Olivia Attwood - ‘It’s either vodka and a gay club until 5am, or hyperbaric oxygen’

Olivia Attwood first appeared on our TV screens in 2017 as a contestant in the third series of Love Island, and instantly became a star due to her dry humour and gobby relatability. You might also know her as a regular panellist on Loose Women or from her hit documentaries for ITV. Last year, she launched her podcast, Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right, which promptly went to Number 1 in the UK charts. On today’s episode, we talk about everything from reality tv to her diagnosis with ADHD; from her love of gay clubs and medi-spas to failed relationships, the lessons friendship has taught her, the fact she hasn’t always loved being the centre of attention (no, honestly) and why she’s never watched herself back on Love Island. An absolute gem of an episode with a true woman’s woman. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Intro 02:09 Early Life and Overcoming Shyness 03:38 Dealing with Dyslexia and ADHD 08:19 Navigating Relationships and Codependency 13:08 The Importance of True Friendships 18:20 Finding Independence and Self-Worth 23:36 Body Image and Self-Care 26:24 Discovering the Power of Weight Training 27:24 Balancing Health and Lifestyle Choices 28:30 Embracing Workaholism 29:47 Navigating Emotional Vulnerability 30:20 The Struggle with Crying 37:17 Family Dynamics and Expressing Love 41:32 Coping with Loss 44:04 Final Thoughts and Gratitude Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Studio and Mix Engineer: Gulliver Lawrence-Tickell Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile Head of Marketing: Kieran Lancini How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

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• 0:45Elizabeth Day?

  to start your free trial. That's Shopify.co.uk/fail. Go to Shopify.co.uk/fail today to hear your first...

• 0:57Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD, because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's Exposure and Response Prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable, so you can live more of the life you want to live.

• 1:42Elizabeth Day?

  If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15-minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail.

• 1:58Elizabeth Day?

  Welcome to How To Fail, the podcast that treats all failure as data acquisition. Before we get to our guest, I wanted to mention our subscriber podcast, Failing With Friends, where my guest and I answer your questions and we offer advice on some of your failures too. Here's some advice from Olivia Atwood.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Talking of great, successful people, you know, from history, how many of their stories start with that just taking that leap, you know, with like leaving that job or just, you know, taking, writing that play and submitting it. It's everyone you can almost pretty much think of.

• 2:35Elizabeth Day?

  Do join in by following the link in the podcast notes where you can send me an email or look out for my monthly callouts on Instagram for quickfire questions. Thank you so much for watching. Of all the many achievements my guest today can lay claim to, perhaps one of the most culturally significant is that she gave us the term "the ick". When Olivia Atwood burst onto our TV screens in 2017 as a contestant in the third series of Love Island, she instantly became a breakout star thanks to her dry humour, gobby relatability, and for introducing us all to the concept of getting the ick, that sudden feeling of revulsion towards a potential romantic partner.

• 3:17Elizabeth Day?

  Since Love Island, Atwood has not just been adding words to the Oxford English Dictionary. In fact, she's become a media force to be reckoned with. A regular panelist on Loose Women, she also fronts hit documentaries for ITV, including an investigation into cosmetic procedures called The Price of Perfection, which has been streamed almost seven million times. Her award-winning documentary, Getting Filthy Rich, which looks into the online adult industry, has just returned for its third series. Last year, she launched her podcast, Olivia Atwood's So Wrong It's Right, which promptly went straight to number one. According to her TV bosses, she is "a great talent and the face of the future".

• 4:03Elizabeth Day?

  And yet, as a child growing up in Surrey, Atwood was, as she recalls, shy and anxious, always pondering, "My parents are staggered by the shift that's happened in me over the last decade." Because as a kid, the idea of being the centre of attention was horrifying. Olivia Atwood, welcome to How to Fail.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. What an introduction.

• 4:27Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so happy you're here, even though you are now the centre of attention. I'm sorry if that's making you feel uncomfortable.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Well, you know, as we learn, I have become quite accustomed to it somehow.

• 4:36Elizabeth Day?

  When do you think that switch flipped? When can you remember feeling more comfortable with attention?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  I think when it was on my terms, when I was kind of commanding attention rather than being thrust into it in a way that felt that I wasn't ready for. For example, being singled out like in the choir or singled out in a classroom. Somewhere I felt like I was, I was out of my depth and then everyone was going to look at me was horrifying. I see there's a trend on TikTok at the moment, talking about, did you used to do this at school? You know, everyone would read a paragraph?

• 5:13Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  And that if you were someone who was dyslexic or wasn't a confident reader, that fear of knowing that these two more people were for you, those kind of situations like just filled me with dread. Whereas now I don't, I don't have that because I feel, I feel comfortable in what I'm doing, basically.

• 5:32Elizabeth Day?

  So you have dyslexia and you were diagnosed with that at school?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, really early on.

• 5:38Elizabeth Day?

  But you also had ADHD and that was a much later diagnosis, wasn't it?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was, it was an interesting one. You know, as we know, with ADD and ADHD, there's so many facets to it. And it doesn't actually just fit this one textbook mould that we all previously believed. And so I... Fit the characteristics is I was impulsive and I was sometimes hyperactive. But I was also meticulously neat and organised. And like you said in the intro, quite anxious at times and thoughtful. So it was conflict. And that's, I think, what, you know, child psychologists and whoever else were kind of having a look at me at different times. Where I couldn't kind of pin it down.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  I think now I am the classic, like, high overachieving female with ADHD. Who overcompensates, you know, in women. We naturally try to find ways to be socially acceptable because society is less kind to us when we are annoying. And breaking things and falling out of trees than they are to men and boys. So boys don't like need to learn to mask as much.

• 6:46Elizabeth Day?

  What did that feel like when you were younger? And did you, did you feel that you were being misunderstood?

• 6:54Speaker 01

  I guess, looking back on it, I did, but I don't think that was something I registered at the time. I remember feeling quite a lot of frustration towards myself. Of just the way that I navigated things and why did I find certain things difficult that other people found easy? And, and there was quite a lot of that going on, I think. But it's hard, isn't it, to look, to look back, to access those memories, I think, from when you were a kid or a teenager. Truthfully, it's quite hard because I think we also rewrite our own memories a lot.

• 7:29Elizabeth Day?

  I also think with me, I sometimes think I have a memory, but actually I've just seen a photo. And I wonder if that's especially surreal for you because you were on TV in your twenties. Being followed around the Love Island villa, falling in and out of relationships and crushes. Is it, do you, have you ever watched yourself back?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  So that's really interesting because I purposefully have never watched like long form. Versions of the show, like for example, a whole episode. Because I actually made the decision really early on after leaving the villa that I didn't want to edit my memories. Because I lived it and I remember how it was in my mind. But of course, you know. There's forty five minutes to go on telly, give or take, of twenty four hours. And they're going to compress it and certain things will make it, certain things won't. And that is the the the nature of television, something that I've obviously come to love and appreciate. The the art form of editing and making good TV, but that isn't my full memory. So we watched bits and bobs. I remember, yeah, quite early on seeing maybe half an episode.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  And I felt kind of instant, like, you know, you could get yourself really wound up, which people do. And I think the best thing to do, if you're going to do a show like that, is just submit yourself to the the process. You are not going to be able to tell the entire two hundred, you know, minute story because there just isn't time.

• 8:49Elizabeth Day?

  I want to talk about your TV career post Love Island in a in a second.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 8:53Elizabeth Day?

  But because we've just touched on your anxieties as a child, to go from that to Love Island is quite a big.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:00Elizabeth Day?

  Leap. What was it that gave you the ability to do that? Was it being a grid girl?

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Oh, like, it's it's so wild to talk about the grid girl stuff. And I worked for energy drink companies and different brands. I did promo modeling and that really got me kind of traveling and seeing the world in such a positive way. Because there's so much negativity around, obviously, that kind of work, especially as when a lot in the media about grid girls and the sexualization of women. And I and all of that, I can, there's an argument for that that I completely get on board with. But for me, it was a really pivotal moment into finding independence. And kind of just getting outside of my comfort zone, really. And it got me away from really shitty, horrible boyfriend, like physically gave me distance.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  When I'm like physically traveling in the world and meeting new people. And I was like, oh, my God, the way I've been living is not normal. Because sometimes your own bubble, well, they just are used to what you're used to. So how can they shine a light on anything particularly, you know, groundbreaking? Because they're just used to what you're used to.

• 10:07Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  But, yeah, getting space, like emotionally and physically, it helped me find my confidence. Yeah.

• 10:13Elizabeth Day?

  Let's go on to your failures.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Go on.

• 10:15Elizabeth Day?

  The first, they're really, really good. Yeah, well, thank you so much because I I really, I could tell that you'd really engaged with the premise and that means a lot to me. So your first failure, and I'm reading it out because I wanted to get it specifically right, the way you expressed it. Failure to realise I can't find my strength in other people.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 10:34Elizabeth Day?

  And therefore not realising sooner I could do things alone, specifically with boyfriends.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 10:39Elizabeth Day?

  That is such an interesting one. I think a lot of women will relate to it. And I think it's probably intimately connected with people pleasing. I don't know how you feel about that. But tell me about this, and and when you first started feeling like you couldn't be on your own or you needed to be with someone else.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  So my mum would say that I was like a clingy child. Like I, you know, I was that that kind of out of the three of my siblings, I was the one who would be like, I don't wanna go to the toilet on my own. Or, you know, can you do, can you come with me here? Can you come with there crying on the first day of school? That that was kind of very embedded in who I was as a person. And my parents, my mum did a really good job, to be fair, of of trying to help. Kind of push me to to to speak with my own voice and stand on my own two feet. I went to boarding school and things like that kind of forced me into situations that, you know, that. Otherwise wouldn't necessarily happened.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  And I think that what I did was I just replaced that kind of crutching on a parent or, you know, guardian who was nearby to then. Friendships and then boyfriends. And I I always had, you know, even from a young age, a best friend. And it would be like a really, you know, intense, kind of overly suffocating. Where we're best friends and no one is as close as us and, you know, and that then moved on to the way I felt with boyfriends. I used to kind of become really focused on this one person. Everything else on the outside was like white noise. And I would tell myself the narrative that I had a separation anxiety, which to an extent I really did.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  With those early relationships, you know, I was very emotionally dependent on whoever was, I would call it like an emotional crutch in my life. At that time in my life, that's how I treated relationships.

• 12:30Elizabeth Day?

  How much do you think ADHD might have played into that?

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Quite a bit. And I think I I think when I when I was. I'm working out who I was and what my value to life was and and and you know for a large part of my teens, my twenties, I really thought I don't add any value to anything. That was, I know this, it sounds really dramatic, but that's genuinely how I felt and I I I I then put everything into a friendship or a boyfriend because that gave me like a sense of purpose. Do you know what I mean?

• 13:00Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  And I wanted it to be suffocating and and and and then therefore I attracted really, I was like a prime kind of right for the picking for people that don't have terribly nice personalities. You know, if you're like a narcissist or you're, you've got a bit of borderline personality toward disorder and you've got this girl who's like, I want to move in next week and we should get matching tattoos. You're like, fucking yes, let's go. Like, she's going to be the easiest one ever to manipulate, even if they didn't know they were doing it. I made it too easy, you know?

• 13:29Elizabeth Day?

  I relate to that so completely.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Do you?

• 13:32Elizabeth Day?

  My twenties, I was in a series of long-term monogamous relationships from the age of nineteen to thirty-six and I got married then to my last one and then divorced, so it didn't work out, spoiler alert. And I think I outsourced my sense of self to other people.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:49Elizabeth Day?

  And I just didn't know who I was. I was too scared to find out and all I wanted to do was please the other person or meet the other person's needs or what I thought their needs were. And I remember vividly an ex-boyfriend who was lovely.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 14:04Elizabeth Day?

  Asking, he was one of the good ones, asking me, where do you want to go for lunch? And I was like, I don't know, I don't know, you go, or where do you want to go for lunch? And I genuinely could not work out where I wanted to go for lunch.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  You'd actually disconnected that much from your own needs.

• 14:19Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  My, one of my best childhood friends who who has stood the test of time, and I also think your interest in friendships is fascinating. I love it because people don't talk about friendships enough.

• 14:28Elizabeth Day?

  Right.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Like, we just gloss over it. But anyway.

• 14:30Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  My, one of my best friends who's been since a child, so she really knows me and she was like, she's calling the chameleon. Because I was like that, if I dated a guy that was a rock rocker, I'm wearing skinny jeans, the hair's going dark, everything, then I'm dating a guy that's like, you know, I don't know, really sporty, I'm sporty. And I just would constantly like shape shift to whoever had come in and kind of. Wooed me, I would, yeah, I would go in to fit them, never to fit me. I'd always go to fit them.

• 14:58Elizabeth Day?

  And let's talk about friendships. So how did that impact your friendships?

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, I'm, I speak there of my best friend Charlotte, who I've been best friends since primary school. And she, I mean, I don't know what she did in her past life deserved me, because she's sort of through the test of time with me. And we, and she's, you know, she's had to, she's always given me her honest opinion. Um, but she's never abandoned me in the choice of my bad decisions. So she is a true friend. And you know what it is to have a true friend is like someone that genuinely is like wants you to win. Like, there's no like conditions or thing. They genuinely want to see you do great. And, and, and have the kind of love that you deserve. And I think with female friendships especially, jealousy is such an issue, you know, which it kind of weaves its way in.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  And I think that women are like, society makes us be so competitive with each other.

• 15:52Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  So when you find a true female friend who is not in competition with you, also having quite different tastes, I think actually works. So like yin and yang, like sometimes I think if you, you put us together, people will be like, how have you two been best friends for like, you know, over fifteen years? Because you're quite different. But I think that also does work. I think I've had friends where I've met, you know, i- in different points in my life, where we're like, I think we're like kindred souls. I'm like, oh my God, you're just like me. And you, we did. And that kind of implodes on itself, I think, after a while, if you're too similar to someone.

• 16:22Elizabeth Day?

  I'm just laughing because I'm relating so hard. And it's taken me longer than it's taken you to understand and unpack all of that. Because I think that what we're talking about is codependency in relationships. And actually, the best, most functional relationships are interdependent. And I'd love to talk to you a bit about your husband Brad, because when I met my now husband, I remember him saying this thing to me once where we had the chat where I was like, where's this going?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:49Elizabeth Day?

  And he said, well, I'm enjoying the time I spend with you.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:53Elizabeth Day?

  And uh, I'd like to, I like the fact that we're walking along parallel lines. And we're, we're separate but together. And he's like, and if that continues for a few weeks, a few months or a lifetime, then that would be a great experience. And I was like, God, that's so unromantic. How on, this is like date three, Olivia.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  I'm looking for matching tattoos.

• 17:14Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, I was like, why are we not running away to Rio?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:17Elizabeth Day?

  Because I was so used to being love bombed by narcissists.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:20Elizabeth Day?

  And just having my own agency stripped away from me. Whereas Justin gave me the chance.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 17:26Elizabeth Day?

  To state what I wanted, not only the chance, but like made me actually really, really evaluate that. And now I feel so supported and safe in that relationship and we are independent and interdependent. And it's the best way of being. What's Brad like? What made him different?

• 17:42Speaker 01

  It's to be honest, it mirrors that quite a lot. Um, Brad, you know, people know the story of our getting together and untogether and everything like that. If I hadn't gone on Love Island, I don't think we would be together. I think that we had to kind of pull away for us both to get some perspective. Now with Brad, he is the first male relationship, like dating relationship I've had. Where like you just said with your relationship, he has his own thing. Like he has his own job, he has his own goals and I have mine and he wants me to have them. Like Brad is, when I, like, you know, the best decision I think anyone can ever make is like their life partner.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Cause when it, when it's wrong, it can be so terrible. But I think more so like for women, because society is not, it's still harder for us to win, right?

• 18:39Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  So if the, if your literal co-partner in life doesn't want you to win, what fucking chance do you have? Like if you're, you know, sitting there at home and you're going, oh, I didn't get that job. And, and your husband's going, well, you know, that's all right, you know, just do something else. Or they're going, no, go back and kick that door down because you deserve that job. It makes a big difference. And I think not many men truly want to see their female partner.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Like fly, like, and I know that's, that's really controversial because I think to have success and also when you have success, like in our industry, it's like, I call it like loud success. Like my sister's like super successful. I'd argue more successful than me. She's, you know, what she does in a very corporate world, but it's not like our, our stuff's loud. It's like, you know, he can't turn on the telly or open a phone that's seeing my face and then he has to live with me. That could become very jarring very quickly. I never had that before.

• 19:40Elizabeth Day?

  So precious. And I think you're bang on.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:43Elizabeth Day?

  I've definitely had exes who might claim to be supportive, but they're actually supportive in a very superficial way. It's like they're supportive of you showing up and looking nice when they need you to.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 19:56Elizabeth Day?

  But when you actually, I've had this direct experience, when I wanted to make a career change, there was no support there whatsoever. It was just like, no, you can't do that.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:04Elizabeth Day?

  You need to stay small, essentially. And I think what you're identifying is generosity of spirit in both friendships and romantic partners, and it's so important. How did you get out of this pattern of outsourcing your sense of self to others, feeling like you needed someone else? Was it something that a bad relationship taught you? How did you work it out?

• 20:27Speaker 01

  I don't think it was an intentional thing. I think I, around the time of accepting to go on Love Island, because I turned Love Island down twice, right, for boyfriends.

• 20:36Elizabeth Day?

  So chic. Oh, less chic.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  They were, they were chasing me. I just honestly, I flex such a knob every time I say that. But yeah, but I, and I turned it down momentarily for Brad. And then I realised that Brad and I weren't in quite the locked off monogamous situation I thought we were. And then I had a bit of a come to Jesus moment where I was like, what are you doing? You have to go and do something. Because I was in this era of doing things that scared me. So I was like, this is scary and I don't like it and I don't know what it's going to be. And the easier thing would be to stay here again and just argue with this guy I'm seeing about why he's not treating me right. Or I can just like fully take control and go and do this thing. And then whatever happens after it happens. And I know Love Island's obviously quite a. An unusual example to to make, but I can think there's situations in everyone's lives

• 21:23Speaker 01

  where they could have that kind of uncomfortable decision axle, where that one decision's going to change their whole life. Um, and in terms of the relationships and what I then decided I wanted from relationships, I feel like as humans, we're hardwired to feel important on some level and to feel like we are good at something and people have value to us. And I think I've gone to that point because I didn't feel like I had any importance. And I don't mean importance in the egotistical sense of, I'm important because I went on Love Island. I meant like, I didn't feel important to myself, like, you know, in that sense. So I was like, once I came out of Love Island and I started kind of organically like bleeding

• 22:07Speaker 01

  into this other TV work and I felt like I was good at it, it changed the way I felt about myself for the first time in the whole like 25 years I've been alive. And then I think in turn, it then changes what you expect from other people.

• 22:21Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  So I feel like if you can be a stay at home mum and you get genuine, you know, importance and you you kind of validation from that, that's fucking amazing. And that means that that's what you're meant to do. But for other people, I think that's why it can be a bit of a road of like misery because I think they feel they lack that feeling of, what is my thing?

• 22:43Elizabeth Day?

  What's my meaning?

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:44Elizabeth Day?

  My purpose?

• 22:45Speaker 01

  And I feel like as I started to find that, everything else just fell into place.

• 22:49Elizabeth Day?

  Your authenticity shines through because actually if you're unsure about something, you will take the audience along with you. And I think that's the other thing is not pretending that you have all of the answers all the time.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  And I also think we're in such, it's like, we're in such a set up to fail kind of world because, and I also make the think of always, you know, reminding everyone that I'm not perfect and I have rough edges and I will sometimes drink vodka and pass out face down in a gay club. Like you're, I'm not ever going to say to everyone, like, I am this perfect pristine who makes the right decisions all the time because then when you do put a foot out of line, they're coming for you with pitchforks.

• 23:36Elizabeth Day?

  Let's get on to your second failure because I'm aware that I could natter to you all day.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  I'm going to say.

• 23:41Elizabeth Day?

  And you've probably got places to go to, documentaries to present. Your second failure, we've touched on it, is your failure to care for yourself.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  When I had low, I don't like to use it, low self-esteem, but my feelings towards myself weren't positive. And I think that was it. I was kind of like bobbing around in bad relationships. I didn't have the ADHD diagnosis. I didn't know why I found things harder than other people. And then I think as a result of that, when you're not, when you really don't love yourself, everything you do reflects that. So like the way you eat, the way you prioritize sleep, if you exercise, all of that. Do you know what I mean? I just felt like prioritizing any form of wellness, which I know Gen Z are way better at than us, was, yeah, not, not something I was actually like worthy of, which that sounds so deep, doesn't it?

• 24:30Elizabeth Day?

  It does sound deep and I'm wondering where it comes from. Did it, I mean, did it come from your upbringing in the sense that those things, there's definitely in this country, there's a mentality of stiff upper lip and you get on with it. And there's a lot to be said for that sometimes.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  My mum always verbally would, you know, kind of talk to me, especially like, you know, about taking care of myself and eating right and all those things. But I think like you say, just the way in being a nineties kid, obviously you've got the stiff upper lip of like the Englishness and then my dad's German. So you, you, you put those two together and it's a real get on with it mentality. I mean, yeah, it's like lying in to my dad was like, my God, it's nine. My dad has a North American accent, just for clarity. He's like, my God, it's 9am, this girl is like still asleep. So maybe there's a little bit of a, that kind of vibe, but I, I don't know. I think, I think it was more me. I think it was more my relationship with myself, really.

• 25:27Elizabeth Day?

  Seeing as we're talking about the nineties and we can remember. That very strange culture where much of it was really kind of liberating and great. And it was ladettes and great music and all that. And then the other side of that was this like toxic media circle of shame, looking at women's bodies, analysing, criticising them. How do you think that affected you? How did you feel about your appearance at this stage in your life?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  I think that probably influenced more than I realise, that kind of failure to self-care. Because like you say, I feel like the sort of supermodel staying out all night partying, Nicole Richie kind of era was really glamorised, the kind of not taking care of yourself in that sense. If you flip it to now of what's like trendy, it's like everyone's obsessed with taking care of themselves. And yeah, I think I was influenced by that in the sense that I wanted to, yeah, I wanted to like be cool. And I wanted to be, you know, being thin and smoking and drinking was all just things that were social currency that we knew held value, you know, which also had massive detrimental effects on our wellbeing.

• 26:36Elizabeth Day?

  How do you feel about your looks now?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Good, like, I hesitated then because it's, again, it's such a female British thing. I'm not going to say I think I look good because everyone's going to think I love myself, God forbid. Um, no, I'm happy with the way I look. I've always been pretty consistently happy with the way I look and my body, despite my feelings about myself. It was one thing that always stayed quite consistent. I, I never had any major hang-ups. I think I was maybe too into my looks at different points because I, I really felt that was like the only thing that I had going. So any way that I could kind of, in my eyes, improve on that was really important. But I was natural, I was lucky in the sense that I was, well, I say lucky, it was just a toxic mess.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  But I was tall and I was naturally really skinny. So in that era when everyone was just starving themselves, like I remember being at boarding school and I would be the one like eating the pile of toast in bed. And like, you know, my dorm mates would be like, you fucking bitch, you know, because they'd all be, yeah, restricting what they ate, which was, was something that was so normal around everyone my age and for those years. And it was something that I didn't have to worry about too much. But also, on the other hand of that, it's like, you know, when I did get too thin at times, it's like, you know, from again, just not looking after myself, it was something that was praised on rather than people going, oh. I don't know if it's healthy to be that thin, you know, it was something that is just interesting the way we approach things now, whereas now I strive to be strong.

• 28:06Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Like I'm in the gym lifting weights, like.

• 28:08Elizabeth Day?

  I love that you love weights.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Can you imagine me doing that fifteen years ago?

• 28:12Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  I'd have been like, oh my god, get out, am I gonna lift a weight?

• 28:15Elizabeth Day?

  Well, the gym was really uncool.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  It was not cool, and if you were going, you were just going to run on a treadmill like a rat.

• 28:20Elizabeth Day?

  That's something that I discovered in my thirties. And latterly, I've got very into weights and that I know that you love your weights.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 28:28Elizabeth Day?

  And you're right, that it's a kind of mental headspace as well that's really important because I did years of fertility treatment and I felt like I lost control of my own body in a way. And being able to re-inhabit my body feels so powerful.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:42Elizabeth Day?

  And and weights and resistance training has given me that.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it it's and everything, the fact that we've undermined the fact that women need skeletal muscle for so long is actually crazy as well. Because it's like, our survivability against anything is better when we're stronger, you know, it's and I I really take like stock of that now, you know, and I kind of. I wouldn't have cared if I missed a meal, you know, ten years ago, I'm like, whatever. Now I'm like, I I'd feel really guilty if I, you know, didn't eat enough protein in a day, it's I prioritise it, but like you say, it's a mind shift.

• 29:16Elizabeth Day?

  What else do you do for your care now?

• 29:18Speaker 01

  I do everything, honestly, like, I I it's so weird because I was actually on the phone with my agent this morning and she was like, there isn't. I've always been quite an extreme person, but there's there's there's either, like I say, like vodka and gay clubs till five AM or there's like hyperic oxygen. Like there's literally, and I do the first one much less now, but I mean, I do I do a lot of supplements. I I work out like resistance training four to five times a week. Um, I try and sleep more, um, I'm on the NAD injections, don't know, yeah, report back, but so far feels, yeah. Like, I don't know, it's placebo. Um, I did hyperic oxygen actually over Christmas, my husband was doing it for his knee to help to help with some recovery.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  So I was like jumping in there with him again, there's no exact way to measure these things, but I felt like I had more energy and I felt revitalised. Um, and then everyone knows like I'm, you know, I love a medispar, I love an injectable, a facial, anything that's kind of new. You know, on the market, I'll give it a go to an extent.

• 30:22Elizabeth Day?

  Are you a workaholic, do you think?

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:25Elizabeth Day?

  What do you think of that term? Because I think I am too, but I sort of want to reclaim it because I love work. So work is also my hobby.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Well, I think you've just nailed it. I think it's a privileged thing.

• 30:36Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Of course, we're workaholics. Look what we do for a job. It's fucking awesome. Like, but then I think trying to like shame people for not being in love with their job is also just really gross. Like, it's really easy to go, yeah, I'm obsessed with what I do, of course, because to me, there isn't a real, like, there isn't a real cutoff point between a working day and a non-working day, because I'm actually always thinking of things. Like, I'm always writing in my notes. Like, sometimes, you know, even when it's like I'm off over Christmas, that's when I've got some best ideas of things that I want to research or think people I want to interview on the pod, like, and you must be the same, you must always be.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  So that, to me, is, yeah, it's kind of obsessive, but I'm completely happy to be obsessed with this, because I'm doing something that is, that I love. It doesn't feel like a job, but I don't think we should be thrusting that on people, you know? Because some people, it's just a way to survive. And you put food on the table and that's fucking it, and that's also fine.

• 31:37Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  You know?

• 31:38Elizabeth Day?

  Are you competitive?

• 31:40Speaker 01

  With myself?

• 31:41Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I would say, yeah, I give myself a hard time. I don't, I don't really look left or right. It's like I kind of internalize, because sometimes if I'm, if I set these kind of little goals, or there's always a fear, isn't it, that, you know, that things will kind of wean off? So you kind of, it's like the little legs, like a duck below the boat. You want to keep pushing forward.

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• 33:10Elizabeth Day?

  Let's go on to your final failure, which is a direct challenge issue to me, which is your failure to cry.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  I love that this is like me and you, because you love to cry, don't you?

• 33:19Elizabeth Day?

  I do. I love a good cry. I cry very easily. I'd never met anyone who cries more than me until I met my husband.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Oh my God, stop. Are you serious?

• 33:27Elizabeth Day?

  Totally serious. Like sometimes we go to the cinema and he'll be-

• 33:31Speaker 01

  No, don't.

• 33:31Elizabeth Day?

  He cried, it was in floods at Wicked. And I was like, am I now a hard-hearted bitch?

• 33:37Speaker 01

  So my other failure should be failures is enjoy musicals.

• 33:40Elizabeth Day?

  Oh my God, he loves the musical. I'm making him sound like he's a gay man, which-

• 33:44Speaker 01

  I was gonna say.

• 33:44Elizabeth Day?

  It's actually ideal for me. I love that.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  To be fair, a second to my husband, I would marry one of my gay friends. That would be my choice. So they probably wouldn't marry me, but yeah, there you go.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's something I've, I don't think I really realised how I felt about it as much as I do in the last couple of years. But yeah, I don't, I have a really hard time with crying and I also have a really hard time with people crying. So please don't cry.

• 34:12Elizabeth Day?

  I don't worry, I'm gonna hold myself together. But did you not cry when you were a child? I mean, obviously as a baby to some people.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Maybe this is a, maybe this is a, like a New Jerk reaction to having spent so many years being so tearful and kind of anxious and all the rest of it. And I cried a lot in those, in those past relationships. Like, oh my God, like, I mean, cried myself until I could pass out cry. Like as if someone had died, like over these breakups and these arguments. And I think maybe- In this this kind of era of my life that I'm in now, it it it does, maybe it touches on something that I I feel that I I don't wanna go back to her.

• 34:54Elizabeth Day?

  Mm.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  So I've kind of shut it. Like, I'm like, I don't like the way, even even though I cried a lot, to be fair, having said that, in in those teenage twenty years, I still wasn't good at crying in front of people.

• 35:04Elizabeth Day?

  Because it makes you feel too vulnerable.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Vulnerable, like, just very exposed. I can't, it's it's a feeling that it's really hard to fully put into words. If I cry at home and my husband's there, I I always run and I go into the duvet like a child. And he'll try and like pick me out from the duvet and I will just, I don't almost, I'm I'm happy for him to hug me and comfort me, but I couldn't just sit in front of him and kind of sob. But he he's not a crier, but he's more, I think he's more in touch of his emotions than.

• 35:38Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Me.

• 35:39Elizabeth Day?

  So when you are really upset or sad about something, is there a physical manifestation of it? Or do you just internalize it?

• 35:49Speaker 01

  I I I'm moody probably. Like, yeah, I get like moody, kind of shut down.

• 35:55Elizabeth Day?

  I, to be honest, I know that you're saying all of this, like, it's that you think I will think that that's weird. I wish I was a bit more like that. Because I've definitely found myself in situations where I really want to make a point, sometimes in work situations.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  And then you break down.

• 36:12Elizabeth Day?

  And yeah, and I feel really, like, I can feel my chin wobble and my voice starts wobble and I really don't like it. And I I don't know how to stop it. I've got a bit better at being aware of it now. And I think what happens for me is that I immediately go back into a child self.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 36:32Elizabeth Day?

  And I feel like I've lost my adult potency. And it sounds maybe like something similar is happening for you, but you're just dealing with it in a different way. Like, you're going, you don't want to go back to that younger self.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 36:44Elizabeth Day?

  And so you've got the strength of mind just to be able to shut it off.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think that it's hard, isn't it, to be a functioning human? Because I think there's a sweet spot, isn't there?

• 36:54Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Because I almost fear that I've gone, I kind of, I would like to find a point. Do you know what it is, is I think about if and when I have children? Which is something, as I sit here right now, I think that I want. And I kind of, I would like to be able to show them a range of emotion that's more, that has more of a broad spectrum, you know, than, than kind of the one that I have right now, which I think is quite, quite stifled.

• 37:25Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  You know, my parents were not cryers. I can, I've never seen my dad cry and I could count on one hand the amount of times I've seen my mum cry. And I think, and it's not because, and they never spoke shame when people were crying, but I just think that, like I said, that German-English split in a family, it, we just, it's a very, get on with it, you know, kind of thing. And I think maybe, because I was a bit of a crybaby, you know, at school, and I probably had that kind of buzz, met with that kind of irritation from teachers of, come on, Olivia, you know, let's get on with it. And then I had boyfriends who didn't have a very nurturing, I probably felt I faced quite a lot of rejection when I did show emotion. So then as an adult, I think I'm self-protecting.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  And then what I've done is I think I then deflect people who are highly emotional all the time. I end up going, oh, for God's sake. I'm like, I'm like that, you know, that kind of moody millennial person. It's like, well, just because I'm emotionally constipated, you should be too. You know, I like, I, when people are really, I'm not saying that I'd do this if you cried, I'd comfort you, but I'd probably find it quite uncomfortable.

• 38:29Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  I'd probably be like with that one finger, like.

• 38:32Elizabeth Day?

  But would you think I was pathetic?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Depends completely what it was.

• 38:35Elizabeth Day?

  Okay. I'm not going to cry.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:38Elizabeth Day?

  In this episode, so just to reassure you.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  I think one of my, I think I have a very astute, and I think I've always had this, read on people. And I think, I automatically know that you're a genuine person. Like, I've watched your work for years, I've listened to you, I know that you are, you're not performative, or, you know, so I, if you cried, but then I think I have a very good read on people that are performing.

• 39:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  And, and they cry as a, as a deflection tactic, as, as a theatrical, and that I have like so little tolerance for. And I think that's why sometimes I came off quite cold in Love Island.

• 39:12Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, I loved you on Love Island.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Cause I was like, oh, shut up.

• 39:15Elizabeth Day?

  Again, just like the kind of person I wanted to be, but wasn't. It's like, no, no, honestly. Well, so I can't believe that about the ick, that you basically introduced that.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  I always get, I mean, I think I, I take full credit for bringing it into like UK pop culture, resurfacing it. I have been told by people that it did, it featured in a very early episode of Sex and the City. So the possibility that it was imprinted on my like early childhood memory while my mum was watching it in the background and I probably absorbed it. But yeah, me and my friends used to say it. And I remember when I said it in the beach chat and the producer said, hold on, what, the what? And I said, just got the ick. Cause we used to say that as a friendship group. And she was like, what, what is that? And I was like, what, you don't know what the ick is? And then, yeah, I should have bloody trademarked that, shouldn't I?

• 40:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  That was the dumbest thing I've done ever.

• 40:03Elizabeth Day?

  Legendary status. Um, can I ask you a really personal question? Which is about, so this whole crying vulnerability thing, did you grow up in a family that named emotions? Did you tell each other that you loved each other?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 40:19Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, I, I have a very similar experience.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  So if, cause I've just, my mum, if she was here, she'd be like, oh, you little liar. Cause when we were kids, we, as children, definitely. And it was, so as, I don't know when it stopped. But as children, it was very, you knew you did the, the at the door sort of, you know, my, I want a water and shut right, you know, get your water, good night, love you. Like, we did that. And then I, I, I don't know at what point we kind of stopped doing that. And I, it's, I, it's so funny because I, I have, me and Brad are driving back from Manchester the other day and we got into this conversation. And I guess I only noticed that my family don't do it once I became part of Brad's family. And his family say love you all the time. So any little phone call that's like, oh, we're five minutes away. Okay, love you.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  His mum is always like, his mum says to me a message, like, she'll, his mum will send me a message and be like, I just saw you on Loose Swim and I'm so proud of you. I love you. And the first couple of times, it really, I was like, what, like, It was confronting. I, I don't know what to do. Like, what do you mean? Like, you love me? Like, I didn't know what to do with it. And I think that's what shone a light on the fact that my family don't do it as adults. And then I said to my, I said to Brad, I,

• 41:39Speaker 01

  I want to say to my parents that I love them, right? But I have this kind of fear, fear that if I was to call them and say, I love you, they would probably think something was wrong with me, I was dying. And I'd almost ruin their evening because they'd probably be so, do you know what I mean? Yes. But then I have this thing and, and as life goes on and, and you lose people and things happen and you think, oh, you know, it'd be a real regret that if something happened and I hadn't, you know, told them how I feel, even though they probably know, because I think it's an unspoken thing. I know my parents love me. I don't have any doubt about that. We, we just don't verbalise it in that way as adults. Hmm.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  And, and it, and it's, it's an uncomfortable thing for me. And I think I, when people tell me they love me. My reaction to it is, I think it it's like, I'm like, oh, I'm like, kind of disarmed by it.

• 42:32Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Do you say it with your family?

• 42:35Elizabeth Day?

  No.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Do you know, you say, yeah, it's more common than you think, isn't it?

• 42:39Elizabeth Day?

  I think it is, actually, and I think also there's so much cultural fetishisation of

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:46Elizabeth Day?

  the perfect quote unquote family and how they all are with each other and in the same way that there has been about romantic relationships. And because we're all, well, you and I anyway, although I know that you're younger than me, but we're like bred on this diet of American rom com. It's like, but actually, that wasn't the experience of a of a post-war generation in Britain. It's like a totally different thing. But I go to the opposite extreme and I tell everyone I love them all the time.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Do you?

• 43:14Elizabeth Day?

  Just not my family, even though, even though, again, like you, I know that we do, we just don't necessarily express it all of the time.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's making me laugh because, you know, if I was on the phone with my sister, we were having a good old chat, and then I went, okay, I love you. She'd probably go, all right, freak, like, where's that come from? Because it's just, we, we don't do that.

• 43:34Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  It's funny, isn't it?

• 43:36Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, it is.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  But like you say, this, like, younger generations are like psycho dissecting everything. And I also think there's a sweet spot with that because I think there's a really good thing to look at things that have happened in your childhood. And, yeah, people make mistakes, your parents have made mistakes, you've made mistakes and, you know, hurt each other and vice versa. But also, in most cases, unless your parent is like pure evil, your parents have done the best they could of what they had. And it's their first time living as being human beings as well. So I feel like we could cut each other a bit more slack.

• 44:13Elizabeth Day?

  Now, if anyone else has said this failure, which is such a great one, by the way, I would ask them the last time they cried.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:21Elizabeth Day?

  But I'm very aware, I don't want to upset you, even though you wouldn't be upset because of everything we've spoken about, but that you came in and said that your nan had just died. And so I don't really want to bring that up, but that I'm assuming is the last time you cried.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was, yeah, so I've, she, it was not, isn't it weird when someone's elderly and they've not been well? And we love using this expression, like, oh, well, you know, it wasn't out of the blue. It was, it was kind of, we knew it was like approaching, but then when it happens, it still is a shock. And it was, I think I dealt with my emotions around, you know, losing my grandmother quite a lot over the last few months. I think what it was, was thinking of my dad in pain, which I, I didn't like, I didn't, it made me feel sad. So my mum told me on the phone, I hung up, and then I just like, I was sitting on the end of my bed, actually, and then I just kind of

• 45:14Speaker 01

  laid back and I was like, oh, and she, so, but I was thinking about my dad being upset because like I say, I've never seen my dad cry. And I didn't like the idea of knowing that he was in pain and that made me sad. And then I cried and I laid back on the bed and I, I just cried, but I don't know, it must have been, I don't know, I'm laughing. So this is how I deal with it, think, I don't know, a few minutes, I, and I was really, I felt really sad thinking about it. He was, I knew he was out there in Germany and he'd be with his brothers and I would just kind of what that would look like. And then I just kind of, literally, I kind of rose from the bed like some avatar and was like, right. I have stuff to do, I have stuff to do, I'm not, I, cause I, I also think, cause I went through the years in my twenties, like I say, when I had these

• 45:59Speaker 01

  arguments of boyfriends and I'd cry to the point where I could like literally, I wouldn't be sick, you know, that kind of sobbing where you're like, I do, if I do cry now, I kind of pull the cord on myself, like I don't, I, I don't let it, cause you can just go off a cliff edge, can't you?

• 46:14Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  And I did have lows to do yesterday, that stuff that I couldn't just, you know, to ha- I had to get on with stuff. I had, I was on like a time limit, so.

• 46:24Elizabeth Day?

  You're a boundary to crier.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  So I was just like, and I felt, I was, I thought, do you know what, I thought, I've, I've actually, I do feel like I've let it out. Feel a little bit lighter and I felt sad for the rest of the day. And I had the sadness and my husband was like very sweet to me cause he knew I was sad and I was quieter. But that was like, yeah, I felt like I'd kind of, yeah, I was, I dealt with it.

• 46:49Elizabeth Day?

  I'm so sorry for you and your family's loss.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 46:53Elizabeth Day?

  And. I've really, really adored chatting to you.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Oh, likewise.

• 46:57Elizabeth Day?

  It has been such a privilege.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  I've loved it. I could have talked to you forever.

• 47:01Elizabeth Day?

  Dismal.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  And I once, I know you said it off, off camera, we met in the corridor, I want to say thank you again for your support over the years. Because it hasn't gone unnoticed.

• 47:09Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, I love you.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And it's meant a huge amount to me, honestly, I do mean that. Go on, cry.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  I'm a big fan of you.

• 47:17Elizabeth Day?

  That means so much to me. Thank you and always and forever.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  And I think it's because you're smart, you get it.

• 47:23Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  And the people that don't get it is because they don't, you don't get it looking at human behaviours. It's fascinating.

• 47:29Elizabeth Day?

  It's fascinating.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  What's not fascinating about watching humans interact?

• 47:32Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you. It's anthropology. It's like connection, all of that. Yeah, people are just so dismissive because, and very often I find the harshest critics have never watched a single minute of reality TV.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:43Elizabeth Day?

  This is a whole other conversation.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yes, it is, yeah.

• 47:45Elizabeth Day?

  We'll put a pin in it for now. You're going to stay to do Failing with Friends.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  I will, yeah.

• 47:49Elizabeth Day?

  And I just want to say thank you so much again for being Olivia Atwood. Thank you for coming on How to Fail. Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.