yeah it was outside my comfort zone but i'm i'm really glad i did that because it was just different i loved doing things that were different and did
00:05:27
you did you have a because when i was younger i wanted to be a dentist and then a doctor and then yeah at one point
00:05:33
and then you know i bounced around and then i was like i want to manage your business yeah what were you saying to yourself in terms of what you would be
00:05:39
when you were older did you have was it fashion um i think when i was younger it was mainly performing arts i've
00:05:45
definitely got that performing arts streak in me i think a lot of people that sort of fall into being in the public eye do have a bit of like that
00:05:51
performing arts streak in them because they have that confidence but i couldn't quite make it in that i tried auditions
00:05:56
i tried you know castings all this but i didn't quite have that i wasn't quite there and i sort of accepted that very quickly and realized to do well in
00:06:02
performing arts you have to be the best it's like the most cutthroat industry people say fashion's cut throat
00:06:08
no performing arts is like it's not an industry you mess around in so i accepted quite quickly that that wasn't
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gonna work for me so fashion was was where i focused on and i really did think that i was gonna end up being like
00:06:19
a fashion buyer like a large business or that's that's kind of what i wanted to do
00:06:24
your your mum and dad lived very um as police officers very uh solid yeah
00:06:32
lives and careers right yeah um did you at that young age did you because i'm trying to understand from like a very
00:06:38
young young age and i always ask this about myself like how much of it was this kind of in innate desire to have
00:06:44
more and be different and not live the standard life yeah or how much of it is just you know following following the
00:06:51
heart and seeing where it goes i think for me watching my parents to have a very ordinary life it sort of petrified
00:06:58
me a bit it was like a bit terrifying this thought of i don't want to grow up in this house and and
00:07:05
when i i'm old in my rocking chair like tell my grandkids you know like i had this really ordinary life and i had an ordinary job i had an ordinary income
00:07:11
like that it petrified me from i think around i reckon i started feeling that way from about 15 i realized like
00:07:17
the world is literally our oyster and we can do whatever we want with the 24 hours in the day that we're given so why
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the hell am i not going to go out and like make the most of them and do crazy things and make them like i said make the most of
00:07:28
it so yeah i think my parents having this very ordinary job like i mean police officers it's not necessarily that ordinary but for me it
00:07:34
was like it just terrified me i was like i don't want to have this life in hitchen forever i know that there's so
00:07:40
much more to achieve and i moved to manchester um when i was 18
00:07:46
and started my life there i just moved out i literally said to my mom one day i walked down into the living room and
00:07:51
i'll never forget it and i said i found this flat on right move and i'm moving to manchester and she was like no you know i was like no no i'm going she was
00:07:57
like you don't have enough money i was like i'll find it like i'll make this work and i literally went within a week and i was gone i packed all my stuff up
00:08:03
and i just left and i moved to manchester and i remember the first night in my apartment in manchester in ancoats i was
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like oh what have i done i was like this was the worst move i felt so homesick it
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was horrendous but then i settled in and it was the best thing i ever did looking back on it now it was were you moving
00:08:20
for a job were you moving just because i thought of them at that point i sort of missed that apart sort of started to grow following on instagram and it was
00:08:27
growing quite rapidly um and i'd found um a management in manchester so i just
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thought i'm just going to go up there and just see what happens like what's the worst that can happen and all sort of the fast fashion companies and
00:08:37
everything was in manchester at that point it became like the new place to be and so i just thought let's go let's do
00:08:43
it and yeah i went by myself no one believed that i was going to do it and i just did and yeah i definitely couldn't
00:08:48
afford my rent my mom was right i think if i'd stayed there any longer probably would have had to move back home at some
00:08:54
point because i really couldn't afford my rent i think it was like 900 pounds a month and i was barely making a thousand pounds a month so after my rent i had
00:09:00
about 100 pounds to live on and a starbucks at that point is what five pounds so
00:09:05
um but yeah no it was the best thing i ever did still in manchester now and i don't plan on leaving i love it do you
00:09:11
consider yourself to be just thinking about that taking that step because you can often see in people's journeys
00:09:17
there's that like one step into uncertainty where people think well i don't know why she did that or i wouldn't have done that myself but your
00:09:22
career seems to be riddled with these kind of steps into uncertainty would you consider yourself to be at that age
00:09:27
especially a confident person yeah i've always been extremely confident i've never ever struggled with um my
00:09:34
confidence like even meeting new people trying new things like i've never i've never i've never felt unconfident
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in any situation which i'm really blessed to have that like even you know when i went on love island like going to
00:09:46
my auditions super confident always super confident in everything i do everything i i stand by like i just have
00:09:53
that confidence in me i'm lucky to have that because i think it's something that just comes you don't you can't really
00:09:58
build on it like it's either there or it's not um so yeah very confident person do you think you're as you kind
00:10:05
of like so if we zoom forward a little bit we'll zoom back but as you zoom forward on this point of confidence um
00:10:10
one of the things i learned in my life is as i managed to do more things and achieve more things i actually realized
00:10:16
that the previous version of myself um knew so little about the nature of the world and i just want to like scream
00:10:22
back at myself oh my god steve even though you were ambitious then yeah then you were wrong like yeah you can do even
00:10:27
more yeah as you as you look back on that that you know that young girl in hitching yeah um and other people who'll
00:10:34
be in that situation i'm saying i'm from a small town where there's not a lot of you know yeah
00:10:39
global dreaming no definitely not um what have you learned about the nature of like confidence and how it builds and
00:10:46
how you're how capable and how you know powerful your potential really is as you've
00:10:51
climbed the ladder i think it's just believing in in that beyonce has the same 24 hours in a day
00:10:57
that that we do and i just think like it's literally you're given one life and it's down to you what you do with it
00:11:03
like you can literally go in any direction and when i've spoken about that before in the past i have been slammed a little bit with people saying
00:11:09
you know like it's easy for you to say that you know you've grown up and you've not grown up in poverty you've not grown up you know with major money struggles
00:11:15
so if you to sit there and say that we all have the same 24 hours in a day it's not correct and i'm like but technically
00:11:20
what i'm saying is correct we we do so i understand that obviously we all have different backgrounds and we're all raised in different ways and we do have
00:11:26
different financial situations but i think if you want something enough you can achieve it and it just depends to
00:11:32
what length you want to go to get where you want to be in the future and i'll go to any length like i i've worked my
00:11:37
absolute ass off to get where i am now a lot of people don't think that and believe that but it's true i've worked so so hard
00:11:45
on that point of time and beyonce yeah because of that that kind of mindset of
00:11:51
being very very efficient with how you spend your time you must get a million requests to do
00:11:58
everything like i get a lot of requests you must be getting pulled pushed do this do that
00:12:04
how do you make the decision as to what is truly in line with who you are and where you want
00:12:09
to go when you know like i don't think people understand thousands you're probably getting thousands of requests dms
00:12:16
opportunities some of them which i'm sure you love to do yeah as you say 24 hours in the day yeah how are you
00:12:22
filtering that i think what you've just said is actually the key to why i've become successful in what i do is
00:12:28
because it is so strict with what i do take on and what i don't take on my days are planned out to like the nth degree
00:12:34
like it is so particular what work i'm doing and everything is done with such thought and like such um understanding
00:12:41
behind it like i'm never taking on work that i don't understand or posting things on my socials that i'm
00:12:46
not 100 behind or using like i think that is the key to being successful in
00:12:52
in this industry and influencing if you want to call it like it's it's knowing what you're doing and knowing
00:12:57
what you're talking about is is gospel like you use those products you you stand behind what you're saying
00:13:03
like i think that is why i've i have done well in what i and what i do because i am so believing in what i say
00:13:09
and my followers know that like they they know that i'm not talking about something on my youtube unless i use it
00:13:14
unless i i believe in it and that is the key to being successful in this you have to have the trust of your audience so
00:13:20
what work we take on is it's honestly one percent of what comes in less probably frank gets i'm not even joking 800
00:13:26
emails a day for work coming in it's it never stops she's on our emails from 500 from 5am i'm going through work that
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comes in and it's you have to turn down so much to or to earn that respect from your audience and
00:13:40
that trust and between you and your manager fran do you then have to kind of initially agree
00:13:45
where you want to go with your career what your values are what aligns with you yeah and that kind of becomes the
00:13:51
filter of these 800 messages a day is that the we we set goals we we have like fran and i have like this sort of
00:13:58
regular meeting every like six months or so and we we sit down and we we make a list of what i want to achieve and it
00:14:03
used to be well at the start we were like going to do it every year but i'm i am achieving them rapidly now so we're doing it like every few months and
00:14:09
creating new goals and setting new new targets of like okay i want to work with this brand so if they've not reached to me fram will reach out and lo and behold
00:14:17
it normally happens where we're a really really great team and i think having a manager that understands what your
00:14:23
direction and what you want to do is utterly key because you know it's just so important like you can't do
00:14:30
it alone it's impossible like okay it's not impossible but it's i couldn't do it alone no way so um having a manager that
00:14:36
really really understands where you want to go is just so so so important i think and there's a there's a pretty
00:14:42
remarkable long-termism to your mindset that i i garnered from watching some of the
00:14:48
videos that you'd made one in particular was the video where you know brand has come along and offered you two million quid
00:14:54
to like be the face of their brand or do a yeah and fran has presented you with that
00:14:59
opportunity yeah and you said no i don't want to do that yeah two million quid molly yeah i know i would like dresses
00:15:06
if that brand is still looking for a face oh my god why did you say
00:15:12
that's the thing like as i just said before like no amount of money can make me take a job that i don't believe in if
00:15:18
i'm not wearing the clothes i'm not taking the job no matter if they offered me five million ten million and i just solely believe that because the money
00:15:24
will come from your audience like appreciate that you didn't take that job and if you know what i'm saying
00:15:29
like is i'd rather build that trust than than take that money because the trustees will earn you money in the
00:15:34
future anyway so i know that 2 million is going to come back to me at some point because i work with another brand that i do believe in instead and my
00:15:40
audience will see that and they'll buy into it they'll like the picture they'll engage with the content whereas they're not going to if i took that that brand
00:15:46
deal before so because the audience see through they're not stupid like people i follow on instagram that i love when
00:15:52
they do something that's not authentic i see straight through it because you're the consumer like you know and it's just um yeah i think i did i knew you'd bring
00:16:00
out like two million one because everyone was really fascinated by it i think everyone was really shocked but that's the side that people don't see
00:16:05
and i was really glad that me and fran had that chat on my youtube because it showed people that you know it there's so much more to it
00:16:11
than people see that with this whole influencing thing it's they have no idea what really goes on
00:16:17
and my last point on this at this point of you and fran one of the things i found actually quite quite remarkable
00:16:23
is um when when you were coming down today and you know we were sorting out the logistics and those things you and
00:16:29
france did in the same hotel room yeah which is not typical of you know manager
00:16:35
and client yeah how close are you you and friends we're literally like best friends she's i say like she's like a
00:16:41
second mom to me like it it's grown that way because we spend like we spend every day together we're
00:16:47
on the phone 24 7. like i speak to him when i speak to tommy absolutely like
00:16:53
it's the constant constant conversation it never stops if we're not on the phone we're texting if we're not texting we're in person with each other um
00:17:00
yeah so like even after the last few weeks what's been going on tommy and i like fran took us in she's looked after us
00:17:06
it's she's like my mom in manchester like without her i honestly don't know how i'd have got through the last few years of my life like she's
00:17:12
she's um yeah it's much more than a manager and i'm so blessed i know it's not a normal situation for people to have a manager like that and i know
00:17:18
when you come out of a show like love island having that manager that is on it is so key it is honestly so so key
00:17:24
because without that it can really really fluff things up for you which i've seen firsthand with so many people
00:17:29
and it's so sad but yeah so let's talk about that then so love island um i don't want to talk
00:17:35
too much about it because i think everybody understands the show and the concept of it but when you first were presented with the opportunity and
00:17:41
you're debating because a lot you know i think everyone's got a mate who says oh yeah love island asked me to be on it and i said no that nonsense right when
00:17:47
you first were presented with the opportunity what was your incentive for saying yes
00:17:53
well it's tricky i've always struggled with how to talk about it because i answered
00:17:58
a question once on my youtube about was love island a business move for you like and i and it is tricky for me to say the
00:18:04
right thing without upsetting people but put it this way i didn't go on that show to find love no one does people go on it
00:18:10
for the experience people go on there for a laugh and i think because i went on there with a completely probably incorrect mindset that's why i did come
00:18:17
out with a boyfriend and i think because you know when you're not expecting something it happens um but yeah i
00:18:22
remember that they came forward and i just thought at the time my influencing was going really well and there was actually a
00:18:28
side of me that thought i can actually do this without going on this show like i know i'll be finding the way my following my following was growing
00:18:34
rapidly like i think i was about 170 000 followers at that point and that was all organic growth there was no tv shows or
00:18:40
anything and i hadn't had any friends of large followings that's what i posted me it was all very natural growth so i knew
00:18:46
i'd i'd say now that if i hadn't gone on the show i'd probably be i'd like to be hitting a million followers um because i
00:18:51
had that really good work ethic with my instagram but the show just sort of it just elevated me and then i think one
00:18:58
thing i always say is that when you come off that show you're all on a level playing field and it's totally up to you
00:19:03
where you go with it and i just knew that i wanted to go just to levels no one had ever gone to
00:19:10
and that's why i never really speak about it because i just feel like i don't oh that's not the reason why i am where i am now yeah it gave me a platform yeah
00:19:16
it elevated me but the things i've done now not because of love island they're because of me and what i've decided to do my work ethic so i want to drill down
00:19:25
on that point then so you're completely right um love island is a platform but the it's super super clear that if you
00:19:32
look at the outcome of everybody that's been on that platform the results are wildly varying
00:19:38
and um you're you've you know you're part of that platform yeah but what's happened to you
00:19:44
subsequently after you've been on that show yeah is um unprecedented there's not been another
00:19:51
example of someone who has risen so high following being involved in that platform so what is it about you
00:19:58
and you know your character your you know whatever it might be i don't put the answer in your mouth what is it about
00:20:04
you that's that's caused that so many different things but i think i
00:20:10
knew the minute i came off that show that i just wanted to do crazy things and one thing for me is that when i
00:20:16
reach one goal it's what can i achieve next it's never enough for me and i think it's a bit of a downside to my personality because when i achieve
00:20:23
something incredible i just want more i always want more like i remember i was speaking to fan about this i was like i
00:20:29
remember when my goal was i really want to get a million pounds my bank account that's all i wanted to do i was like that is my goal and then the minute i
00:20:35
reached it i was like well i want to now i want two million and it's like i never i'm happy with where i'm at i'm
00:20:40
constantly working towards the next thing but i think you need that you need that
00:20:46
work ethic you need that desire to always want more it's never enough for me even when i got my
00:20:51
biggest dream collabs and it's just what can i get next fran think of it as well
00:20:56
she's like it's enough now come on when someone hears that they might think well how did how do you
00:21:04
how would you be happy and satisfied and content whilst always striving to more and more
00:21:09
and more and once you get to that mountaintop or what you thought was the mountain top they call it like a false peak in climbing where you get that bit
00:21:16
and then you look up and there's more to go yeah and you can and so how do you find the happiness amongst and amidst
00:21:23
the climb yeah i'm working on that i think because even recently that we moved in into a new place we moved into this new house
00:21:29
and i've realized i've actually got a bit of a problem with it because i was like this house is literally a dream
00:21:34
it's a dream but it's not enough for me because i still want more like i still want a bigger house i still want bigger
00:21:40
things and it's like i need to work on that because you do need to find that happiness because you know 16 17 year
00:21:46
old me is screaming at the things i'm doing right now and i'm still like it's not enough you know but i think that's why i i'm doing the things i'm doing and
00:21:53
i am achieving great things because it's i'm never sort of like okay i'm happy this week i'll just sit down and and
00:21:59
this is fine no it's like what are we doing next week it's it's always more
00:22:04
why do you think you want more what does it what emotionally psychologically in the mind what what is
00:22:11
it that's saying that more why is more important i think again going back to that point where like when i when i'm
00:22:17
older and i've got my kids around me and i want to literally look back and say like my life was unbelievable like i did
00:22:23
every single thing i could possibly ever want to do there's not one thing on my list that's not ticked and i think i'm not there yet and i know i can achieve
00:22:30
more because it's possible so why not like we literally only are given one life we
00:22:35
have to just go to the extremes and that's what i'm trying to do i am i'm very much the same
00:22:41
in many ways and over the years i think i got to a point where my book is called happy sexy millionaire because at 18 i wrote in my diary range bear in mind i
00:22:48
was living in moscow and didn't have a driving licence a ranger over sport will be my first car make a million before i'm 25 i'll have a girlfriend and i'll
00:22:53
have a six-pack basically right that's my life goals brilliant 24 i'm driving a range over
00:22:59
sport or whatever whatever whatever and then that anti-climax of getting there yes
00:23:04
this like feeling of where's the marching band in the confetti like it's a huge anti-climax isn't it it's
00:23:10
it's mental like don't get me wrong it's incredible to reach your goals but it is a little bit oh you know when you hear people the
00:23:16
richest people in the world they say you're not happy though because you have all this money you think yeah you are happy like course you are you've got all
00:23:21
this money but they're probably not because it really actually doesn't mean anything all of that stuff your
00:23:26
happiness comes from within and the people around you and your life it doesn't come from how much money you have in your bank and what car you drive
00:23:32
and what house you live in it really doesn't it sounds cliche but it i've learned that and i'm only 22 in it and
00:23:38
i've realized that straight away i'm like oh gosh okay it actually doesn't come from all this stuff it comes from
00:23:43
your mental state and and your family and that the more important stuff really the non-superficial stuff
00:23:49
that anti-climax is very real though and my my concern as you said there is like i just was scared that i'd never be happy if i'm not happy now because yeah
00:23:55
like this is like i think for both of us from what you said anyway this is the dream that hitchin molly may yeah
00:24:03
dreamed of and you and hitch and molly mate 17 said when we get there at 22 we're going to be happy
00:24:09
i'll sit on my sofa and i won't work another day and i'll be happy and i'll just it's not that way it isn't you
00:24:15
think it will be and don't get me wrong it's incredible and i'm so happy i'm the happiest i've ever been i
00:24:20
i don't want for more but i do if that makes sense i don't know have you got a lot of friends
00:24:25
no i don't that's that's a blunt question yeah not there's lots of questions here
00:24:32
straight up no no i don't my circle is minuscule i have literally about five
00:24:37
people in my circle and that includes friends i have acquaintances and i have people in my life that i i stay in my
00:24:43
friends but i no my circle was absolutely tiny and i like it that way i wouldn't have it any
00:24:48
other way um i work i spend time with my boyfriend and i go to bed that is actually my life
00:24:54
and i'm not bothered about social life it's never been something i've been interested in i don't know if you've like i don't know if you know but i
00:25:00
don't really drink i don't party i don't go out but that is just because i actually don't enjoy it it's not for me
00:25:06
i'd rather just focus on making money being successful and and being happy
00:25:11
that's friends they come and go and i just i find it always a better waste of time so
00:25:17
you don't you don't actively want more friends no yeah no it's it's time consuming like trying to make
00:25:23
people happy like i've lost a lot of friends but since coming off love island because i don't have the time and i and in the end i
00:25:30
just say you know what look like i'd rather focus on the things that are actually going to elevate me and and it
00:25:35
sounds savage but sometimes friends they just not cling on but they they don't add
00:25:41
much yeah and that sounds a bit savage but no it's true and especially when you evolve
00:25:47
as a person you kind of sometimes i think you lose the thing that made you resonate with certain people yeah yeah
00:25:52
100 well i'm not that girl from hitchen anymore and you know like i'm not that young girl that was a lifeguard at hitch
00:25:58
in swimming pool like that's not me i i've i'm living a completely different in a different world now and a lot of my
00:26:04
friends can't relate to that and even though i'm still the same person my life and my circumstances they're just so
00:26:09
different that you do just naturally just people just fall off don't they but friends have never i've never needed
00:26:16
lots of friends it's just something that i've never really needed and people pick up on pick up that about me really quickly they just say like you've got
00:26:21
your circle's so small a bit of a loner but i like it i i you know i asked that question in part
00:26:27
because every successful person i've sat here with doesn't have a lot of friends no and you
00:26:32
know i was actually having a conversation with one of the previous guests on this podcast and she's got two and a half million followers on instagram and she was telling me last
00:26:39
night that she has one friend as her boyfriend yeah that's about right she literally said i have one friend and
00:26:45
it's my boyfriend yeah that sounds that sounds about right for me and it's sometimes it's weird because when i ask you this question it feels really
00:26:51
uncomfortable yeah when you first said it i was like oh god no i don't but it's yeah it's it's a weird one because you
00:26:57
don't want to sound like you you don't have any friends because then people think you're probably the problem there do you know me like you're pushing people away but it isn't that it's just
00:27:04
like i haven't got the time like i'd i really would rather just spend time with fran because we're friends and we talk
00:27:09
about work and we get we you know we we make money and then i spend time with my
00:27:14
with my boyfriend because he's amazing and i just you don't need to force the conversation you'd have to go for
00:27:20
dinners and split the bill it's just like it sounds terrible but i just don't have the time for it
00:27:26
i'm lazy with it has it become hard to trust people um especially following you know your
00:27:31
meteoric rise in the public eye does it get more difficult to trust yeah people did because there were you
00:27:37
know people always well sometimes people are in it for themselves they're trying to sell stuff up stories about you or they're trying to take advantage of yeah
00:27:43
i've been quite blessed with my rise in that i because my circle has always been small i've not really had to
00:27:50
cut people off because they're you know selling stories to the press i've never had that i mean that i know of anyway um
00:27:56
i mean yeah but um yeah i mean you do have to be worried about who's in your life because
00:28:02
i i think franwise says this to me she's like you just think you're still that 17 year old girl from hitchens sometimes you're not and people will come into
00:28:08
your life for the wrong reasons but i think i'm a bit naive to that sometimes and that is another reason why i keep my circle so small because it's different
00:28:14
now i think that it's just it's hard to it's hard to trust people i am i was watching something you you
00:28:19
said about how you've been very open about sharing the lows and the highs that come with
00:28:24
your meteoric rise and the publicity and being in the public eye it's very easy to see a lot of the clear
00:28:31
upsides all right the nice things they're like general sense of i'd say like freedom to choose
00:28:37
freedom of choice in your career and stuff like that but what are some of the like trade-offs of that success which you just think oh that sucks
00:28:44
well there's a lot there's lots obviously i've dealt with a lot in the last two years in terms of i was trolled
00:28:51
extremely badly i mean it's like a cliche topic and i i don't really talk about the trolling a lot because it's i
00:28:57
feel like it's all anyone talked about on social media these days is trolls and trolling and but it it it did happen to me extremely
00:29:03
badly and there was this one time we went to barbados to shoot a campaign for my fake town business and um we were
00:29:10
followed the whole trip by paparazzi we didn't even realize and they were posing as like architecture um photographers in
00:29:17
front of this building and and i did think at one point is that guy taking pictures of me but i just thought no he's taking pictures of the building behind me there's no way in barbados
00:29:23
that they're gonna be taking pictures of me anyway that afternoon um me stood in this white bikini like
00:29:30
completely like they were just the most horrendous pictures in my eyes and i i actually rang the daily mail myself i
00:29:37
went through to someone on customer service and i just was like this is money may you must take those pictures
00:29:42
down now like i was hysterically crying and i was and this poor person on customer service was probably just like what is going on and i was just
00:29:48
screaming down the phone like please like you've ruined my life like look at the comments under that picture like please take them down and it was just
00:29:55
like when i look back at that now i mean i would never say like i've had like a mental breakdown but that was close to it because i just went crazy i was like
00:30:02
screaming down the phone this personal customer service that couldn't do anything about it but for me i was like this is going to make it better like if they take them down it will all go away
00:30:09
but that was like a really really low moment for me um probably like the lowest of coming out of the show it was
00:30:15
horrendous it was just horrendous like people calling me fat um overweight and i'm a size eight so like it just it made
00:30:22
me so upset to think that if people are calling me overweight you know a girl a very normal size 10 girl like what are
00:30:28
they going to be thinking if i'm being called fat like it's it's heartbreaking and i think the whole trolling thing like i have
00:30:34
kind of dealt with it now like i'm really good at dealing with it i thought i've had this approach of like if it doesn't matter like people can say
00:30:40
what they want to say these people are just genuinely so unhappy in their lives that they try and bring you down and it's so sad but um you do learn to deal
00:30:46
with it it's just part of it and we've really we've learned in terms of like we're we're on always on pap watch now and if we go away on campaigns like we
00:30:53
literally have someone that job is specifically to look out for people taking pictures so it doesn't happen again because it was it was quite bad
00:30:59
that for me those daily mail comments really are successful of just vileness i remember when i was announced as a
00:31:05
dragon on dragon's den and like i don't look at comment sections because i'm just really not bothered it's like not going to add to my life but then my
00:31:11
family calling me and being like oh my god those comments my mom doesn't like racist i'm like don't look at them my
00:31:18
mum does that to me she goes have you seen the comments on the daily mail i'm like mom why would you tell me that like don't look i'm not looking so neither do
00:31:24
you i just leave it but yeah i think obviously they're just looking out for you and they don't understand that you're probably just trying to avoid it
00:31:30
that's a pretty remarkable way to live is you're talking about you know being on holiday and having someone on pap watch and
00:31:35
um you must always be on edge yeah you are a degree you are always on that edge and it's it's a weird way to live but
00:31:42
it's become normal now it's been two and a half years and that was really early on in barbados that was i think maybe
00:31:47
three months four months after i'd come out the show and that was okay this is how we need to live now this is how we
00:31:52
need to do things and it's just been the same and having an incredible team as well to be protective of you is is i'm really
00:31:59
lucky for that because i couldn't do it by myself it is you're really vulnerable like it's such a
00:32:04
vulnerable job to have um and yeah perhaps posing as architect photographers like it's just
00:32:12
there's snakes everywhere yeah man before we started recording fran your manager told me that you are a little
00:32:18
bit of a perfectionist and that you care a lot about getting all the details right for your customers but across your
00:32:24
life generally so i guess my question to you is how do you do that how do you dare i say worry about details and also
00:32:31
still maintain your peace of mind i mean it's it's compartmentalizing it's sort of like i
00:32:39
i don't really switch off it's almost like i just it's sort of built into my mind it's a 24 7. it's i'm always always
00:32:45
thinking in back my mind how everything i'm doing is affecting my work because that's i am my job at the end of the day
00:32:52
like i'm molly may and molly maze wants me what makes me my income it's not like i
00:32:58
go to work and i come back and i switch off i'm 24 7 on my phone so everything i'm doing everything i'm saying one
00:33:04
story post that takes two seconds to post everything i do affects how i make
00:33:10
money how my audience perceives me so it's i just think i've just sort of like
00:33:15
i don't know it becomes one my life is just is it sounds chaotic right and it also
00:33:20
sounds like i find it pretty remarkable based on people i've spoken to that live in a similar way that are very neurotic and
00:33:27
that are always one and always thinking and then yeah are in the middle of the like social media instant feedback
00:33:32
bubble yeah how would you avoid being anxious and that's in within that cauldron you you really just have to
00:33:39
sort of accept that instagram as instagram and there's always going to be that one
00:33:44
person on instagram that that doesn't like what you're doing i've got 6.2 million followers it is impossible to
00:33:50
please everybody so i've really had to understand that you know everything i say and everything i do not everyone's
00:33:55
going to like it no matter how much i wish they did because it would put my mind at rest a lot knowing that
00:34:00
everybody loves what i'm doing there's always going to be that one person that that hates what you're doing and hates you so you just sort of have to
00:34:08
sort of understand that instagram is just it's very superficial and it's just a highlight real that's why i love my youtube as well because i feel like my
00:34:15
youtube is so behind the scenes it's you really get that
00:34:20
that bigger picture you see the bad stuff that's happening in my day and i think do you know what i think not to
00:34:26
stand behind it but i think that is why i have a really high engagement on my instagram
00:34:32
it's because my followers they they see me on youtube when they see that picture on instagram and they think we know that she's not actually had a good day we
00:34:39
know that she's actually i spoke about a few months ago how i wanted this really really incredible job
00:34:44
opportunity and i didn't get it and i'm really transparent like i'm like today's been crap i've cried today like i've
00:34:49
come my period today i'm feeling really rubbish today like i'm i'm really really transparent so i think when they see
00:34:55
that picture on instagram they know actually if we want to see a bit more of like a realist side here we'll just go to our youtube and have a look and i
00:35:01
love that that is why i to all my influencer friends i say start youtube start youtube if you want your engagement to grow if you want your
00:35:07
audience to fall in love with you if you want people to understand you more you have to start youtube because instagram
00:35:13
is it's nothing it's a picture i post one picture a day what's anyone going to learn from that picture nothing
00:35:19
youtube is where it's at that's where they learn that's where they engage with you and understand you and believe in
00:35:24
you and that's the depth right yes it's so important like i do youtube because i love it i've i still edit all
00:35:30
my own content i still yeah i i'm really i love it i actually find it um
00:35:36
therapeutic editing my videos and i love um when i finish editing a video and i upload it i
00:35:42
love that sense of i just created that and it's bigger than just editing an instagram picture and putting it through color tone and putting a filter on it
00:35:48
you've spent time developing that video and you've created and millions people are going to go and watch that and spend
00:35:54
their 20 minutes of their day watching that video that you've created and i love that feeling that's really special
00:35:59
and i've had so many videos editors say like i'll do and i would never give that job to someone else one of the things i
00:36:04
find really fascinating is link to what you said there about being very honest and open with your audience but at the same time again if we're talking about
00:36:11
things that feel like they don't marry together or they feel like contradictions is
00:36:17
as you rise and rise and rise and as you experience more like material success and you can buy nicer things
00:36:23
do you become less relatable to your audience and is this is this something you think about because the girl you
00:36:28
know that is 16 right now living in hitchens looking up at you and you're getting you're getting apparently further and further away from
00:36:35
being you know that's such an interesting question even when you saying that then i was like that's a
00:36:40
really valid point and i actually don't be wrong i'll be honest i do see comments on my instagram saying like
00:36:46
you know can you do like a more high street haul this week can you talk about more high street clothes because don't forget in that 6 million followers
00:36:53
there's such a wide variety of people there's that 45 year
00:36:58
old mum that's you know living on food stamps you know and she's got no money and she wants to
00:37:03
see me post really normal things but then i've got probably another girl that's following me an 18 year old girl
00:37:08
that dad funds their life and they want to see the glamorous there's it's such it's impossible to to
00:37:15
sort of cater for everyone i try and as i thought as you say as i sort of
00:37:20
my life is changing so much i still try and stay as relatable as possible and i do i i would say that i am still
00:37:26
extremely relatable and again that's my youtube i post yeah all these incredible things that i borrow my instagram and
00:37:32
i've sort of stopped doing that now but i i well oh because yeah fine yeah but um i
00:37:39
i sort of that's again my youtubers i'm i'm there's in a vlog i might be saying oh i've just
00:37:44
bought this brand new watch it's amazing it's cost x amount and i'm having a really great day but then i also might say oh you know i've mean time i've just
00:37:50
had a huge argument and i've walked out the house i there's it's in a vlog i try and
00:37:55
keep that balance as much as possible so i can sort of not because i cater for everyone's just because i am that way
00:38:01
life is like that way you know when you're being honest one minute something's really great next minute something's really [ __ ] and that's just the way it is and i guess there's
00:38:08
there's two forces there really because i think if i was um well not even but if i was following you it'd be for two
00:38:14
reasons right for me on one hand it's aspiration it's oh my god look at this amazing thing all these amazing things
00:38:20
she's achieved and i really aspire to be there one day but then obviously the relatability comes from the fact that
00:38:26
you're talking about how bad your period pains are and this problem with your boyfriend and those are things we can all relate to yeah and then on the other
00:38:32
hand there's all these wonderful things that we can all aspire to yes and i think i think at the end of the day it's interesting with social media because a
00:38:38
lot of people in your position wouldn't share the aspirational things because they'll care too much about what people might
00:38:45
say yeah i would actually say the opposite i would say i think a lot of people share the aspirational things but they don't share the low moments that's
00:38:52
true when i when i'm watching people's youtubes i'm seeing so many girls being like my life is just so amazing and i do
00:38:58
these amazing things and i'm a vegan and i eat clean and i go to the gym and they don't talk about the low moments and
00:39:04
they wonder why their audience isn't engaged you have to be honest you have to include those things that maybe you
00:39:09
don't really want to include it but your audience will appreciate that because that girl is probably also having a crappy day that's watching it so she
00:39:15
wants to see you also having a crappy day so she knows it's okay and that's where i think some influencers and some youtubers they they
00:39:21
fall down because they don't they're not 100 honest whereas i really really am and i stand by that um so yeah if you
00:39:28
buy something really expensive though let's say you buy something really really expensive when you go to post it is there an is there a feeling of like
00:39:35
concern about it might make some people feel you know that struggling might make them
00:39:41
feel bad or inadequate in a way yeah i mean it's tricky isn't it it's
00:39:47
it's hard to know what you're gonna what you post how it's gonna affect people like you might think the post in one
00:39:52
thing will have no effect on somebody but actually it could be all that person thinks about that day and it's kind of scary it's a massive responsibility
00:39:59
because i have super young followers as well and i've got to be careful you know i've been on a bit of like a health journey recently i've got to be so
00:40:05
careful talking about weight loss and what i'm eating because you don't know what you're saying it's so
00:40:10
impressionable and these young girls they're so again vulnerable and i know
00:40:16
when i was watching girls instagram stories i mean i'm sure i'll talk to you about filler in a bit but i
00:40:21
instagram was the reason i ended up getting all that filler because i was watching these girls stories thinking
00:40:26
they have filler so i need to go and get filler so if i'm posting about you know a health journey and i've lost a few pounds i feel great well then young
00:40:32
girls are gonna go and think well i need to lose a few pounds if molly may's done it so everything you're saying it has to
00:40:38
be so clearly thought about because it's you have no idea how that one tiny story is going to affect that person's day
00:40:44
with everything isn't there a lot of things though where you just can't you can't there's no way to get it right you can't control it no you can't get it
00:40:51
right all the time i feel like there must be so many things where if you post it you're gonna get back because i i experience it a little bit people it's
00:40:57
funny with with them with me i i and i've learned this again from my guests that i've sat here with i can get away
00:41:03
for some reason with a bike with a lot more yeah they can so i can post something and i'll typically get like
00:41:09
pretty much 100 pos like a good example actually was when um i'd been in the gym a lot and i'm saying
00:41:14
to grace who's in my content team i'm like i'm gonna post a topless photo and say like show my gym transformation
00:41:21
before and after and grace raises it to me that like a lot of influencers who do that gets like
00:41:27
slammed for you know what what you're saying you're saying six packets yeah yeah i'm like no one's gonna say that in my audience i post it everyone's
00:41:34
clapping everyone's like amazing give us your tips but it seems to be like almost a double standard
00:41:39
for women creators and women like you if i look at it and think oh man you got it's like a minefield
00:41:47
correctness i know honestly but that is another reason why i stay quiet on a lot of things i don't i'm often fearful to
00:41:54
speak and even on twitter i kind of stopped using my twitter because everything you say like you i remember a
00:42:00
few months ago i went to italy for um a trip and i mentioned that i'd i didn't like the food in italy and the way i
00:42:07
worded it probably wasn't it i probably could have worded it better but i was trending on twitter for four days
00:42:12
about how i said i didn't like the food in italy and and i was like literally going for a really hard time i was like i can't deal with this like i've made
00:42:19
one comment that people didn't like about the ice cream in italy and i'm literally trending and i'm getting like
00:42:24
death threats because of it and it's a lot it's a lot like it's how i mean i always say like when i don't have like a
00:42:29
scandal for a while i'm thinking god's scandal's coming soon i'm going to say something wrong soon like it is you're kind of always on the edge of like
00:42:35
what's going to be next like what's what's happening next so with all this you know when you say this
00:42:40
to me my like i've got to be honest i don't envy that situation because i think one of the forms of
00:42:47
um one of the real causes in our society and in the world of mental health issues is feeling like you
00:42:54
can't be your true self yeah and there are physical forms of imprisonment putting someone in a jail and then there
00:43:00
are mental forms of imprisonment which is like stopping them speaking freely about who they are who they love what
00:43:06
they think and what they feel and yet when in every interview that i've encountered with you the answer i see is
00:43:12
i'm very very happy how how is how is that all possible for you to live in a world where there is so
00:43:18
much concern and so many minds that you could possibly step on and to still be
00:43:24
happier i know i am always saying that i'm happy because how i i think it'd be
00:43:30
selfish for me to say that i'm not like how could i not be happy like 17 year old me creates backup things i'm
00:43:36
thinking like god i am happy because this is all i ever wanted and yes every day in my mind i
00:43:42
think god i've i have got these worries and i have got these struggles but let's just take a step back i am happy like i
00:43:49
i sort of have to just look at the bigger picture i'm healthy i have my health my family's well i have
00:43:55
an incredible manager i have an incredible boyfriend i live in a beautiful house i'm safe i'm happy like
00:44:01
i am yeah i've got all these these worries about when am i next gonna have a scandal when am i gonna say the wrong
00:44:07
thing and but in the bigger picture like 17 year old me again could only dream of this [ __ ]
00:44:14
and i'm living it so that's how i look at it and that gratitude you know it's clearly
00:44:19
so important to be yeah centered and grounded amongst all of this chaos right yes yeah 100 i i am
00:44:26
very grounded and i think that's one thing that i'm proud of is that everyone that knows me from my life prior to love
00:44:32
island they've all said i've never changed i've always stayed the same yeah my life my circumstances have changed
00:44:37
but me myself i'm the same person and i and i know i am i've never become
00:44:44
bougie i've never become like i've never you know i just i couldn't it's not me i
00:44:50
am that i am still that girl from hertfordshire but just with a very different life now but i've never
00:44:55
changed even then since i've met fran in that two and a half years i'm still the same person that she met on that day
00:45:00
when i came out of love island so yeah i stand by that and i'm proud that i've stayed the same
00:45:05
what are these drinks here so this is huel um
00:45:11
it's basically nutritionally complete food so it's um it's the fastest growing ecommerce company in the country oh isn't
00:45:16
it online internationally it's basically like it's like your your perfect meal in a drink so 20 you know all your
00:45:24
proteins all your vitamins all your minerals vegan gluten free and if you're ever on the i'm sure you are because
00:45:29
you're super busy if you're ever on the go and you're like skipping meals and stuff yeah you have one of these fills you and make sure that you get all
00:45:36
everything you need amazing so i think as the world has got busier he always got more popular you know but anyway right to try
00:45:43
huell we'll give you they actually send you a big package after this they always do it so okay um
00:45:50
it's not that anyone knows where you live now you know where i live
00:45:55
i'll send it to france speaking about social media and you know one of the changes you made and you've
00:46:01
talked about this publicly is you removed the cosmetic filler from your face right yeah and um
00:46:09
and other things other sort of changes to your sort of cosmetic appearance can you talk to me first about what it was
00:46:15
that made you want to go and get cosmetic filler in your face well
00:46:20
i think i'm really very beautiful oh thank you well i was 7 16 or 17 when i first got
00:46:26
filler and 16 if it was i think is actually illegal um i think you have to be 17 legally um
00:46:33
but i i went and got lip filler when i was around 16 and
00:46:39
it didn't stop for a few years i kept getting it and i kept getting it and it became around that time was when it had
00:46:44
become very normalized filler was it was literally like going to go into the gym like i'm just going to get a top-up of
00:46:50
my lip filler it became so normalized which is terrifying and so scary that
00:46:55
these things are spoken about on social media like these these um aesthetic pages they're posting all these packages
00:47:01
you can get with filler and it's it became really normal so i just i went one day and i just got it and it was like nothing and i didn't tell my mom i
00:47:07
just kept it from everyone no one even really noticed but i think on social media as i said before i was
00:47:13
seeing all these girls um with filler and with all these things onto my face their faces so i thought
00:47:19
well if i want to be successful in that industry if i want to be an influencer and i want to have a large following i'm going to have to get that too like i'm
00:47:24
going to need to do that to my face i need jaw fuller and cheek filler and lip filler and botox to look the way these
00:47:30
girls do um when actually when i realize now is all just editing none of them looked like that anyway
00:47:36
but um it's scary because it i i wouldn't say i got addicted to it but
00:47:41
uh by the age of 21 i didn't look like the same person i
00:47:47
literally looked like a different person it was when i look back at pictures now i'm i'm terrified of myself i'm like who
00:47:52
was that girl i don't know what happened and it was actually only until my sister said to me and she was like we need to
00:47:57
sort this out it was i took her to tell me i was a pa in in a club i don't know where i was
00:48:03
and she texted me and she was like i need to talk to you about the filler like it's too much now like it's it's enough you need to stop and then i
00:48:10
actually sort of i remember going on my front camera and i was looking i was like what are you talking about and i actually realized i was like i don't it's not nice this it's
00:48:17
my face and literally everyone used to call me quagmire i don't even know quagmire is i think it's like a cartoon character i don't know oh okay well
00:48:23
people would either say on the screen yeah quagmire people used to say quagmire or they said i looked like an
00:48:28
xbox controller like my face was that warped like i got all called all kinds of things um but
00:48:35
there was this one pivotal moment where i'd gone and i'd got loads of filler and i posted a youtube video um
00:48:41
and i hadn't let the filler sort of settle and it was really swollen and a picture from a screenshot from that
00:48:47
video it trended on twitter for weeks it was horrendous it was utterly horrendous it was like you can
00:48:54
insert the picture we'll send it to you it was my face was literally like it was just awful and it was that was a moment for
00:49:00
me as well where i was like i think i think things need to change i i thought
00:49:05
one day i'm actually i'm gonna get my lips dissolved in it and it it was a process i went and got my lips dissolved
00:49:10
and i posted about it on youtube and i didn't expect the response that i got it was huge and a lot of girls were
00:49:16
tweeting they made me laugh and was like molly making lip filler does not mean that we will have to get her little
00:49:21
dissolved story does not mean that we will have to go and do the same because obviously they all love their lip filler which i think is great like some girls
00:49:27
absolutely love it and by me getting my filler dissolved did not mean that i i don't agree with philip i got it at one
00:49:32
point like i i obviously loved it and some girls it makes them feel super confident and it did for me for a while
00:49:38
until i took it too far i think it can be a great thing it's not for me to sit here and bash it because some girls they
00:49:44
do feel amazing with it and that's that's great but for me um the minute i started to sort of reverse
00:49:49
my image and dissolve the filler and dissolve my lips and i actually had full set of composite um bonding like veneers
00:49:56
on my teeth i had them removed as well i literally took it to the extremes and i just stripped myself back and weirdly
00:50:02
i felt the prettiest i'd ever felt once it had all gone and i i feel like i'd dropped about five years off my age and
00:50:09
it was like it was a really really significant moment for me and i just stripping everything back and
00:50:14
i didn't realize how much respect that would get me i didn't do it for respect i did it for myself i didn't do it for anyone else i did it because i knew that
00:50:20
i needed to but from doing it all these young girls were like were all these young girls parents remaining fran
00:50:25
and saying thank you so much like this is so amazing for us to see it's so different i actually had some a mum come
00:50:31
up to me when i was visiting hitchhiking with my mum she came up to me in the street crying her eyes out saying that
00:50:36
she was so grateful to me for doing what i did with my filler because she's so happy that like the effect it had on her
00:50:41
children and my mom started crying and it was all like emotions my mum was she when the woman walked away she's like i'm so proud of you and i just didn't
00:50:48
realize like from me doing that the effect it would have on so many people your manager fran told me she said um
00:50:54
when you made that decision to remove the cosmetic filler and the the bonding from your teeth um she was getting so
00:51:00
many emails she couldn't keep up with her inbox from parents saying expressing their admiration and gratitude because
00:51:06
obviously previously um those parents and their children had been looking up to certain role models who do do a lot
00:51:12
of editing because of you know because of the comparison-based world we live in and to have a role model like yourself
00:51:17
who is taking the very very brave and um i braves maybe not the right word but
00:51:23
just a very important step to say that i'm going to be a role model that doesn't um
00:51:30
tamper too much with my face because of the consequences and what that might tell my audience about themselves
00:51:35
when you went on your transition when you went from being you know a little bit too much filler here maybe in bonded
00:51:41
teeth and stuff like that to the natural molly that you are now was there other moments of doubt where you looked at
00:51:47
yourself and thought you know what maybe i'll knit back in yeah well yeah i
00:51:52
mean it didn't happen overnight i can't sit here and say like i suddenly just felt incredible like it was a huge
00:51:58
change like i literally i look like a different person with all the filler in a different person without and um
00:52:04
there was a moment where i'd just done the cover for cosmopolitan magazine and it was a really big deal to me i was so
00:52:11
hugely happy that i'd landed the cover because um i it was a dream it was huge my mom
00:52:16
used to buy me that magazine when i was younger and it was it was i couldn't believe that i was gonna be on the cover but that was the first time i'd been
00:52:21
pictured after i'd had all the filler removed and i actually despised the picture so much that i just i cried
00:52:27
about it for days yeah because i didn't get approval of the image and i just thought i sort of prayed i was like i
00:52:33
really hope i like the image and i i absolutely hated it and it went it went out and it was fine and everyone
00:52:39
was telling me how amazing i looked and it was kind of sad that after everyone sort of confirmed that they they thought i looked nice then i felt better that's
00:52:45
a bit sad because i think i didn't until i've until people started to start to say that and i never really thought i
00:52:51
was that girl i always sort of thought i don't need people to tell me that i looked nice like it but i think then i did because i was
00:52:57
really vulnerable like i just had all this filler removed no one had really seen me like that i looked really different i did and i think people
00:53:03
noticed it but people really admired it because it was different it was new no one had no one had really done that yet
00:53:09
i wouldn't want to say that i started a trend but i do feel like i did start a bit of a trend with the sort of dissolving and again i'm proud of that
00:53:15
because yeah i might have been a bit uneasy about it at first but now loads of people are doing it and i love it
00:53:21
it's like an amazing movement and with the with the brands that you're involved in in the businesses you run do
00:53:26
you now seek out models and influences and creators that are representing
00:53:31
that more natural look as well i wouldn't even say so because as i said before i don't think phil is a bad thing
00:53:37
if it's done safely and it's done in a way that makes a girl feel more or a guy feel more confident then then that's
00:53:43
great whatever makes that person feel amazing that's what i like and if a model comes in and we like her and she's
00:53:49
got a face full of filler that's not a problem because another girl that's looking at that campaign also might have a facebook affiliate you know again it's
00:53:55
i don't really judge people based on things like that i made a mistake with it once and but at one point i loved it
00:54:00
and it did make me feel confident so no i think we just like when we look booking models for filtering things we just want to be
00:54:07
relatable and we want to sort of have a girl modelling up the
00:54:12
fake hand that that lots of girls can relate to that's why we use always use multiple models in our campaigns and plus size and
00:54:19
we we try and sort of cater to everybody syndrome
00:54:25
when people rise very very quickly into high places they often talk about this feeling of
00:54:30
imposter syndrome where they you know inside them maybe they're still that girl from hitching but they're in these
00:54:36
like big rooms with these big things talking about big ideas and do you ever feel that
00:54:41
um i i guess i'm i'm extremely honest when i need
00:54:47
to ask questions when i don't understand what the hell is going on like i actually said to fran i was like i bet stephen's going to use loads of words
00:54:54
that i have no idea what they mean and i just have to sit here and pretend that i have a clue what he's on about when really i don't does that happen yet no
00:55:01
but when i was listening to your one with patricia bright you said a few words and i was like don't know what that means i was like he's definitely that's going to happen but i'm really
00:55:08
honest i'm really transparent i'll be in finance meetings with fran and we'll be talking about gross profit and i say can
00:55:15
we just rewind i have no idea what we're talking about here and i'm really really transparent with that like
00:55:21
i tried to just remember i am 22 they didn't teach me this stuff in school they they really didn't and i i'm
00:55:27
talking about mortgages and stuff i didn't know what a mortgage was until a few months ago i'll be honest because when i started looking at buying a house
00:55:32
i was like so what is a mortgage because i didn't know and i think um that's how i've gotten away from that
00:55:38
like imposter syndrome i just i i just ask i just ask the questions i'm not embarrassed and
00:55:44
i've had to learn a lot really quickly i didn't know anything at the start of this process i didn't know i don't think
00:55:49
i hadn't had enough money to even pay a tax bill before i didn't understand i was making a thousand pound a month
00:55:55
before the show so i'd never paid a tax bill like it and it was it was a lot of learning very quickly
00:56:01
and i've just always asked i'm not afraid to ask you then that's a really important thing don't be afraid to ask if you don't know
00:56:06
for me that's it's so inspiring to hear that answer because i've been in that exact same situation i
00:56:13
was in boardrooms as well when i was 22 years old and you sat there you think you're looking around the room and there's people double your age and of
00:56:19
course it's easy to feel like um you're inadequate or you're an imposter in that room but the thing that i always fell
00:56:25
back on was this understanding that i'm in that room for a reason there's something that i have that those men
00:56:32
that are double my age in suits that have gray hair don't have and that's my specialty that's the reason i'm there um
00:56:38
they have things i don't have i have things they don't have and i think for me the thing that's made me feel comfortable in intimidating situations
00:56:45
whether it's dragon's den or being in boardrooms out of my depth at a very very young age is continually reminding
00:56:51
myself that i am there for a reason too and there's something that i know there's some in your case you know
00:56:58
unbelievable creativity and understanding of the customer that has put me there and i think what you've realized is incredibly important you
00:57:04
don't have to speak on things you don't know and as a young person in this in these very intimidating foreign
00:57:10
situations like the boardroom you don't have to pretend you know everything you can just wait and have the confidence to
00:57:17
speak on the things that you know well that you know better than everybody and i just think that's so incredibly important that when you are in
00:57:23
intimidating situations as a young person in business or in your career
00:57:28
you got to know that you're there for a reason too yeah you're bringing value to that room too you don't have to speak on
00:57:34
everything but you are there for a reason when when i read about your story
00:57:39
when i i've watched you over the years and i've been close to people that you're close to um i could not believe the life of me when
00:57:46
my team told me you were 22. i like i was like yeah sure like googled it myself and i was like wikipedia is wrong
00:57:52
as well because it doesn't make sense right and it as you say there are so many like fundamental things about business and
00:57:59
funny money and life and finance that must just now be like thrown at you
00:58:04
and um and to be honest they're thrown at everybody right yeah especially when we you know we start thinking about
00:58:09
mortgages and stuff in terms of money and finance what are some of the lessons that you've you've had to learn um
00:58:16
or the advice you would give to people that are listening to make sure that they don't
00:58:22
blow all their money and get end up in jail i don't think i'm the i'll be honest i don't think i'm there yet
00:58:28
myself to give advice i'm still learning i i have yeah a large amount of money for someone
00:58:34
my age and i have to sort of rely on people around me to advise me with it like i've just started investing which has been a huge
00:58:41
interesting new chapter for me i hadn't got a clue about investing but i know it's really important i knew it it's a
00:58:46
key thing and i need to do it i didn't know where to start so i've i've been learning about that which has been
00:58:51
really interesting but i know it is cliche i know everyone says it but because you don't know these things in school like it is so daunting and my
00:58:58
situation is so niche in that i came to a large amount of money so quickly and
00:59:04
it was so vulnerable like i had to sort of like get my parents on board with it because i just you trust all these
00:59:10
people but it was so scary i said it's probably the most daunting thing really like coming out in this new world of
00:59:16
like i didn't have liter pot to piss them before and now i'm like dealing with these huge banks and they're like
00:59:23
it's mental it's it's i and i don't want it i wouldn't even give advice because i'm still learning and i'm not afraid to say that
00:59:29
i'm learning every day with it um but yeah it is daunting it's a whole new world
00:59:34
on the we talked a little bit earlier about we kind of touched on mental health one of the things that i was really inspired by is you what you gave
00:59:40
the profits from your one of your plt ranges to the charity mind the mental health charity yeah why
00:59:47
did you do that well it was it was shortly after caroline flackard passed away
00:59:53
um which was obviously heartbreaking and it was a huge huge huge shock um and
01:00:00
myself and prt we'd plan this huge launch party in a big launch dinner and we i was there getting ready for it we
01:00:06
cancelled it on the night because we just found out the news and it was just it wasn't right it just it didn't feel
01:00:12
right and the only way it would feel rightly released in the collections if we did donate the the profits made to mind um at that
01:00:19
time and it was just it was a really tricky time and i think i'm so proud to to be a part of prt in a
01:00:26
way that they were so on board with it straight away and it was totally my idea and i went and i said this is what needs
01:00:31
to happen and they were like yeah it wasn't even a hesitation it wasn't like no but we need to make money back no
01:00:36
they they totally understood um yeah and i'm blessed to work prt so closely because they're just they were
01:00:42
amazing at that time was that one of the things on your proverbial mood board becoming the
01:00:48
creative director of plt did you ever dream about that what was the and how did that all come about you know it was
01:00:55
a pretty little thing it's it was crazy because i knew when i started working with them it was
01:01:00
like i i had this feeling that it was going to go bigger than i'd anticipated
01:01:06
we bought out these collections and brought out these edits and it was just growing and growing and my growth was
01:01:11
was going up and and it just wasn't slowing down and i created such a close relationship with
01:01:16
plt and they they we really understood each other and it just grew past that point of being an
01:01:22
influencer because i don't really count myself as an influencer anymore i know i am theoretically but it's more than that
01:01:28
now and i am more of a business woman and i feel like plt it was in a it was in the works for a
01:01:34
while it was conversations about this role and i never really spoke about how it happened but there was conversations
01:01:40
about a role creative director was mentioned and i was like that's the only one i want i don't want anything else i don't want to
01:01:46
be head of any other department creative director is my role and if not then we'll just carry on doing what we're doing or we'll see
01:01:52
and fram worked on it with uma and they spoke and they spoke and it was about six months in in discussion and then
01:01:59
fran rang me i was in my car and she was like we've got it you're going to be the creative director of people i think and i
01:02:05
it was a really like it was a crazy moment i screamed on the phone i was like oh my god like this is wild and i
01:02:11
was just so excited to tell everybody i had to wait a few months i knew i was sitting on it for a while and then i told everyone and it literally blew up
01:02:18
the internet i didn't expect it to have like the effect that it did but it was huge
01:02:23
literally huge it was massive yeah i don't know it was yeah i think it was just no one really expected it
01:02:29
i think um no one saw it coming i think they probably just thought when i said i had a big announcement they probably like oh it's just another collection
01:02:35
she's just bringing out a few more pieces of clothing no it was when i said i had the biggest piece of like my
01:02:40
biggest achievement yeah i meant it it was my biggest achievement yet like i'm not just an influencer anymore i'm the creative director of pretty little thing
01:02:46
like that hasn't still really sunken in yet for me and what does that mean so the thing that brands do very well is
01:02:52
they they like using you know influencers creators to kind of sell you know we'll do a line with you we'll do
01:02:57
an edit yeah this is different right yeah it's completely different talk to me about how it's different
01:03:03
well i have a huge role within the business now i have a huge voice within the business and i think what's so
01:03:08
amazing is that i am the consumer i am that their their target market really
01:03:13
that age range i'm i am that consumer so to have me in the business with my views with my
01:03:20
you know with my guidance like it's really helpful to them it's a fresh pair of eyes i think they really needed that
01:03:26
and i i think um because i know the brand so well and i've worked with them i worked with them way before love island i've worked with plt now heading
01:03:32
on six years they were one of the first businesses one of the first fashion companies that gifted me when i had
01:03:37
about 11 000 followers on instagram so i've just we've believed in each other from the
01:03:43
very start so it was just such an organic movement for me like just to in that business and
01:03:49
another funny story is that when i came out of love island i had this day where um
01:03:54
all these fashion runs they came forward and they sat down and they offered me all these crazy deals i'm not joking
01:04:00
that was probably about 15 of all my dream brands they came in and they're like we'll offer you this we'll offer
01:04:06
you a car we'll offer you this amount of money um and plt didn't actually it was um um
01:04:12
zoom called me they were actually the only one that didn't show up on the day but they were the most important to me
01:04:17
because i knew that i was like these business meetings with all these other brands are kind of irrelevant because i know i want plt prt wasn't the
01:04:24
highest money offer that came forward there were brands that came forward and offered me triple what prt offered me
01:04:30
but because i loved prt so much and because i believed them wholeheartedly and i knew
01:04:35
that me working with them was going to be something the way it is now i i went with them and it was the best thing i ever did and
01:04:42
what's the best what's for now you've been in that role for several months what's your what's your what do you
01:04:47
enjoy most from because you've taken a big step from being you know doing ranges with
01:04:52
them to now being inside the business yeah what surprised you what have you enjoyed well i think people wouldn't understand
01:04:58
that the creative director well it wasn't just out of the blue it came about because i have been i've always given my input and everything that i've
01:05:05
done in every collection i've bought out i've always done more than the average influence but i think prt saw that i think they saw hang on this girl's
01:05:11
actually got something to offer she's got ideas on every shoe i have a large input with location sets um you know
01:05:17
photographers models that i use like it's i've always never just sat back and said yeah that'll do i'll do that i've always had
01:05:23
something to say um so it was i think they they saw that and i think even things have changed so much
01:05:30
now since i've come in this role like the collections that i'm bringing out now like they're worked on for a year they're not it's like i mean the one
01:05:36
we're bringing out next it's been working on we've been working on now for about seven months so it's um things are
01:05:41
done a lot more seriously they're not rushed they're really thought through um
01:05:47
we work i don't know how much i can speak about it we're working on um a london fashion week show which has been in the works now again for about six
01:05:53
months um there's it's a lot of work and it's interesting as well again i'll sit here and i'll say
01:05:59
i'll be honest it's a business role and i'm learning i'm not i don't know everything about business you know and a
01:06:05
lot of i got a lot of backlash when i came forward saying i was the new creative director people were saying what do you know about being a creative director you've never been to university
01:06:12
but it's not so much that i go in and i talk about numbers and i talk about the nitty-gritty of like that i'm more there
01:06:18
to give my perspective on how things should be done i'm there to go into the shoes and say i think this needs to be
01:06:23
changed i think this you know i'm there to be that fresh set of eyes and to be the consumer giving their voice
01:06:30
um that's sort of how it works and umar you know the founder and ceo of pretty little thing he himself started in that
01:06:37
role when he didn't know anything about fashion other than you know you know if he's got links with his family but that was his first real chance and i've
01:06:43
worked with him as well and one of the things he's always said to me is he likes bringing people in that don't have experience he i've seen i've sat in his
01:06:50
office for many many years and he said we need more 16 year olds in here yeah and what he's saying is he said is he
01:06:55
wants fresh eyes he wants a fresh perspective he wants kids that understand tick tock yes and keeping and that's probably why they've done so well
01:07:01
and been so relevant you're so right you're sorry when you go into the prt office it's all young girls working in there
01:07:09
all different kinds of girls but all young and it's it's really interesting because there's like two sides to the
01:07:15
office you've got like the tech side which are like all the guys like working around their computers like trying to make sure the website doesn't crash when
01:07:20
they have a massive sale then you have like the side of things where it's like the young girls doing the tick tocks doing the tweets doing their instagram
01:07:25
it's huge it's it's absolutely it's like um it's like an empire plt every time i
01:07:31
go in that head office i'm like blown away and and i think if i didn't do what i did now i'd want to work for plt in a
01:07:37
different way like i'd want to work in a social media because it's an incredible job all the girls that work there are so lucky
01:07:42
on the other side of the fence i actually have a very unique perspective because i got to see i was in the car with the ceo of plt
01:07:48
on the day when they were he was trying so so hard to make sure you join the brand and yeah i've never seen him um so
01:07:55
frantic and certain and you know he was not gonna lose the opportunity to work with you so
01:08:02
yeah i've never seen him like that actually in all the years he's a very ambitious relentless very driven guy
01:08:07
that you know knows what he wants and is willing to work to get it but that day in that car he was like we need her he
01:08:13
was like we need her i can't let her go anywhere else he must have just seen something i don't know maybe he just he
01:08:18
told me yeah you represent as you've said you represent the customer yeah
01:08:23
you know the customer you are the customer i am yeah and for him it was like the stars had aligned and there
01:08:29
could there wasn't another human being on earth that was more perfect for the brand than you and it's funny to hear from your perspective because you felt
01:08:35
the same way on the other side so yeah it matched up quite nicely i think it matched it perfectly um
01:08:42
life you know life life is very unpredictable and everything has a cost we talked a lot about that today even though the high
01:08:48
points have a cost and one of the costs of your um meteoric rise and your success and your
01:08:54
openness has was um came out in the papers quite recently when someone broke into your home um
01:09:01
yeah one of the most unthinkable traumatic things um from a psychological perspective because that is your safe
01:09:08
place it's your happy place it's yeah well especially the home that we were living in um
01:09:14
it was i spoke about it in a youtube briefly really briefly because again i'm always too scared to say too much but
01:09:20
it that home for me was i've had a lot of homes and it nothing quite was like that
01:09:25
place for me it was just it wasn't a huge apartment it was just a normal apartment um in a really nice area and
01:09:31
ironically i i just always felt so safe there every time i went in and i locked the the front door and i ran myself a
01:09:38
bath it was like my switch-off zone it was like where i felt um like i could just be that 22 year old normal girl
01:09:45
with a few thousand followers on instagram like i felt like i just it was my haven
01:09:50
so i think out of what happened with the burglary i think that's been the hardest thing because that was snatched away from us it wasn't
01:09:57
there wasn't the materialistic things that were taken it wasn't all the possessions that were gone it wasn't
01:10:03
the you know them violating our space and it was ransacked it wasn't any of that it was the fact that i knew the
01:10:09
second we found out we were in a meeting in london and we got the call and i knew the minute i found out that we were
01:10:14
gonna have to leave and i just it was that was the most heartbreaking thing for me because to be forced out of your home that you loved
01:10:21
so much and that you weren't ready to leave any time soon it was like it was
01:10:26
heartbreaking it was awful it says a lot about what home is it's not really a place i guess it's a set of emotions
01:10:32
right 100 and what once those emotions are tampered with and once they're spoiled it's gone like it's not it's
01:10:38
just it's just bricks and mortars then it's not it isn't it's not a special place anymore and i
01:10:44
think yeah out of everything that happened that's been what i've been finding hard to deal with because we um when i drive past it and stuff it's it's
01:10:50
heartbreaking it's like god that is how quickly can things change like things can change in such a like few hours
01:10:57
everything had changed like i was in a meeting about something really exciting in london next thing you know your house
01:11:03
has been ransacked everything's been taken you need to come home right away and i just didn't know what to expect i just
01:11:08
expected the worst and it was a good job that i did because it it was bad everything
01:11:14
everything gone how did tommy react well it was it's tricky because i'll be
01:11:21
honest tommy he's different with how he spends his money he he doesn't really buy things
01:11:27
he's a bit of the way he's been raised he's quite shrewd with his he's just he's very different
01:11:33
and um he reacted differently to me i was um much more like um
01:11:38
trying to sort everything out you know insurance and making sure we're we're okay and tommy's just like
01:11:43
sort of it'll be fine it'll be fine he's very laid back it's very hard to explain how he is but we're like polar opposites
01:11:50
but that's why we work but yeah i mean it was just different and is this
01:11:56
you've talked about how this has changed your desire and willingness to be
01:12:01
as open yeah which i find i found to be quiet well i had no idea yeah i had no choice and i mentioned that like on my
01:12:08
social media i said like i don't want to change the way i live i don't want to change the way i talk to you guys that's
01:12:14
what i love doing i love sharing everything but if it's going to compromise my safety i can't i can't
01:12:20
it's not fair like it's really hard and i'm now trying to work on this new balance of sharing but not over sharing
01:12:27
to so that i um make me and tommy not safe anymore and it's it's finding this new way of living
01:12:33
and having close protection security now and and moving and making sure not even my nail tech so much as comes to my house
01:12:40
because i i can't have anybody knowing where i live now it's like even deliveroo no can't
01:12:47
it's not possible like it's just not safe because it takes one wrong person to know where you live and i think i've it you know
01:12:54
what i'll i will say that it is not a positive thing will happen but maybe it needed to happen in order
01:13:00
to make me learn how i need to be now i can't just be that normal girl that is
01:13:05
blase and post everything on our socials it's not i need to look i need to do better to protect myself and tommy
01:13:10
unfortunately it's sad but it's just the way it's got to be now and everything's got to change yeah
01:13:16
that is sad isn't it it is sad it is but i think people understand they i see a
01:13:22
lot of tweets now being like because i've posted i mean literal smidgens of where we live now like i mean like a
01:13:27
cushion and everyone's like saying i'm so gut we're not going to get a house tour and i'd absolutely love to give a house tour because
01:13:34
this house is incredible and i want to i don't want to show it off i want to show my followers and be like this is where we're living now this is the new kitchen
01:13:40
this is the new bedroom you know like that's me i'm an over-sharer but now i'm i'm taking videos and i'm like oh is
01:13:47
that too much am i showing too much there like the newspaper's gonna find out from right move which house that is
01:13:52
you know i'm i'm thinking that way now and it's sad at 22 years old that you have to think that way but
01:13:58
it's the pros and cons with this this new life that i'm living do you feel safe in your new home yeah you do yeah
01:14:04
we we're really lucky in that as i said it's taught us how we need to be now and
01:14:09
i actually have close protection security now and i'm trying to get used to that it's 24 24 or seven and i don't
01:14:15
know how long i or forever or whatever but i'm it's just mad like that having
01:14:20
to put these precautions in place now um i don't really wear my jewelry anymore what i have left of it i'm i'm not
01:14:26
wearing it because i just it made me realize that it just doesn't really matter people are just so cruel and and and they are
01:14:34
jealous that these things it's better off just to i don't know i just think it changed
01:14:39
things for me it took that superficialness away it just made me realize actually these things aren't important
01:14:45
your health and your happiness and your safety safety is key i'm spending a fortune now on security but really
01:14:51
there's no price on feeling safe at all because i'd rather spend money on security and spend it on a handbag
01:14:58
because what makes you feel better now the security of course because i can go down the street and now i'm safe
01:15:04
i don't know it's changed a lot are there things that you miss from your old life
01:15:09
old life is then as in you know before the before all the uh paparazzi's in the caribbean or wherever it was and
01:15:16
no i wouldn't say so you know i i love my life now i'm i literally i pinch
01:15:21
myself every day that this is the life i live and yeah like things like the burglary happen and it's [ __ ] and it's
01:15:27
scary and i have bad days but i'm so blessed to live this life like i i pinch myself every day that i wake up
01:15:33
and i i never want to go back to my old life that terrifies me because obviously as i told you at the start that ordinary
01:15:40
life that i was living before i never wanted that i want what i had now and i'm working on achieving so
01:15:45
if you were to to leave your house and just walk through a mall or down the street now
01:15:50
what's that experience like it's different it's i i never really
01:15:55
talk about that because it sounds big headache like you do get stopped but it's it's mental and it's crazy and like it
01:16:02
will never feel real especially when i go out with tommy obviously he's tall everyone spots tommy and he has um a really different
01:16:08
audience to me so it's like when walking through like a shopping center his audience is in there and my audience is
01:16:14
in there so it's like a huge amount of people and obviously our combined following when we go out
01:16:20
it's heading on 10 million people that's a lot of people so
01:16:25
it's a lot of people that know who you are and want to grab pictures and it's amazing it's amazing and i one thing
01:16:31
i'll always say is that i never ever ever have in my whole career ever said no to a picture because
01:16:38
i just i like it it's fun it's nice that people like want to take a picture of you like what an honor like that someone
01:16:43
wants to take a picture of me like that will never feel real but is there i went out with them my mate liam payne from
01:16:49
one direction and obviously i've experienced i met him before you know really yeah on a plane we were flying
01:16:54
back from um vegas together at the same time he was so lovely to me and tommy and like has
01:17:00
always stayed in contact with tommy since he messages him and says i hope you're well brother and i really didn't expect that from him yeah he's
01:17:07
he's a really sweet guy and uh you know i said under there i mean just underneath all of the like
01:17:12
the fame and the public image and the band's death he's this really sweet soul it's called
01:17:18
my i went out with him a couple of times in manchester for the foot we did a couple of parties together for the euros just getting our close friends together
01:17:23
and um sit in a restaurant in the ivy in manchester one person fight you know clocks that it's limping then yeah comes
01:17:30
over can we have a photo he's like sure another and then they go back to their table and tell their table then there's another person yeah and then the dinner
01:17:37
is actually a meet and greet and i'm looking at this thinking because like i'm like no i'm not famous at all
01:17:43
but like i've got like dragons dennis dropping in january and things like that so i'm thinking i don't want that in my [ __ ] life like yeah that is too much
01:17:50
for me and how do you find how do you find those moments where you can enjoy yourself in public without it becoming a
01:17:56
molly maybe meet-and-greet or do you just choose to go to other places i just choose not to go out i'll be honest and i think sometimes it has
01:18:03
to take francis said to me going to traffic center on a saturday afternoon manchester is not a smart idea as much as i would like to um even like
01:18:10
the christmas markets just opened in manchester we were going to go the other night we were like no it's a bad idea like it sounds like you're being
01:18:15
beheaded when you say it but you just i mean someone come out with me and see like it's not it's not like a normal
01:18:21
experience it's you have to take security you have to it's not like i just quit nipping out it's a lot it sounds like you've got a
01:18:27
baby it sounds like you're trying to get a baby you're not just nipping out it's a lot to think about quick one as many of you know i've been
01:18:33
trying to make my life a little bit more sustainable as it relates to energy ever since i sold my range over sport and
01:18:38
bought an electric bicycle and my energy as a sponsor of this podcast one of the brands that make that
01:18:43
transition much much easier they are at the forefront of british renewable
01:18:48
ecosmart technology and their products are really really changing the game if you're on youtube you can see what i'm
01:18:55
holding in my hand this is called the eddie right it's the uk's number one solar powered diverter so what is a
01:19:02
solar diverter it's a device for people like you and me that means you can divert your excess energy back into your
01:19:08
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01:19:15
and you can control it using the my energy app on your phone to find out more about this product and more products like here that will help you
01:19:22
make that sustainable transition head over to myenergy.com and um i highly recommend you check out
01:19:28
the eddie it's um it's a real game changer for a product and one that i'm going to be installing in my home soon what's it like being a woman in business
01:19:35
right because there's there's you know especially when you're a woman that's come from um you know built this big instagram
01:19:41
following and it's been on a tv show there's so much like stigma stereotyping and assumptions being made right but
01:19:48
even outside of your your role as creative director of plt you are a businesswoman you're very at the core of
01:19:53
it yeah you're dealing with multiple brands across multiple deals and yeah you've got your own companies what is it
01:19:59
like being a woman in business at 22. it's
01:20:05
it's it's hot i mean it's confusing and it's hot it's amazing obviously but as i said like i am learning so
01:20:12
it's um a little bit scary at times you do feel a little bit like overwhelmed and when you're in meetings and you're
01:20:18
you you don't want to look like you don't know what's going on you don't want to look vulnerable you just have to
01:20:23
sort of come across as as this woman that you you you do have all your [ __ ] you all have your ducks in a row you know what's going on and um by sort of
01:20:31
like pretending that i do i feel like i've sort of become that i i've sort of like embodied someone that does know
01:20:37
what's going on because i've had to learn it so quickly and so sometimes pretend that i've now embodied that
01:20:42
person that i when i'm in a meeting i can hold my own and i can sit there and say yeah i know what's going on i want to do this this and that
01:20:48
hasn't come overnight um as i said i am so young and it's such a quick
01:20:53
turnaround like two years ago i was in manchester i was in manchester and living by myself going to the gym taking
01:20:59
a few pictures going to wagga mums on a weekend like it and now i'm in these huge meetings with huge people
01:21:06
about really important subjects and it's like god it's it's
01:21:11
it's hard sometimes but i like it it's interesting it's different every day in my life is so different and it's a bit
01:21:16
of a challenge each day it's like even today like this this this podcast i felt honored that you even asked me to do it
01:21:22
because it's like i'd listen to the people that you've done them with and you sort of sometimes think god like i'm
01:21:28
not the same as them but then you sort of realize oh wait maybe i am you know like the likes of patricia bright and
01:21:33
jacqueline gold like you look up to people like that and then suddenly you're being asked to do the same things as them and it's like
01:21:40
how has that happened like it i don't know if it will ever feel real things like that patricia bryce especially is
01:21:45
someone i've always looked up to and i actually filmed i've been working with patricia a few times now and that
01:21:50
was really huge for me because she was like my woman she was like my goals
01:21:55
yeah she was the woman on youtube and and i aspired to just be just like her she's
01:22:01
just everything i wanted to be she was so successful so business-minded but also so relatable and so hilarious and
01:22:07
i loved everything that she was about and then she asked me to do a video with her after love and i was oh no this is
01:22:13
just happening and then you try and act cool and you try and act like this is just the normal but it
01:22:18
it's not it's not and it's sometimes okay to sit there and be like god i cannot believe this is happening like even today like when fam was talking to
01:22:25
me about doing this with you and it's just like these things just i don't know they don't ever really feel
01:22:30
real what do your parents think about your life they must be looking at and thinking what the yeah [Music]
01:22:36
i think yeah i think it is crazy like when they see me doing my pretty little thing adverts on tv like how does that
01:22:42
ever feel normal and they're just they're just really really proud they're just my parents are divorced now um
01:22:48
so it's dealing with my dad and dealing with my mum is like two separate completely different things but they're both so
01:22:54
they're both so proud of me and it's just i don't think anyone could really have expected this do you sometimes see
01:23:00
them or feel them trying to work out what they did to cause you to be like trying to connect the dots back to like
01:23:06
what the like yeah in hindsight maybe what did we do like what did you feed her like i don't know but i don't think
01:23:13
that i think obviously you're a product of your environment and how you grow up and how you're raised is a huge part of
01:23:18
who you become but at the same time i wouldn't like no disrespect to my parents they're incredible but i don't think anything they've done made me do
01:23:25
what i've done now does that make sense everything i've done in the last two years is down to me and down to fran
01:23:32
it's it's us two together like we've done this and that my parents yeah they raised me and they made me into a
01:23:38
a polite and nice person but they they're not responsible you get what i'm
01:23:44
saying like they're not i don't know how you feel about that but you probably don't feel like your parents are the reason that you've been so successful or
01:23:49
maybe you do i don't know well it's funny because with parents like we i have i'm i'm the youngest of four oh are
01:23:54
you and we're all completely different yeah so it would be pretty dumb to say that there was a ton of
01:24:00
intention that went in from my parents they were thinking we'll raise one entrepreneur one yeah a lawyer
01:24:06
no it's just they they do their best yeah and it's like rolling the dice yeah and you as you've said from your family
01:24:11
your sister's in the army you're you know this mega star um businesswoman and a creator so you never
01:24:18
really know what's gonna happen and you know it'll be the same someday when i have kids and when you have kids i'm sure it's kind of a rolling of the dying
01:24:23
yeah luck of the draw speaking of kids speaking of relationships tommy yeah um
01:24:30
one of the things i you know when people leave love island you kind of look at it and you think oh these are just gimmick relationships right yeah we think that
01:24:36
they're in it for the money they're not going to last for five days and then the minute they live love island the relationship's over
01:24:41
after they've done all the deals and stuff together yeah everyone's like yeah yeah yeah yeah with you and tommy again
01:24:47
you've been an anomaly yeah we have because you're still together um years and years and years years after the show
01:24:53
and from everything i've read you have a really solid relationship tell me about that and i guess you didn't expect that
01:24:59
right yeah i mean i think as i mentioned briefly before because i went on the show so not
01:25:04
expecting to find love and i just went on for a bit of a we'll just see what happens potentially come out with a million followers we'll see
01:25:11
i came out the only person having fallen in love me and tommy were the only couple that year that are still together
01:25:17
and that were really together in the show every other couple broke up a couple of weeks after we were the only people that actually found each other
01:25:23
properly and it's been like nearly three years now and it's just been a whirlwind and i think what's been so incredible is
01:25:29
that both our lives have changed together at the same time and we've grown together and experienced it all
01:25:35
with one another and i think having him to lean on through all these you know
01:25:41
ups and definitely lows he's been there for me has been so amazing because it would have been lonely doing it alone i
01:25:47
think like you know after me and fan have spoken all day and then going back to that apartment alone when you're
01:25:52
living this new world and navigating all these new things that it would have been a bit sad to not experience it with someone
01:25:58
so we're really blessed to have had each other through this whole thing and is it is it at times quite a long-distance relationship because if
01:26:04
he's away fighting in or training in the u.s yeah or you know he's with tyson doing some training which i saw recently
01:26:10
is it is a bit of a long-distance relationship yeah how do you manage that we don't see each other for weeks on end at the moment like weeks on end
01:26:17
and we've become really good at the long distance thing i don't know like i think we're just one thing that i find so key
01:26:23
in our relationship and it's the most important thing i think in any relationship is trust we have that
01:26:29
complete and utter trust in one another and i think in a relationship that is literally all you need to survive if
01:26:34
you've got that trust everything else just falls into place because he can literally go away for
01:26:40
weeks on end and there's not a doubt in my mind that if he was to be around a load of girls it i i could sleep
01:26:46
peacefully at night knowing that he's just he's for me and i'm for him and that's that when you've got that i just
01:26:51
think i don't know why i'm giving a relationship advice here but i do think like that is the key job that is
01:26:56
literally the key you got trust you've got everything yeah and relationships require work right we had a guest on the other day and he said something which i
01:27:02
actually actually spun my head a little bit he said you know um in a relationship there is the relationship
01:27:07
and there's love you only have to work on one of them which means like you know i mean you the relationship is like a a
01:27:13
job in the sense that you've got to like invest in it nurture it commit to it whereas the love is going to be there
01:27:19
and yeah you can see it because some people have loads of love and a crap relationship yeah that's true so
01:27:25
what what work do you do with tommy on the relationship to make sure that you are yeah like working on it actually i
01:27:31
never pictured it like that i guess we you do work in a relationship it is like a bit of a full-time job that never ends
01:27:37
um it just comes naturally i think when you're with the right person it does just all fall into place and i don't
01:27:43
know but it's weird with him like we know that we're going to be together forever and we we we're just so excited for what the
01:27:49
future holds for us all we ever talk about is kids than like marriage and i'm so excited like i'm doing all these amazing
01:27:55
things but i also have that to look forward to and we i don't see our relationship as a job like your other
01:28:01
person said i i don't i just see it as a part of my life and it's just there and i'm so blessed that it just works so
01:28:08
well we never have any problems we're really lucky obviously we're not perfect i'm not gonna sit and say we don't oh you like canned dog we definitely do he
01:28:14
drives me crazy and i do feel like i'm a bit of his manager sometimes the way fran is for me i am for him it's like
01:28:19
passed down um fran does it for me i do it for him he just looks after himself
01:28:25
um but yeah i don't know i feel like we've just got something good going on it really works as we look ahead then at
01:28:31
your future you're very ambitious you're always asking that question what's next what's yes what's next
01:28:36
you've made that you know that mood board that planning session with fran recently you know in the previous couple
01:28:42
of months as to what the next big goals are what are they big goals and ambitions
01:28:48
well specifically i wouldn't i'd i always try and keep things under wraps a little bit because i've spoken to friends she said
01:28:53
you can tell me everything i'm not sure if that's true um well
01:28:58
in all aspects of my life i'm working on different things um pretty little thing and me where it's as i said 24 7. it's a
01:29:05
constant thing and we're working on london fashion week is next and that i'm not going to say too much because i do
01:29:10
really want to keep it mainly a secret but it's going to be huge like the biggest thing maybe prt has maybe ever
01:29:17
done um so that's going to be huge we're working on that then obviously i've got filled by molly may which is my own fake hand
01:29:23
business which is growing rapidly and when i spoke about in this podcast a lot about learning the business side of
01:29:29
things that's what i'm relating it to is my business when i go into these meetings with these people you know like um wholesalers that
01:29:35
want to take on the product and sell it on their websites and i'm it's it's just interesting to learn and
01:29:41
i'm just looking forward to learning more like and and as i said i'm not shy to sit here and say that i've got so
01:29:47
much more to learn i i'm not like the likes of jacqueline gold and the patricia bites that sit here and they've got a few years on me and they've
01:29:53
learned all this stuff and they they do come across like these strong powerful business women and i'm i aspire to be
01:29:59
like that and i'm heading there and i'd love to revisit this in a few years when i'm there and can use all those big words like net
01:30:06
gross profit i don't know it's really interesting with you because i actually think you have you've clearly demonstrated the
01:30:12
thing that will get you there which is that humility of like admitting that there's a lot of things you don't know
01:30:18
and i think of when it's speaking as someone that was once a very young entrepreneur as well at 22 years old i
01:30:23
don't know anything about anything because you're right no one tells you business stuff and net gross profit margins that makes me feel better no but
01:30:30
but the most important like key component i think in entrepreneurs is being like there are so many things i
01:30:35
don't know and i'm not going to pretend i don't because as you said one of the things that really actually inspired me when you said it was listen if i don't
01:30:42
know something i just ask it that's the for me the mindset of someone who's going to in the future know a lot of
01:30:48
[ __ ] yeah do you want to meet me so yeah so tell me more about the future then what else has got going on you've got
01:30:53
your brand the the tan business you've got loads of stuff happening with your creative director all at plt yeah but
01:30:59
obviously my socials i'm growing 25 000 a day on average um it's not stopping
01:31:06
and it it's it's strange to me like when i came out the show i never anticipated
01:31:12
the growth just it just doesn't stop like and i could even disappear for a few weeks then it doesn't stop and i
01:31:17
don't know why i think it's just people they do find me so relatable and i'm
01:31:23
just i'm excited to see with like what happens as i grow like where is it going to stop you know and i have every every
01:31:29
million i hit i'm i'm like well i want next million now it's not working towards seven million even though when i said i hit six million that would be
01:31:35
enough i was like six million a wow that would be amazing and i'm like seven million's next that'll be enough and then it won't be then i'll be working
01:31:41
towards ten um focus not become a problem when
01:31:47
you know now because of how big your platform is you could pretty much go after any goal or ambition you have with
01:31:52
your manager fran yeah so how like you there's there is a risk of spreading yourself too thin right i guess so but
01:31:59
there is a still there are there are still goals that are a little bit like for everybody there's things that are a
01:32:04
little bit out of reach and i like reaching for those things because it's you know i you know working with like really really
01:32:11
high-end fashion brands you know we've not tapped into that yet because oh here we go you're not well we don't know yet
01:32:16
but it's just interesting to think about the different types of of brands that i can work with you know i'm working more
01:32:22
on like the high street budget right now and then you know in years to come who's to say well that's gonna you know you
01:32:27
just don't know and i think with my following growing so rapidly where is it gonna end up we just don't know but
01:32:33
that's what's so exciting about it like it's just every day is a new is a new chapter and it sounds so cringy
01:32:38
but it is every day is so different well yeah my next my main goal has been my main goal for
01:32:43
the last two years i'm just desperate to own a house i still don't own a house yet but it's not because
01:32:50
i can't or i don't want to it's because i've not found the right house yet and um i'm so particular and picky with what
01:32:56
house i want and it's come it's come close a few times to like i've got my mortgage in principle and it's been all
01:33:02
really exciting and then it's no but yeah that's my next goal is is getting on the property ladder and maybe
01:33:08
building a house we don't know it's there's loads of exciting things with that and i'm still trying to learn again
01:33:13
mortgages and all that interesting stuff it's um stamp duty what the hell is that
01:33:18
and why on earth does that exist may i ask because it's a lot of money
01:33:24
um but yeah there's loads of things that you don't realize because i i looked at this house and i
01:33:30
really really liked it and was like yeah you know the stamp dude and that's going to be x hundred thousand i was like what and
01:33:35
then i had a builder come around and look all the work that i want to do into it was like yeah so that's gonna be about 900 000 just for the work you weren't doing and i was like
01:33:42
this is just stupid i was like like how but this is the thing like i'm in a really financially um blessed
01:33:48
situation so how is any normal 22 year old on a normal income ever going to get on the property ladder i don't
01:33:54
understand that that's fascinating to me how's anybody ever going to get the property ladder with the way it's going
01:33:59
it's wild isn't it so this is the dart this is the actual diary of a sierra oh wow this is the famous diary where it
01:34:06
all began and every guest that comes on the podcast um when they leave they write a question
01:34:12
for um the guest that's coming up oh right so you actually won't know who's
01:34:17
written this question for you i guess it wouldn't be like it wasn't gonna be someone patrice evra it wouldn't be that would it because
01:34:24
we've had a couple since then they probably come out in yeah exactly yeah so we've had you know
01:34:29
jimmy carr came out we've had some some very big guests recently and you'll also be
01:34:34
writing a question this book for our next guest okay so the question in the directio for you this week from our previous guest was if you had to give
01:34:42
all of your money to one organization tomorrow morning what organization would it be and why
01:34:49
i mean there's so many charities like and so many things that come to mind it's almost like i can't even think of
01:34:56
one but one thing i didn't speak about in this podcast is that i
01:35:02
am a massive um i always give money to homeless people always i cannot keep cash in my wallet
01:35:09
because i will literally just dish them out like fun coupons to i can't i just have to when i see
01:35:14
anybody on the street i give my money away instantly because i cannot fathom how anybody can end up in that situation
01:35:21
of of not having a home it literally breaks my heart so i'd probably i'd probably just find
01:35:26
someone on the street and give it all to them yeah i want to see wood or give it to a homeless organization or or something
01:35:32
like that because it is a hard question but yeah that's something that i feel really passionate about and as i said i just i have to
01:35:39
stop putting cash in my wallet because i just yeah yeah the minute i get out the cash point it's gone to someone on the
01:35:44
street which i like doing i enjoy doing that it's i don't know it's a really hard question
01:35:49
like it is i like i don't i i could you say well because you're right right so it has it's a really considered thing
01:35:56
my question is going to be like what are you having for dinner tomorrow no yeah
01:36:02
no yeah i would i would i would probably do the same as what you did there which is like what causes what
01:36:07
what hurts my heart and what problem would i like to solve if i was like either vanishing off the earth tomorrow
01:36:13
or just having to donate everything and yeah i would people that don't have stuff yeah so i'd
01:36:18
probably sell all my assets and give it to i don't know one of these organizations that helps people that don't have stuff
01:36:24
like which is pretty much what you said there so it makes a lot of sense if you if you could speak to molly may um from
01:36:30
hitchen now based on everything you've been through and everything you've learned what kind of things would you tell her about
01:36:36
warner about advisor on looking back that's a good question i think i've
01:36:44
without repeating myself with what i've said before in the past i i do wish i could tell her to slow down
01:36:49
a little bit with rushing things and even now it's something i'm trying to work on at 22 i
01:36:56
don't want to get to 25 and and not have anything to look forward to when i'm 30 because i've done everything already you
01:37:01
know have the best car i can drive and have the best house i want to slow things down and i want to work on enjoying where i'm at because it's not
01:37:08
healthy to always always want more because you've got to be grateful for where you're at and the things you've achieved um but fran's a really good
01:37:15
person that cause she grounds me like it's a really superficial example but i'll use it anyway
01:37:20
i passed my driving test a few months ago and the only car i wanted was a g wagon i was like i'm getting a g-wagon from i was like no you're not i was like
01:37:26
why not she's like yeah you can get a g-wagon but what have you got forward to look what you got got to look forward to when you hit 25 like she was like get
01:37:33
something a little bit you know underneath that and then you can look forward to it when it comes and i was like no no but then i thought actually
01:37:39
you're right i don't need to just always go for the biggest thing like work towards these things have things to look
01:37:44
forward to because i'm only 22 like i'm so young and i've got so much to work on
01:37:49
and look forward to and i don't want to rush things and i would tell my younger self slow down slow down on the filler slow down on moving to manchester maybe
01:37:56
when you couldn't afford it slow down on worrying about trying to get instagram followers and it's just everything will
01:38:02
come you know in it when it's meant to and do you think you are you feel like
01:38:07
you going back to one of the questions i spoke about earlier do you feel like you are enough now like you've achieved
01:38:12
enough and you've done enough and to be to be happy you know do you feel like you're enough oh it's a really really
01:38:19
good question i honestly i'm going to say no because
01:38:26
and then it just contradicts everything i said in this podcast if i say yes and but but no i would say no because
01:38:32
if fran or someone told me today that this was the last day of me working and i'll go back to manchester now and i'll sit
01:38:37
in my house and have babies and get married and i won't work another day i'd cry myself to sleep and i would not be
01:38:42
happy because i'm nowhere as i said i'm nowhere near done this is just the start so no like i'm not i am enough me i am
01:38:49
enough but the work i've done isn't enough yet i've got so much more to do will it ever be i don't know maybe not
01:38:56
maybe when we ever revisit this and i've got more followers and more money and a better house or whatever i'll still be
01:39:02
saying it's not enough i probably will be but maybe i need that maybe that's like the recipe to making me the way i
01:39:09
am and making me different to the other love islanders and the other influencers maybe it is because i'm hungry and i
01:39:14
always want more so maybe i don't need to get rid of that maybe i'll just stick with that mindset because it works
01:39:21
clearly i completely agree and it's been incredibly inspiring and insightful talking to you because you know and
01:39:28
you're in i still can't believe you're 22 years old because you know at 22 years old i wasn't i
01:39:34
wasn't in the rooms that you're in now and i wasn't engaged in the conversations i hadn't built businesses
01:39:40
and you know the role as plt as creative director i know how demanding that that will be and
01:39:45
um how particular and cautious um would have been in picking you he wouldn't have
01:39:50
done it as a token thing no and i've actually spoken to the team at plt i've actually worked with them for about
01:39:56
seven years yeah and with through my business and um they say that you are heavily heavily involved you're in the
01:40:01
office and you are helping to build and shape what that brand is yeah it's remarkable that you can do all of that
01:40:06
and run all of your other businesses and uh you know keep up with your personal life as well
01:40:13
all at the age of 22. there's a real mature wise head on your shoulders and it's really fascinating to watch how
01:40:18
that's going to play out for you over the coming years and i you're a force right so i can't think of anything getting in your way um thank you so much
01:40:25
thank you for your honesty thank you you're doing a real service to the world and being yourself and i know how i don't i typically don't know because i
01:40:32
have people hold me to they don't hold me to the same standard as they hold you but you're doing a real service to i think to a younger generation by being a
01:40:39
relatable role model one that is incredibly real honest open and um yeah an all-round nice person thank you
01:40:45
thanks for having the conversation with me today because yeah i've been i've watched your career and your rise with total fascination and uh i would bet on
01:40:52
you for the future so you're a formidable businesswoman in person thank you so much thank you for having me thank you very grateful to be on the
01:40:58
podcast quick one can you do me a favor if you're listening to this and hit the subscribe button the follow button
01:41:04
wherever you're listening to this podcast me and my team use that as an indication of whether the episode is good or not based on how many new
01:41:10
followers and subscribers we get thank you so much
01:41:16
[Music]
01:41:23
you
