Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu: ‘Don't Let Other People's Opinions Define You’ | GREAT MOMENTS

When you're going through a tough time, it can feel like there's no way out. But it's often in those moments that we find the strength we didn't know we had. Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu knows that feeling all too well. Since winning Love Island in 2022, she's gone on to become the Queen of Reality TV, from Love Island All Stars to Celebrity Big Brother and now Vanderpump Villa. But behind her confidence is a young girl who lacked self-belief, was severely bullied at school, and developed disordered eating in an attempt to change herself to fit in. In this Great Moment, Ekin-Su opens up about meeting her bully later in life, and the powerful process of unlearning the idea that other people's opinions get to define you. She shares why the things that once held her down ultimately made her the woman she is today. Listen to the full episode HERE https://open.spotify.com/episode/6uc3I8vomxliI2cxTC6YPP?si=4a64267c8f96478c! This episode contains sensitive topic discussions including disordered eating and bullying. If you or someone you know is affected by anything in this episode and need support, please see the suggested helpline and website links below. BEAT - 0808 801 0677 - beateatingdisorders.org.uk http://beateatingdisorders.org.uk/ Samaritans - 116 123 - samaritans.org http://samaritans.org/ If you enjoyed the show, you can also follow us: Instagram- @greatcompanypodcast https://www.instagram.com/greatcompanypodcast/# TikTok - @greatcompanypodcast https://open.acast.com/networks/611e511b4ec6dc00134bced2/shows/65d737dfdc02e00016c413b2/episodes/www.tiktok.com/@greatcompanypodcast And if you've got thoughts, questions and comments, you can email us at: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] THE CREDITS Producer: Helen Burke Assistant Producer: Issy Weeks-Hankins Video: Jake Ji Social Media: Laura Coughlan Exec Producer: Ewan Newbigging-Lister & Jemima Rathbone Great Company is an original podcast from JamPot Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households. Yet, many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

• 2:09Speaker 03

  Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Laing and this is Great Moments.

• 2:16Speaker 03

  Hello everyone, this is Great Moments, where I share some of my favourite moments from my conversations on Great Company. Something that's made me think, made me laugh, or changed my perspective. And hopefully, hopefully there's something in it for you too. So are you ready? Let's get into it.

• 2:34Speaker 03

  You grew up in Islington, right?

• 2:36Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  And then you moved to Essex?

• 2:39Speaker 04

  Essex when I was 10.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  Okay. And then what was that like growing up there? What was school like? Tough.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  This is when things changed. I went in the very year six, I went into, I remember having a very long skirt in primary school. And my name was very, obviously, foreign at the time. Ekinsoo, Juljulol, very long. And it was a very sort of like, it wasn't a multicultural school. Because when I went to school in Tottenham, it was, you know, different, you know, backgrounds and stuff. So I went from that to go into literally, me and everyone, basically, I felt like an alien. And almost like, I had, I had quite hairy legs at the time. You were only young, you were a child. And then you had all the other girls with Prada bags and Prada shoes and fake tan and mascara on. And I'm like, wow, like, I idolised that.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  But I was never fitting in that. I was kind of the dork, I guess, teacher's pet at school.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:35Speaker 04

  I loved the teachers.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  And I used to eat my, my school lunch in the toilets a lot. And then the extreme bullying happened from year seven to year nine.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  How old were you at that point?

• 3:47Speaker 04

  Uh, 12, 13. Yeah. I was quite big when I was in year seven, chubby. And got pushed down the stairs, being caught fat, being called ugly, racism.

• 4:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, I had a quite a tough time at school.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  I can I'm sorry. That's it's just it's.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  I I chatted to um Luke Evans, the actor.

• 4:13Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Amazing. So he, yeah, he's amazing. He grew up in Wales and he was really badly bullied. And he said, he had a mentality, though. He said, um, he he knew it was gonna end. He said, if I get through school, it's gonna stop. It's gonna be okay. Just gonna get through it. And I said, that's a unique way.

• 4:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:31Speaker 03

  Because lots of people don't have that. When you're in, when you're in the thick of it like that, it is, you're in the tornado.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's hard. You think that your life's gonna end. You think this is what I deserve. Until I fancied a guy at school. He wouldn't even look at me and I thought, you know what, I'm a bit fat here. I need to lose weight. So I Googled how to lose weight. Some stupid diet came up called the green apple diet, right? You're young, you're a kid at this point. How, you know, morning, afternoon, night, I was just munching on this apple and skipping rope.

• 5:01Speaker 03

  Are you serious?

• 5:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, I obviously couldn't afford a gym at the time. You were a child, but like. Didn't have iPhones then. Or did we? Can't remember. And um yeah, and I lost weight and all of a sudden. People started looking at me and and fancying me. And then I did the beauty pageant after that. Which was wild because I was like seventeen, I went to South Korea. I know, to compete.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a second.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  So much to say.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Oh, my God, this is. So you're at school, you're having this really tricky time.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  Mm.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  You're saying there's racism, you're being pushed down the stairs.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  Mm.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  Are you telling your parents about that?

• 5:38Speaker 04

  No.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  You're not.

• 5:39Speaker 04

  Because my mum was pregnant to my brother at the time. I didn't wanna stress them out. Um.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  So you totalised everything?

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, and actually, my best friend, funny enough, was chocolate. I used to eat a lot as comfort. I would snack a lot because I felt. Happiness and comforting.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  It was like a weird bond we had.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  So you then go on the start, you start eating eating apples, you're skipping.

• 6:04Speaker 04

  Guys, kids, do not do this at home. It's not advised. Very unhealthy.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I suppose that maybe came, and I don't want to put words in my mouth, it probably became a bit of an obsession, maybe.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  Oh, a hundred percent. And that's when I started to become obsessed with what I looked like. So it was like, okay, what is the meaning of beauty? Okay, it must be the way I look. Actually, it's internal, it's about how you are, your soul. But I learnt that later on in life. So these pageants I did were very all about what you look like. The perfect person, beauty, very wrong message, by the way. But when you're young, unfortunately, I got influenced by that.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  So you saw this pageant, you thought this is what I want to do?

• 6:47Speaker 04

  Because I thought I needed the confidence, where I lost it, do you know what I mean?

• 6:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  I didn't know who I was, but I liked the attention I got. So it will let me go into this and then somehow won the pageant in in England and then went to South Korea for Miss Asia Pacific twenty twenty twelve and became fifteenth out of seventy five countries, represented Ireland, although I'm not Irish. I don't know why I did that, because I had to represent something from the UK, which is Northern Ireland. Um. Yeah, um, interesting times.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  And so you and so you represented.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  Miss Ireland. I don't even look Irish, but.

• 7:27Speaker 04

  Don't, oh, no, I'm really.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  There's two things here I would say. Firstly, um, it's it's very entrepreneurial of you in certain ways because you knew what you wanted to get.

• 7:36Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  We all lie about different things. It's not really lying, you just knew what you wanted to get. But also, you're going into this. It's also about competition and it's about holding yourself. That demands a lot of confidence.

• 7:48Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  So going from someone who was lacking that confidence to then getting confidence to go and do that, that's a massive shift.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  It is, and I don't understand how that happened. It was like, almost like I wanted to compete, I wanted to be better. So I was like, you know, there was a talent show in actually one of the pageants and I was singing in it. So all of a sudden, this confidence came out and my performative side again came out. And that's when I think confidence happened at such a young age. And it went on forever. Almost like, I've done the bullies, if I can do the bullies, come at me. What's the worst that can happen in life?

• 8:21Speaker 03

  What would you say to someone listening who's going through something like that?

• 8:25Speaker 04

  I would say, please speak to someone, whether that's a teacher, a friend or someone. Don't bottle it in. And I would definitely say that it's gonna make you a stronger person. And those bullies at school are gonna end up below you.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  Because that is what happened. And I'm gonna definitely say that it's gonna pass and never hold everything in. And if anyone needs help, seek help, therapy, whatever it needs, even if you're, you know, a young person, there's always help out there, free help. There's loads of websites that you can talk to someone to.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Have you ever seen any of the bullies again?

• 9:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, hundred percent. I didn't even, they didn't even deserve my, my blink. I saw them on the high street. One of them looked absolutely ridiculous. Honestly, I literally did this. I was like, and one of them was like, can I have a picture of you? I went, do I know you? Oh, you're the, you're that guy from school. And I just passed and I walked off. And I was like, yeah, it was the best feeling ever, Jamie. It was when I won Love Island twenty twenty two. And uh, felt good.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  I um, I chatted to, and I'm sure she won't remember, Scarlett Moffat.

• 9:34Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Who's amazing. And I, I haven't seen her in a few years, but I was friendly with her. And she said one of the most empowering moments for her ever.

• 9:44Speaker 03

  She was in a supermarket and she saw one of her bullies. And she, and she went straight back into being this little girl, like scared, like, oh my God, freaking out. Oh my God, there she is. And the bully ran up to her. And she was with her daughter.

• 9:58Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  And she said, oh my God, Scarlett, I haven't seen you since school. You're doing so well, all these kind of things.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  And she said, oh, I've been telling my little daughter how we were best friends at school. And Scarlett said, she sort of said, oh, can I have a photo? She said, um, I wanna say one thing to you. I hope your little girl never goes through what you made me feel at school. And she dropped her basket and walked out the supermarket. And she had never felt more alive that she had confronted her bully. Yeah.

• 10:28Speaker 04

  That's giving me goosebumps. Good for her for saying that.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it is.

• 10:32Speaker 04

  Brilliant. That's all you need to say and walk off.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Because I think this, especially with something like bullying, it's such a, firstly, it's so awful. It's horrendous to do that to people. It's such a short term. Sort of thing to do to someone. People, people don't realise that in later life, you're gonna see each other or walk past each other.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  The world is small.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  The world is small.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  It's so small.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  And be nice to everyone on the way out, because you never know who you meet on the way down. Never, ever step on the little people, never be rude, never bully, never do anything like that. Because you'll meet them in the future. And like you did, you'll flick your hair and walk on.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  Exactly. And you know what, Jamie? I never understand bullying at a young age. I understand bullies as an adult. I feel like it's a reflection of who they are, because they hate themselves. They wanna make you feel bad. But I feel like when you're young, when you're not fully developed, how are you a bit like, I don't understand what goes through that child's mind. How can you be nasty to someone? Is it bad parenting? Is that a question? It just, do you know what I mean? I've always thought about it.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  I think, I think it's probably they are making themselves feel better. So they've probably gone through some sort of trauma.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Hundred percent.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Or something like that. That's what I think. The, how do you stop the bullying?

• 11:40Speaker 04

  You can't. This is the sad thing. You can change and you can control yourself in the situation. Because bullying happens even now, right? It happens in everyday work. There's always a manager or a boss or a colleague that just doesn't like you. But you just have to accept it. And when you know that that's life, you can move on. Even now, there's probably people who hate me for no reason. That's fine. Hate is an emotion. You've got to worry when no one has no feelings towards you, Jamie.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Really?

• 12:08Speaker 04

  I've had hate. I've had bullying. Just love life, you know?

• 12:13Speaker 03

  I can, it's amazing.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  It's mad. It is mad. But I prefer being real. I prefer, you know, this, the mind being, the heart being beautiful than focusing on the, the look. I feel like.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  It's hard though, right?

• 12:28Speaker 04

  It is hard. It is so hard.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  It's really hard.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  Takes time.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  It takes a lot of time. Because it's, and that's such a great message to do, because we live in this world because of social media and what we look like and things like that, that we kind of forget that actually it does come from the inside. And all of the outer shell doesn't matter.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  Anyone can be beautiful, Jamie. Anyone. There's loads of people that are handsome, beautiful. There's someone better looking than you, better looking. It's okay, but there's only one of you.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  But how do you change that? And be honest, because that takes, that is a lot of unlearning to do.

• 12:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  And that's hard, really hard. Especially as we're talking about the industry that we're in, especially being a woman in the industry. So how does that change? When does that change for you? And be to, be totally honest with that.

• 13:07Speaker 04

  What does that change for me? It changes for me when you hit rock bottom. And you realise how there was a moment in my life I was very depressed. And I just looked at myself and I was like, I looked at Instagram and I was like, oh, it just seemed really, something didn't feel right. It looked like an illusion. I felt like I was in a, in a video game. Like, what, what is this? We, we, we take a picture, we put it on Instagram, we wait for people to like it. We edit our pictures. Why? I went to a walk in a park after and I took off my shoes and I walked barefoot on the grass. I sat there, closed my phone, just meditating. And I was like, and I went back to like, it was really weird, but where we came from, Adam and Eve, like for instance,

• 13:50Speaker 04

  we're humans, like this social media is all new. It's toxic. It's not natural. We're all living a lie, I feel like. It is. How do you know this Instagram is what is right? It's not. Living in the moment, realising what's important, family, morals, happiness, being healthy. We, we, we're breathing right now. There's people in hospital that cannot breathe. They cannot, they've broken a leg or an arm. We, we still are here right now. But then there's someone that's moaning about the weather being rainy. Do you get it? It, it takes time.

• 14:40Speaker 05

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalised AI for the way we work.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle.

• 15:09Speaker 05

  workspace with Gemini. That's G O O dot G L E slash workspace with Gemini.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households. Yet, many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.