Even for those uninitiated in reality television, Vicky Pattison probably doesn’t need an introduction. First finding fame on Geordie Shore when she was 22, and following three years on the show, her own reality series, and appearances on Ex On The Beach, it wasn't long before she became a reality queen and tabloid staple. But, just like Stacey Solomon before her, it was when she was crowned Queen of the Jungle back on I’m A Celebrity in 2015 that her life really began to change.
Now, 4.5million followers later, it's easy to forget how she first made her mark. On Instagram, Vicky is known for providing honesty and laughs (alongside occasional glamorous photos) on a platform which is now dominated by over-edited FaceTuned photos and influencers.
It wasn’t always this way, though.
When she started on reality TV, Vicky tells Grazia that she had no desire to be on social media. In fact, MTV had to set up a Twitter account for her to tweet from. ‘Social media itself has completely changed, like the juggernaut we know today that simply didn't exist when I first started in TV,’ she says. ‘A couple of years later, Instagram obviously took off. And I was super reluctant to join. I'd never had any form of social media that wasn't MTV ordered. And I think I probably sussed early doors the potential I had to become obsessed with it.’
Vicky tells us - and everyone, it's in her bio, she makes no secret of it - that she prides herself on having a profile where women can feel uplifted and supported. One of her most popular recent posts is a lockdown before and after selfie - apart from, the point is, she looks the same in both pictures, as she reassures her fans that it's okay if you didn't have some kind of glow-up during a worldwide pandemic.
‘I’ll hold my hands up, a couple years ago, you would have looked at my Instagram and seen a totally different person,’ she admits. ‘Like, I think there's been a lot of change in me over the last couple of years, in my opinion for the better, as I had a particularly tough couple years.' (The presenter broke up with her fiancé John Noble and lost her grandma - but thankfully, Vicky is now in a better place, and credits a lot of that to her boyfriend TOWIE star Ercan Ramadan.) 'For ages, I’d cultivated this image of strength, where I believed women had to be super strong, super resilient and we have to show our fierceness on social media by sexy images, pictures of you working out and quotes about how you can do it.'
‘Fucking hell,' she continues. 'Women can do anything we want, and we are super powerful, and we should own it - but actually being that person all the time was so draining... To continue with quite a broken heart, really, and [trying] not to let that facade slip on social media. But then I showed people true real me, which was like I'm struggling - and it was so liberating to be able to just put exactly what I was feeling on social media.'
Just like most women with an Instagram account, Vicky feels social media can exacerbate body image worries. ‘I would love to say [it doesn’t impact me], but I'd be lying,' she says. 'We all sit on social media, and scroll through these unrealistic, edited filled images of perfection supplied to us by people who want us to believe their lives are perfect. I did it myself when I was cripplingly insecure, recovering from another broken relationship, and [I was] just desperate to be found attractive. Like, I get it. But it doesn't do anybody any good, least of all the person posting it because of the unrealistic pressure on them.’
'I think it is dangerous,’ she adds, when Grazia asks her about the impact of editing apps such as FaceTune. 'But I think the beauty of me posting a really glam, filtered pic or a campaign shoot is that you won't assume that gosh she just looks perfect - because another two posts down, there's me lying on the sofa with my hand in a bag of Doritos, hungover as fuck. There's a reality there. But I do think constantly editing your images, relying heavily on filters and things like that, and not providing an accurate representation of yourself, means social media can be super damaging not just to your self esteem, but for other people's.'
Keeping it real, now Vicky is first to admit that she used to filter her photos too much. 'I got proper into filters a couple years ago,' she confesses. 'I remember getting papped and being like, that's not me.'
'Don't get us wrong. pap pics are meant to be super unflattering,' she adds. 'And that's the name of the game, I get it. But I had filtered pics and posed so much that the two pictures weren't even recognizable. So now I've got ahead of the curve and post an array of different poses in an array of different pictures and myself at different times, and I think to the paps: go on, pap us now.'
With such a big platform, unfortunately nasty comments come with the territory, but luckily, Vicky has now learnt to be largely unaffected by trolls - she says she just blocks them - but knowing what it can be like to start out in the industry, she does slide into the DMs of newer reality stars, offering her support. ‘We all have our own struggles and our own battles to fight,’ she says. ‘And I think showing your fellow person a bit of kindness really goes a long way - I'm always reaching out.' She stops to laugh. 'I'm a bit creepy man, like under everybody from Love Island and TOWIE's post you'll see Vicky Pattison with a flame emoji.’
Her advice to those starting out in TV is quite personal, though. ‘I would say that my advice to anybody in the industry is to never sacrifice respect for attention. A long time ago on Geordie Shore, I got very carried away in a world that was so alien. And I just tried desperately to be what everyone thought everyone wanted us to be. And I wasn't true to myself, I became almost a caricature of myself.'
‘So I sacrificed respect for attention, for airtime, to get sort of column inches or whatever it was,' she adds. 'And I've spent the last five years or so really trying to claw back those decisions. To prove that I am a strong woman, that I am a compassionate person, like I am, and that I am nice. I'm not just necessarily that drunk and broken girl you saw on Geordie Shore 10 years ago.’
Vicky Pattison: The Secret To is available to listen on Acast and all major podcast platforms. New episodes are released every Thursday.
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