Alex Scott: I’ve Never Told The FULL Truth About My Past

Alex Scott is a television personality and former professional football player. With 140 England caps, she’s one of the best players this country has ever produced. But there’s another side to Alex that she’s kept secret up to now. Because Alex’s early life was not one of safety or security. She’s bravely decided to speak up about the trauma of her abusive father, and how that has shaped her mentality to this day. It’s never easy to admit something like this, and Alex Scott’s honesty in this conversation is courageous. It’s the same courageousness Alex has shown every day of her life, to achieve incredible things, no matter where she’s from, or what she’s overcome. Follow Alex: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/alexscott2/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/alexscott Alex's book: https://amzn.to/3dPryIj Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm in a room, listening to everything go on and just hoping she's alive. That was the hardest night of that one.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Alex Scott. 140 caps, three World Cups, four European Championships and 12 international goals. Alex Scott.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  Football was allowing me that platform to see things, learn things about the world that I know was making me even more hungry. And to keep that, I needed to keep doing well at football.

• 0:28Steven Bartlett?

  You couldn't speak growing up because of a speech impediment. How did that impact your life?

• 0:34Speaker 00

  There's certain things I just can't say, but it's almost I found a habit of just laughing at myself before everyone else laughs at me. Here I am getting nothing but pure hate, death threats and abuse. And I've got to say, I'm like, I can't do this anymore.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  My dad had this dark side, so my protection was to try and love my dad all I can and all those darkness and the demons will go.

• 1:07Steven Bartlett?

  Did that work?

• 1:11Speaker 00

  I've done this book to free my mum. On the other hand, I'm scared that it could ruin my dad's life.

• 1:21Steven Bartlett?

  Without further ado, I'm Stephen Butler and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 1:36Steven Bartlett?

  Alex, we sit here in East London today.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:41Steven Bartlett?

  And your story starts in East London as well. Take me right back to, to East London when you grew up in some, when was that, 1980 something?

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Eighty-four.

• 1:52Steven Bartlett?

  Eighty-four.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:54Steven Bartlett?

  Take me back.

• 1:56Speaker 03

  Well, instantly, even when you say East London, I'm smiling because I have so many happy memories. And the feeling that it gave me a sense of community, everyone looking after you, even though it's surrounded by struggle and hardship, it makes me smile.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  East London, instantly I can go to playing in the football cage because that football cage was a freedom. For me, it was an out, it was an escape. It allowed me, that football cage allowed me to start dreaming of a world that, I don't know, that I never thought that I'd be able to see or imagine, but in that space, it gave me that.

• 2:35Steven Bartlett?

  When was the first time you'd watched a football match? How did football come into your life?

• 2:39Speaker 03

  I don't actually even remember sitting down to watch a football game on TV. Because both my mum and dad, they weren't athletes. So it's not a thing that we'd sit down and watch a football match. But in that area that I grew up in, that football cage was everything. It was the community, it was where people came together. And I think that's how I got into football and that's what I liked. It gave me that connection to other people. So for me, it wasn't dreaming that, you know, I wanted to play football, be a professional footballer. That wasn't it at all. It was a sense of a safe space in that football cage and feeling at one with everyone else in the neighbourhood.

• 3:16Steven Bartlett?

  Escapism, a safe space.

• 3:19Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 3:20Steven Bartlett?

  Why was it a safe space?

• 3:23Speaker 03

  A safe space.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  From a home environment.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  The football cage was fun. I could smile, you felt free.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  And in home.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  It was like I was locked in.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  It was an environment where it was very much controlled.

• 3:59Steven Bartlett?

  Controlled by your father?

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 4:04Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me about your mother and father.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  My mum? A woman that is an incredible person. Full of love, full of softness.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  And just a light around her. That wants to do everything for everyone before herself, doesn't even think about herself. No, doesn't even see the person that she is.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  Because ultimately that was taken away from her. My dad, even though I see the love in my dad, I wanted to love my dad so much I was a daddy's little girl. But he had this dark side. And that's the side that we saw a lot of growing up.

• 4:53Steven Bartlett?

  When was the first time you you you recall seeing your father's dark side?

• 4:58Speaker 03

  I can't put an an age to it, to be honest. But it was there. Mostly what I can always remember. That you saw this loving side. And I I always say the drink, but obviously the drink helps it come out a lot more. But I just you could see him turn like his thoughts or what he was going through in his mind. That's how he took it out on, I'd say, all of us, more so my mum.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  But yeah. It was just for me, it was just sad. Because I could see this good in my dad that was there. When he smiled, when he was listening to music, and that's the side I just always wanted to see. And was begging to to stay there, but it wasn't.

• 5:46Steven Bartlett?

  In that home was you, your brother and your mum?

• 5:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. Mm hmm.

• 5:51Steven Bartlett?

  These memories, wh- wh- how old were you when you started having these memories about this other side of your father?

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Well, he left when I was seven. So from the moment.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  From a baby, from two, three. I could see and feel, you can feel it. The environment that we're in, that you're not allowed to do something. Because if you do step out of line, you know what's gonna happen. And you don't want that to happen.

• 6:20Steven Bartlett?

  What's gonna happen?

• 6:30Speaker 03

  When my mum would go through.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  The terror.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  The helplessness that you can't do anything.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Just, yeah, so you're living in fear.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  You're living in fear every single moment.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  And so then the football cage becomes your escape. For me.

• 7:00Steven Bartlett?

  Did you, did you want to go home after school, after?

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wanted to go home to protect my mum.

• 7:10Speaker 03

  I wanted to go home to put a shield around her.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  To be strong for her. Even though she was doing the same for me and my brother.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  But it's like you wanted to protect someone, but how can I? I, I can't. So my protection was to try and love my dad all I can. To keep trying to bring that side out of him. If he has the love, then maybe he'll start loving us in that way. And all those darkness and the demons will go.

• 7:48Steven Bartlett?

  Did that work?

• 7:50Speaker 03

  Um, no.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  No.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  It's weird because I sit here with you and then say it is dark and straight away. It's, it's hard for me to talk about. Cause I suppose I've hid it for all this time. It's easy not to talk about it. But even though there's so much darkness, there's so much, I remember the good times with my dad. I remember going to the record shops and buying vinyls and coming back and dancing. My dad loved his music. I love my music because of that. So there's so many things that. Yeah, even though all those dark times, I know because of everything that I've gone through. I am the person I am now. You have to take the good bits and the bad bits and it's what makes me me.

• 8:41Steven Bartlett?

  You said earlier that your mother had been, she'd had her personality or the, the, the goodness taken from her. You alluded to the fact that it was taken from her. What do you mean by that?

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Because every single day, you see my mum walking on eggshells. She's scared to have a voice, to say something because she knows what she's gonna go through. So that light that is around her and the woman that she has been, that outgoing personality, that, you know, everyone loves my mum, she doesn't see that because it's been stripped. She views herself as a coward, where as much as I try and tell her, she doesn't see herself like that.

• 9:34Speaker 03

  She's a coward for staying with my dad for those years, for not leaving earlier for her kids. So as much as we see her as an amazing woman, she doesn't see herself like that one bit.

• 9:48Steven Bartlett?

  Still today.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Still today.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Still today. She's, she's scared with my book coming out because I've finally told that story. She's scared that her friends are gonna look at her in a certain way. Like I said, she calls herself a coward.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Where I had to see the woman that's so full of courage and the strength and the vulnerability that she's shown her whole life for us, for me and my brother.

• 10:21Steven Bartlett?

  In the book, you, you talk about two vivid memories you have of that time. And one of them being the day your mother did speak back to your dad at a joint birthday party.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:33Steven Bartlett?

  Do you still remember that day?

• 10:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:36Steven Bartlett?

  What happened that day?

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Stephen, we had the most amazing birthday party. It's hard because there's not many things that we've celebrated or those moments. And I don't even know how this party came about, whether it was for me and my brother or it was my dad throwing a party because he was a big character. You know, everyone loved Tony Scott, he had this way about him. Um, but we ended up having a birthday party in the local community, me and my brother. And just, yeah, the music, everyone was dancing. And that's where you, I could see my mum. You know, she was the life and soul of the party, just her energy was so infectious. And then the party then ended in the community centre. We went back to the flat where I grew up in.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  And then it was just exactly, it's a tone that I know all too well. That no one else knows apart from me, my brother and my mum. When he asked her to go and get some lemonade. She was in the middle of a conversation, so a natural, no, totally, you get your lemonade. And it was that icy tone when he repeated it. And she said no again.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  It's hard because I'm looking at you, but I can see her.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  So, yeah.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Then straight away, I know what's coming. Soon as everybody leaves that night, he doesn't forget.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  So then.

• 12:14Speaker 00

  We all know what's gonna happen. My mum might have been brave enough and forgot in that moment. Because she's having fun, she's having a conversation with her friend.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  That was the hardest night, that one.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  You know, the thing about the book.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Is we've never had the conversations.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  So my mum is trying to survive for her kids.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  And then I'm in a room. Listening to everything go on and just hoping she's alive.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  But she doesn't know what me and my brother are doing

• 13:23Speaker 00

  or feeling until I've wrote the book.

• 13:28Steven Bartlett?

  In those moments, did you speak to your brother about it?

• 13:30Speaker 00

  No.

• 13:33Steven Bartlett?

  You talk about being awake at night, hearing what your father's doing to your mother.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 13:40Steven Bartlett?

  And never knowing if your brother was laid there, thinking and feeling and hearing the same things. You never looked over at him, never spoke to him about it.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  No.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  He was in the next room. I had a little box room. That was everything.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  And then there's a silence the next day. You're not allowed to speak until you've spoken to. That's the environment we've grown up in. So all you have is a look or trying to catch a feeling. And our feeling is mum's alive.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  That we've still got our mum for the moment.

• 14:17Steven Bartlett?

  When you woke up the day after that birthday incident, that party incident?

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:23Steven Bartlett?

  And you saw your-

• 14:23Speaker 00

  I didn't sleep. I didn't wake up. Yeah.

• 14:27Steven Bartlett?

  And you saw your mum?

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 14:29Steven Bartlett?

  What did you see?

• 14:30Speaker 00

  This empty sadness.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  What can she do?

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Someone so hurt that every time she moves, it hurts. I heard everything. I heard her trying to run.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  And then so then, as a five, six year old,

• 15:05Speaker 00

  I just want to hug my mum, but we can't.

• 15:10Steven Bartlett?

  You can't hug her?

• 15:11Speaker 00

  No.

• 15:14Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 15:15Speaker 00

  Wasn't allowed to show love.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  I suppose that's why, I suppose like a word like control is easy to say, isn't it? I suppose until you break it down and understand that's the control. Like, we're not even allowed to show love or hug or speak, really.

• 15:43Steven Bartlett?

  You, you, so the, the day, the day after that incident, you're, you're not allowed to go over to her and hug her?

• 15:48Speaker 03

  No.

• 15:49Steven Bartlett?

  Your dad has told you you're not allowed to go and hug her?

• 15:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:53Steven Bartlett?

  What's the consequences if you, if you hugged her?

• 15:57Speaker 03

  That's something that would happen to me and my brother.

• 16:00Steven Bartlett?

  And did that happen to, to you and your brother?

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, if, if we spoke back, if we didn't obey orders. If you show love emotion, you're not being strong, you're not showing that you're strong, right? You just get on with things. Last night happened, you just get on with things.

• 16:18Steven Bartlett?

  When, when you look back, and you've talked about this in your book as well, about how in many respects that served you, becoming a, a football player, and it made you a little bit more, I guess, resilient, shall I say? Um, but when you look back at those early years and you see how emotion was disallowed or squeezed out of you, are there, were there words spoken that told you emotion was not a useful thing? Or was it just actions and behaviour? Where did you, where did you lose that sense of emotion and love and affection and?

• 16:50Speaker 03

  For me, I always had it.

• 16:52Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  I know from a kid, I just wanted to give love.

• 16:55Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Or see the light in someone. I wasn't getting it from my dad or my mum was showing me in a different way. I know I wanted it. I was craving it. I remember my best friend Regan going around to her house and their huggers. Everything's so affectionate. Stephen, I would like freeze like this. She'd hug me and I'd just stand there like, oh my gosh, I don't even know what to do, what happens in this moment. And she laughs about it to this day. And still to the same, it's hard. You know, I don't hug my mum.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  But like, I want to. The other day it was her birthday. I said, all right, mum, little hug and pat on the back, love you. And then like she feels awkward. I'm kind of awkward because that's how we've grown up. We don't know how to do that. I find it easier now because I've gone through the process of learning that and that it's okay. But then when I go back into the environment, to this day, I don't, I can't, I don't think I've ever hugged my brother.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  Because that's still that environment. It's hard because for me, I feel so lucky. I've, you know, this career, football, now in broadcasting. I've travelled the world. I've educated myself in such a different way. Surround myself with people that affectionate. I love, I love giving love to other people. And then I'll go back into that environment and straight away I'm like this again. It's like that frozen and it's hard because I've been on the journey. It doesn't mean you're ready for it. That I can try and bring it out of you or I can baby steps, but yeah.

• 18:27Steven Bartlett?

  And I guess that environment is still a trigger. So you haven't, you haven't recovered in that environment.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know, it's so, I, for me, it's kind of happy. What's so interesting also is my niece lives with us. We've had her since she was two, living in, so with my mum and my brother at home in East End. She gets it all. And I see that through my mum, through my brother, for all the love that they didn't have or the hugs. They give it to her, which is beautiful. Like you said, but they still can't do it amongst themselves.

• 18:57Steven Bartlett?

  No, it makes sense. The, the other, the other moment you, you talk about in the book is the day that, um, your mum told your dad to leave.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. She said she found it in her strength. My nan had recently passed away, um, sudden. And it was hard for my nan. This story from my mum, um, because she knew what was going on, even though it wasn't spoken about.

• 19:20Steven Bartlett?

  Your nan knew what was going on.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, and then, yeah, as soon as she passed away, a sudden heart attack. My mum found her strength to say, no, that's enough's enough. Um. And she finally told him that that was it. She said to me, she was finding ways. She had gone to someone, like a homeless shelter or something to see if she did run, would she be safe? And then would they be able to then collect us afterwards? So she was trying to find ways to leave the environment, but she then always couldn't because it came back to me and my brother. And then, yeah, that day she finally, enough was enough. Said she just didn't care. She didn't care what would happen to her or whatever, but she knew that this couldn't go on anymore for the sake of me and my brother.

• 20:06Steven Bartlett?

  Did she tell you what she said to him?

• 20:08Speaker 03

  No, I just remember getting the shout to come down the hallway. Me and my brother just marching down and then waiting for an order or something. And then him saying that we had to choose, that he was leaving and we have to choose there and then right then, whether we live with mum or live with dad. And then me just looking at my brother like, what? And he's making us choose like right then.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  And I knew something had gone on because mum's got her back to us. So obviously something had happened on her face or because she couldn't look at us.

• 20:46Steven Bartlett?

  It's a pretty disgusting situation to put children in, isn't it? To get them to pick a parent because regardless of the, and you talk about this as well in your book is regardless of the the abuse, you still love.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:57Steven Bartlett?

  Both parents, right?

• 20:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's my dad. Like I say, like I see the like, the smile or how he is and I can I feel just sad. Like even to this day, when I'm thinking about him, I'm just like, you know, suppose he's just sad. I don't want anyone to feel sadness, you know?

• 21:19Speaker 03

  So I remember in that moment, like I was always, it's always my mum, I was always going to pick my mum. But it's the thought that my dad would be lonely as well. Like, how do I have, why do I have to choose like?

• 21:33Steven Bartlett?

  In that moment, would you have chosen for things to stay how they were?

• 21:38Speaker 03

  Hmm, no, no.

• 21:42Steven Bartlett?

  So you would have chosen to just go with your mum?

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:45Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it was just trying to process as a seven year old that my dad might feel lonely.

• 21:51Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  And what happens to my dad?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  But no, I need to protect my mum. I need to be strong for my mum. I need to look after her.

• 22:01Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm. And then your dad leaves?

• 22:05Speaker 03

  He's gone. No, just leaves, leaves with everything, everything, furniture, everything. Not that we even had a lot to take, but it's still just, you know, you make do, you get by. But yeah, he took everything. Mum let him take everything too, because then he didn't have a hold over her anymore.

• 22:25Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, yeah. And you stayed in the house?

• 22:28Speaker 03

  We stayed in the house, yeah.

• 22:30Steven Bartlett?

  What was life like beyond that point?

• 22:32Speaker 03

  I think that's why I'm so lucky, Stephen. I had football. I had that out. I had something to focus on.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  You know, so I'd escape into a different environment that gave me structure. Where I think for my mum and my brother, it was, it was a lot harder.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  You know, you're still processing my brother. And I suppose this is where it hurts my mum. Cause she puts a lot of blame on herself. We went from a controlled environment, which very much I was still in a controlled, but a disciplined environment with football was very different. And then so my brother totally went the opposite way. For someone that had been controlled and in that environment, he then had a freedom, but he didn't know what to do with that freedom. My mum didn't know what to do with it. So I think it was harder. It's been a lot harder for my brother.

• 23:24Steven Bartlett?

  When you say it's been harder for, for your brother, what's, what does that look like in reality?

• 23:28Speaker 03

  That I'd say even to this day, he doesn't know himself or what to do, his purpose, carrying guilt.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  You know, we talk about strength and stuff. It's, I know it's very different for men. Him feeling that he should have been that protector, maybe, you know? When he looks at his baby sister, I've managed to make a career or do something.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  And he looks at his life and what has he done?

• 23:59Steven Bartlett?

  Do you have these conversations with him as adults?

• 24:01Speaker 03

  No, we've, we, we can't. We've not had a conversation about anything. As a family, we can't sit down. We don't know how to.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  There's not been a conversation about anything.

• 24:17Steven Bartlett?

  Are you close?

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Close in a different way. You know, when you hear stories of brothers and sisters and like that love we have for each other is so strong, but in a different way. It's protecting from afar. We'll do anything for each other and be there, but it's not a pick up the phone. How are you sis? What's happened? What's going on in your life? But no matter what, you'll just always be there for each other.

• 24:44Steven Bartlett?

  Why do you think that is? Why do you think there is such a distance?

• 24:47Speaker 03

  Because you don't know how to communicate.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  We don't know how to talk. When all of your life, from all those age, that age gap, when my dad was in the house, we didn't learn anything. I've gone away from that and taught and educated myself differently. But my mum and my brother have still been in that.

• 25:10Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  I felt a bit guilty actually, because I remember going to therapy, learning all of this, learning my behaviours, learning then to deal with my emotions and talk. And they're like, great, go and do this with my mum, my brother, you know, we'll start, open the conversation. But then actually it took my mum back to a place that's, that hurts her, you know, and I did that. Because why? Oh, because I was ready.

• 25:39Steven Bartlett?

  You had, you had a conversation with her post therapy.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 25:42Steven Bartlett?

  And it hurt her.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's bringing up all the stuff that's still so raw. That she's never dealt with. You've just got on with life. It's what you do, right? It's put a plaster over it. You get on with stuff. The mentality, get your head down, you get through things. But actually you're not dealing with it, are you? It's still there. It's still raw.

• 26:04Steven Bartlett?

  And it will show up.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 26:06Steven Bartlett?

  It'll rear its head in very ugly ways at times if it's unaddressed. Because it's still controlling you. It's just controlling you from like the back room.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 26:14Steven Bartlett?

  Somewhere.

• 26:15Speaker 03

  That's what I almost think in terms of like domestic violence and what goes on. I think we deal with a lot of stuff till when the person has left the environment, right?

• 26:23Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  But then a lot of the work needs to start afterwards also. Like those conversations, actually dealing with those emotions, what next? Instead of like, oh, they've gone, can get on with life. Actually, you can't because it's still all there. It's inside.

• 26:39Steven Bartlett?

  Were you ever jealous of other families?

• 26:42Speaker 03

  No.

• 26:43Steven Bartlett?

  You weren't?

• 26:43Speaker 03

  Never jealous, no. I was, I feel I'm lucky. I've had everything from my mum. I've had the love, the care, her doing everything she can.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  You know, so I've never looked at other families and I feel lucky. I've been invited into families that have shown me love or taken me away and had that. But ultimately for me, my mum is absolutely everything. She's done everything she can. I wouldn't be here. This person right now, if it wasn't for everything that my mum has done for me in my life.

• 27:15Steven Bartlett?

  Comparison can sometimes make us feel sad though, because it's, uh, what comparison does is it gives us these kind of false expectations of how our life is supposed to be going. So we look at another family and we I will look at Christmas, they're all sat there and they're all, oh, they're dancing around the table and they've all got their little crowns on their head and you know, and then we look at our lives and go, hmm, you know.

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 27:35Steven Bartlett?

  Maybe I wish I had all my family here and we could, we could have these moments. You ever felt those kinds of things? I know I have. I spend, I spent quite a few Christmases on my own, even in the last couple of years. I think last year I was alone on Christmas. People don't really know about that, but I was, but because my family's quite dysfunctional. So getting them all to be happy in the same place is not such a simple task.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:58Steven Bartlett?

  So sometimes it's just easier. I think I just flew to Portugal on Christmas last year.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Do you know what's so interesting? You say that because I find myself removing myself from those situations that I feel uncomfortable with. So same thing, Christmas, I want to escape. Because for me, it reminds me of sadness. So it's not comparing to other people's families and the happiness and everything. For me, it reminds me of sadness. So then I'd rather remove myself, travel away, be away in my own thoughts, than sit through it and see my mum's sadness, something that I can't change in her. It's like as if I'm still failing to make her happy in those moments and that's hard for me.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  So it's never comparing to other families. It's just that I feel helpless in trying to help my mum.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  That hurts.

• 28:54Steven Bartlett?

  Have you always seen that as your responsibility to cheer your mum up, to keep her happy? Cause you talked about rushing her from school to try and protect her and now, now that you feel like you're failing her.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. I don't know if I've like ever thought about it as a responsibility. I don't know. I think it's just something that's me that I've always, I'm a helper. I, I wanna help people. I want them to be happy. I wanna do everything I can for someone to bring joy to them. I don't know. Maybe it's cause the upbringing, I didn't have much of that or something. I don't know. So I've, I don't know. I've not seen it as a responsibility, but I just, I want her to have a life that maybe she's missed. You know, and bring her that light back.

• 29:39Steven Bartlett?

  In order to do that, she's gonna have to confront some of the things that bring the pain back as well though, right?

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 29:44Steven Bartlett?

  So we see it so many times in our friends and, and people that you know, they've been through something. You know, it's holding them back from living the fullest life they could live today. But in order to, to unlock that fullest life, they have to go back through some stuff.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 29:59Steven Bartlett?

  And bring it out into the open. And you see, I see it sometimes in my friends where I know they don't wanna go back there.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:05Steven Bartlett?

  But if they don't, then they're gonna, there's a risk that in my view, and who's, who the fuck am I to tell them about their lives? But they're gonna end up missing out on the like, the fullness of life. So it's this battle. It's like, do you wanna keep on keeping on and just keep it in the back room? And live a, live a less full life or do you wanna go back there and do the, do the hard work to try and unlock your? It's a battle and.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  It's like a fit. Yeah. Well, what is it? Face the fear, see the fear and face it and do it anyway.

• 30:33Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 30:33Speaker 03

  Like I'm of that mindset. Like it might be scary, but I'm still gonna do it. I'm still gonna give it a try.

• 30:38Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  But then I suppose everyone doesn't have that mindset today. Like in order to move forward or see into the future, you can't. If you're still driving, looking in the rear view mirror, like not dealing with all the past stuff behind. And then so for me, I think I've got to a stage like, why am I talking about this in a book or, you know? It's been hard for all this. I've hidden it.

• 30:58Steven Bartlett?

  How long?

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Up till now. But I've never spoken about my upbringing or what's going on in my life until this book, until this moment.

• 31:08Steven Bartlett?

  Why was now the right time?

• 31:10Speaker 03

  Because I think I'm, I've learned a lot about myself. I'm older, I'm wiser and I'm, don't want the heaviness of it anymore. You know, and I actually ultimately wrote it hoping that my mum, it frees my mum.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  You know, it's part me, but hoping that this finally frees my mum and she can move forward from it all. That I'm okay, you know, Ronnie's done okay for himself. You don't have to protect us anymore. Like, let us look after you. You're an amazing woman.

• 31:46Steven Bartlett?

  When you write this book and you're, you know, your mum knows that you're going to be sharing this with the world, what are those conversations like to? So I guess at some point you might have had to read this book to her or tell her about the certain parts.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  She read it.

• 31:59Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, she read it.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. She, yeah. I'm being just a biased mum, but she loved it. Um, but she found it super interesting because once again, I've gone through a lot of stuff that I've not spoken to her about, that she didn't know about me. Because once again, I've always been trying to protect her. So when I've gone through stuff, my first thing is I can't tell my mum because I don't want her to panic about me. You know, she's already been through enough, so I can look after myself. So her reading stuff, she's actually learned a lot about me, my emotions, how I deal with things that have come up. And then ultimately, like I said, that when she was going through all of that stuff with my dad, she didn't know what

• 32:43Speaker 03

  I was in the room doing, that I didn't sleep once because I'm listening just to make sure that I can hear her move in the morning.

• 32:52Steven Bartlett?

  Heaviness. You used the word heaviness. You didn't want the heaviness anymore.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:58Steven Bartlett?

  What is, what is that? What was the heaviness?

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Carrying all of this, not speaking about what went on. Hiding it every time I'm asked about my mum or my dad in interviews.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Because I think if you look back at everything that I've done, soon as this topic is brought up about my mum, I get emotional. Because straight away, someone doesn't know, just talking about my mum and me saying, oh, she's amazing. Straight away, I'm picturing everything that went on. That why I think she's amazing. But I can't tell you that. You just hear me get emotional and then I change the subject.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  But like I said, I suppose through learning how to communicate better and understand my emotions. Like, I just wanna be free. Like, I wanna be like, I wanna move forward in my life, not having any of it anymore. Like, I'm at a stage in this point in my life where I'm ready to enjoy this stage, this next season, you know?

• 34:00Steven Bartlett?

  You used a word earlier on, patterns. What was the symptoms of that heaviness? How did you, how did you start to see it manifesting in your behaviour?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Shutting off from life, shutting off from dealing with emotions, pushing them down, not letting anyone in to help me when I need help. Not talking to anyone, just, I'm always okay, just carry on. What's next? What happens next? Yep, I can do that, I can do that. Doing everything for everyone else around me. But actually, I just need someone to do something for me. Being like, okay, you offering help? I'm gonna say okay, instead of saying no to everything, because I can deal with everything.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  Which ultimately, that's where people talk about me and the trolling. And, you know, the trolls pushed me into therapy. No, they didn't. You know, it was just that stage on top of every single other thing that I finally was like, I need to talk to someone. This is all too heavy for me to deal with. Like, I'm in a dark place. And I can either carry on in that dark place, or actually, I can do something about it.

• 35:11Steven Bartlett?

  This is post your footballing career?

• 35:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, went into broadcasting. It was a lot, a lot of events had happened in my life that I didn't even know until I wrote down in a book, like a timeline, and I'm like, shit. I wonder why I bloody ended up in therapy, because I hadn't dealt with any of it. I just kept going. You know, that's been a mentality and a trait. That's the pattern. I'm okay. Alex is always okay.

• 35:37Steven Bartlett?

  One of the things we didn't talk much about yet is, um, which I think would be a surprise for a lot of people, is that you couldn't speak for, for many years growing up because of a speech impediment.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's mad I sit here talking to you, chatting away.

• 35:51Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. And then working in broadcasting. But when, you know, speech impediment is, is something, you know, you've gotten over the speech impediment and you went to like speech therapy from what I understand for a while. The thing that's probably, you know, I assume would stay with you for life is how that makes you feel about yourself. You know what I mean? Because it's, you know, you've, you've overcome, overcome it, but the, the thoughts of struggle or maybe like not fitting in socially or being a bit insecure about things can, can, can linger long after the the solution's been found. When you look back in your adult years, has, did that impact your life?

• 36:30Speaker 03

  How other people viewed me. I didn't feel like my voice was important or I wouldn't be able to get what across what was going on in my head. It's mad. You say I'm over it. I'm not. Like it's just, I, I can hide it a lot better. Or I know that, okay, I have to reword things or I memorize scripts, for instance, or I'm practicing them. So when I get on camera, I know that word that's coming up, I can't say, I've practiced and practiced it, but then I go to say and it's still, it doesn't work because I just can't articulate where the words come from. Even earlier today, before I was having a juice and I asked if there was, I can't even say the word cinnamon or something. Whatever the spices in it. There's certain things I, I just can't say. But it's almost I found a habit of just laughing at myself before everyone else laughs at me.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Or then just not finding my voice, not speaking out because I'm scared. That it won't come out the way that's in my head. I know, like my brain works so fast. Like I'm always thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone else. But I, I can't get it out.

• 37:33Steven Bartlett?

  How, how bad was it for, for people that might not understand what it's like to have a speech impediment when you're younger?

• 37:39Speaker 03

  It's hard because you go back to the environment that I grew up in. It was actually then easier for it not to, because you don't speak until you're spoken to. So it's easy not to speak. So, which actually then, full circle, then my mum didn't detect it till later on. Because then I just wasn't speaking, because we was in that environment where I wasn't really playful, speaking out anyway.

• 38:05Speaker 03

  So it's not until then and then having to re-correct it. But then I'm in an environment with someone who I'm sitting with and I can feel like the love or they're caring for me. So then I think it's just a game, right? That I can feel something from you that you're invested in me, which is totally different to that what I'm feeling of my dad. So then you go back to those patterns. I feel like that's the pattern that I then craved with everyone. I then just want my first coach to see something in me. I'll do everything for you, just believe in me, like I want to feel that from you. Relationships, the same thing. It's like I'm always seeking that from what I wanted from my dad, I suppose, in my childhood.

• 38:46Steven Bartlett?

  Difficult to have relationships when the first model of love you've ever, you witnessed was deeply toxic.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, the speech impediment. So not knowing how to communicate or speak properly and scared of what I'm gonna, what I'm trying to say doesn't come out right. So from the speech impediment, it's just easier not to speak a lot in my circumstances. That's how the speech impediment for me works, which is crazy because like you said.

• 39:19Steven Bartlett?

  Do that for a living now.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. How does that work out?

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Because the thing is like on TV, I suppose, I don't think about the millions of people watching me or. That for me is just always, I'm so interested in the person sitting opposite me because I'm learning.

• 39:38Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 39:39Speaker 03

  You know, the area of East London that I grew up in, I didn't think I'd be surrounded by people that view the world or have seen something in a certain way. And I'm just, sometimes I'm not speaking. Like you, you ask a question and you wanted me to speak. So the same thing, I can ask you something and you're telling me this amazing story and I'm just sitting there, even though I'm presenting, I'm just amazed. Cause I'm just like, wow, I'm learning something here. So ultimately, yes, I do it for a living, but now I'm just sitting there learning and only speaking sometimes really, even though it's on T V. But like you said, in relationships, yeah, I know that pattern of not speaking or when something's tough, I would run away from it.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  Like if you just push it down, push the emotions down, the next day, everything will be fine. I'll carry on like nothing ever happened. Which for my partner has always been the super hardest thing because they want to talk about it and get it out and all the feelings. But then I was always scared how those feelings or if you got to that angry state, what would happen? Because I grew up seeing that in my dad. So then I just want everything to be great. Like, fine, everything's fine tomorrow, everything will be great.

• 40:49Steven Bartlett?

  That's the thing in relationships, you've got to battle it out.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 40:53Steven Bartlett?

  To resolve a problem. And if you don't, it ends up being deposited in the relationship as resentment or contempt and it just stays there as an issue unaddressed.

• 41:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:02Steven Bartlett?

  And then it will pop up some, some other day.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. Mm hmm. I think that's everything that happened to me up until I went to therapy is that it finally all needed to come out, everything. To deal with the emotions, the childhood, the speech impediment, hiding it all.

• 41:22Steven Bartlett?

  I've come to learn, I remember saying to my, one of my friends last week, I said, I think, I think the single most important thing in any relationship. If it is to last, especially romantic relationships is conflict resolution. Because, you know, I see, I've said this before, but I see relationships as like, imagine two dots on a piece of paper and then the relationship begins. And they become these lines moving as the relationship, you know, carries its course. And then there'll be things that start to make the lines deviate from each other and go a bit wide. But conflict resolution keeps the two people close. You know, if you know your partner, you don't like the way he eats that thing. You can talk about it, that's the trivial thing, but you can resolve things and keep yourselves close. When things go unresolved, it seems like these two parallel lines start to deviate and you move further apart.

• 42:07Steven Bartlett?

  And then you're not having sex, but you don't know how to talk about it. So they just continues to deviate. So conflict resolution seems to be the thing that is keeps contentment out of a relationship, which Dr. Professor John Gottman says is the number one killer of relationships, but it also keeps us close. If you're, if you're not a master in conflict resolution, it must be quite, you know, because you, you want to avoid conflict entirely. And then, or you don't know how to communicate in a way that's going to help you to resolve the conflict. It must be difficult.

• 42:36Speaker 03

  I'd say difficult, but then I would just always find a way of pushing, and obviously it's not right, which I've now figured out about myself. I would change things. I would stop doing things.

• 42:47Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  To try and make my partner happy.

• 42:49Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  So I'm then changing myself. I'm not being my true authentic self. Because yes, I'm avoiding the conflict and everything, but in doing so, I've stopped doing what I want to do or what I like. Just to then always keep everything nice and happy.

• 43:03Steven Bartlett?

  And then you'll resent.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 43:05Steven Bartlett?

  That's where the contempt shows up.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:06Steven Bartlett?

  Because you think, fuck, I'm not doing this for you and I'm not doing this.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  But then I wouldn't even speak about that.

• 43:12Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  So I'll just sit there, silence, like, why am I mad? Why, what's going on in my head? Like, why am I feeling this? What's going on? Yeah, because I've changed and I'm doing everything just to try and keep being happy.

• 43:25Steven Bartlett?

  And you've solved that?

• 43:26Speaker 03

  I don't think you'd ever solve anything. You, I'm learning, you know? It's interesting. What did I hear the other day about, you know, we spend more time as people studying other people. What you wear, what you study, how you act, how you behave than actually spending time studying ourselves. And so I'd say over the last two and a half years or since going to therapy, I'm studying myself more. So those patterns, those learning how to communicate better or what I do.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Which will then help me in a relationship moving forward, hopefully.

• 44:04Steven Bartlett?

  When you look back at your football career.

• 44:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:08Steven Bartlett?

  Big smile on your face.

• 44:11Steven Bartlett?

  A really, really amazing career. You're very much considered a legend in the game. Why do you think you were successful at football? When you look back, what was it about you and your character that separated you from those, you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of other people you were competing with to play for England or to play for Arsenal?

• 44:32Speaker 03

  I think it goes back to the cage, first of all. For me, football was just always, it was a escape and a happy place. And I was scared to always lose that.

• 44:43Speaker 03

  So I, yeah, even though like I went on what 140 caps for England. And then there'd be people like, yeah, you're the first name on a team sheet. You're a favorite. I played every game for England, kind of with that fear that it could be taken away. This could be my last game. Like, what if I don't get picked next week? What, what am I gonna do? Like, it's all I've ever known in my life.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  I know I wasn't the most talented. Like, I wasn't. There was people that were supposed to be at the top and make it. They were the next best thing in women's football. No one ever spoke about me like that in terms of growing up in the Arsenal team. I was, oh, I, I was Al that grew up in East London, you know, I loved Arsenal. That's how everyone viewed me. I just loved the club, you know, because for me it was a home. But no one ever spoke that I was gonna make it. But I suppose that's where I just wanted people to believe in me, you know? So it was like, I will do everything to prove to you, you know, I've got something. Just look at me, I've got something. I love this place. So I think it was driven by that, really.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  And a feeling of not wanting to let people down, even though they didn't believe in me.

• 45:54Steven Bartlett?

  How did that manifest in terms of your training and your, your performance and your preparation? And your, there I guess, your obsession?

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Trying to be the best that I can be every day.

• 46:03Steven Bartlett?

  In every training session?

• 46:04Speaker 03

  In every training session. Like I've been given an opportunity. How dare I turn up to training and not leave giving it my all? Or come into training and be like, I don't fancy it today. Like I'm so lucky. If I would have come from a council estate or a concrete football pitch and now I get to walk in at Highbury or be at the Arsenal men's training ground, you know, it's like,

• 46:28Speaker 03

  who am I? So I'd be like, no, I don't fancy it today. Like I just, I just loved what it was giving me in my life.

• 46:36Steven Bartlett?

  It's funny, we often think of, we ask motivated people, we say, how do you stay motivated? But when you, you look under the hood, it tends to be less of a choice than we think, in the sense of it's not like I'm waking up and going, I'm going to be motivated, looking in the mirror and going, come on, we've got this. It's more, it's more, sometimes as you described, like an escape from something else, like.

• 46:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:55Steven Bartlett?

  And we don't think of motivation as escapism all the time or insecurity, but it so often is.

• 47:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. I just knew what football has given me in my life. Something that, you know, I had dreams, but never dreamed that I'd be able to travel the world. Or, you know, I remember in the youth age groups, getting on a minibus to go into Nottingham. You know, like, where is this place? Didn't even know this place existed in the UK, you know? And here I am on a minibus, eating a sandwich for a packed lunch, you know? I've been out the house all day. It's like, great. I didn't want to let go of that. Playing for England, I got to go on an aeroplane, I got to go to China. What? Oh my gosh, I didn't even know how many hours on a plane that was. You know, all those things were just feeding more. I knew it was more than football, but football was allowing me that platform to see things and learn things about the world that I know was making me even more hungry to keep it.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  And to keep that, I needed to keep doing well at football.

• 47:50Steven Bartlett?

  And you end up retiring at, what, thirty-three, thirty-four? You quit the international team at thirty-three, quit Arsenal at thirty-four? If football was giving you all of, all that you've described there. How did it feel to come to the end of

• 48:04Steven Bartlett?

  your time with Arsenal and the England team?

• 48:07Speaker 03

  Because I was learning more. I was learning more about the world and from other people. And actually, then I knew towards the end of my football career,

• 48:18Speaker 03

  it was giving me those feelings that I didn't want, the heaviness. And actually, a feeling, this is not enough for me anymore. Not a feeling of being trapped, trapped is the wrong word.

• 48:30Speaker 03

  But there, it was, it was heavy towards the end of my career. I was taking on a lot of emotions, responsibility. I was captain. But in terms of, I don't know, I've always been this person where is people can offload all their emotions on me. So I'd do that, I'd take that home, I'd try and solve a lot of problems on and off the pitch. And I just, I wasn't happy anymore. In my last couple of seasons. Well, I didn't know. I remember doing a documentary about mental health. And the doctor, Tanya Byron is her name. She described it to me so well. I, I didn't know. I was like a functional depressive this whole time. And that started in those later years of my footballing career.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  But I didn't know, I didn't know how to describe it or what I was feeling. You know, I was just turning up, I wasn't happy, it was heavy. Taking on everyone's emotions, management, players, trying to fix everything. And then I'd be home in the evening and be like, whoa, I don't want to talk to anyone. Like I physically couldn't talk to anyone, which are those patterns? Then I'd swish off from the world. If you try and phone me, call me, it wouldn't pick up. Mum, yeah, I'm okay, don't want to have a conversation because everything was just then heavy. No one in football knows that because I could go to football, I'd put on a face. Like I'm Alex, like, yeah, everything's great. Leader, captain, great. But then I knew I couldn't do it anymore. I did a TV show, Bear Grylls.

• 49:56Speaker 03

  And that was the first time I knew I was ready to retire from football.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  I was surrounded by different people, different conversation about life, other than being in a football bubble where everything you're consumed by, you think everything's just sport going on in the world, where I know I've always needed more. I know that's what's always been the spark in me about life. And it was the first time I started having conversations about the world, about other people's lives. I'd sit under the stars. It sounds like some Hollywood movie, but every night for survival, we had like a stint that we had to keep the fire alight on Bear Grylls. And I remember just sitting there keeping the fire alight, looking up at the stars and we're like, I'm ready for my next chapter. Like I know there's another chapter. And it was just being brave enough to then take it.

• 50:47Steven Bartlett?

  And how did you know that that would be in media? Or did you not know?

• 50:52Speaker 03

  I didn't know, no. I think I was, I was always frustrated from being away with England or even in Boston, that I'd see a teammate, full of personality, life and soul, just this bubblyness about him, get asked a question or being interviewed straight after a game, and go in themselves. And I'd be confused. I'd be like, what are you doing? That's not you. Like, I didn't understand. So I remember just randomly asking one of the camera guys, like, oh, let me interview her after. Let me just ask some questions. And then straight away doing that. And then seeing a teammate relax. And then everyone saying to me, Alex, you know, you're natural. And I'm like, what's a natural? I'm just asking some questions.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  Like, I don't get it. So you don't, same thing when people be like, oh, you sit in front of a camera and talk. Same, I don't think about the millions. Maybe that's why I'm not sat there in that frozen state in fear, looking at cameras. Because for me, the conversation is what feeds me. I like seeing people relax and be fun. So I just started doing more of it. And then I was like, right, scared about the next chapter after football. I was like, what am I gonna do? People were trying to push me into management and I was like, it's not me. I don't have a passion to be a manager, not at this stage. I've not seen myself in that role. And I was like, no, I need to do something that I love, that I get a passion and the energy from.

• 52:14Speaker 03

  And so that's why I did a media degree. I was like, right, if I'm gonna do this, I know that I'm gonna be judged. You know, and I don't like the feeling of anything just being given to you. So I'm like, no, I'm gonna work for it. Just like I had to do my football career, I'll work for it. I'll do a media degree. So went and did that whilst I was still playing for Arsenal. And yeah, decided that in twenty eighteen, I was ready. I felt ready. I had a two-year contract on the table from Arsenal to sign. That's the comfort zone, the comfort blanket, that I could have easily taken that. I'm still trying to pay my mortgage. I suppose most of my life is that the fear of not having money to pay my bills and the debt man knocking on the door.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  Like I grew up seeing him come around every Thursday, you know, that fear. But I was like, no, I can't sign that contract. I know how unhappy I will be.

• 53:08Steven Bartlett?

  Did you have an alternative at that point? Did you have a contract from?

• 53:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 53:13Steven Bartlett?

  No?

• 53:14Speaker 03

  Nothing there.

• 53:15Steven Bartlett?

  So what, what is that gap that, you know, I think about like monkeys swinging through a, through a jungle, you've got to let go of the last branch and just have faith that you're gonna grab the next one.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:24Steven Bartlett?

  What was that period like in your life where you don't sign the contract and then you're looking for your next thing?

• 53:31Speaker 03

  Because I suppose I've always had the fear, or a lot of people, what if it doesn't work out? Well, actually, I suppose I've always been the opposite. What if it does work out?

• 53:40Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  I don't wanna be held back in fear of, no, just in case. So it was more like, I knew the headspace that I was in, I couldn't sign that two-year contract. It'd be unfair. It'd be unfair to myself. It'd be unfair to my teammates because I'd just be turning up to collect, you know, my monthly salary at the end, which isn't a lot. Nothing like men or whatever, but it was enough to be secure and pay my mortgage monthly. But I know I couldn't do it. It was unfair.

• 54:10Steven Bartlett?

  When did your first broadcasting job emerge then after that?

• 54:13Speaker 03

  It's weird because I was doing random stuff for BBC, like appearing on a like women's football show or something. And it's when I announced my retirement, that's when it just went, okay. It's like I was free and then people are like, well, she's free to do more. She's got more hours in her day, like she can actually start doing some work. And then from BBC, yeah, they started offering me more. I was appearing on some of their flagship flagship shows, Football Focus or kind of those ones. And then, yeah, I suppose twenty eighteen for me was that year when, because then I went off to the World Cup twenty eighteen, the first female pundit for the BBC. And I suppose from there, then it continued.

• 54:54Steven Bartlett?

  You talk about coming home um one day through that period, and this is the the part where you start talking about this function functional or functioning depression.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 55:03Steven Bartlett?

  And you talk about um looking at yourself in the mirror and then taking a walking past it, taking a couple of steps back and looking at yourself in the mirror.

• 55:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:10Steven Bartlett?

  Um.

• 55:12Steven Bartlett?

  Tell me about that day, that evening, what happened and you end up like collapsing and, you know, having a bit of a moment.

• 55:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Do you know, I remember that like it's yesterday.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I keep going back to the word heavy, I think, because that's straight away, I I feel it.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  I didn't know, well, I know I did, that I was carrying a lot. I'd carried a lot through my football career, which I didn't really know. I was just doing it all, trying to solve everything. Straight away, I took that into my broadcasting career. And like all these great things that, yes, I'm the first this, I'm the first that. I never set out to be that. I was just following something that I love, that I had a passion for. Um. And then so all the stuff and I suppose the pressure that came with that. I didn't know, I wasn't putting it on myself, but the expectation for me, the expectation I was putting on myself was not to let anyone down. Like I'd been given a chance. Like I can't let my BBC boss down. Like I've got this person that's finally believing in me. He's given me an opportunity to go to a men's World Cup. Like this is big. Like, so I

• 56:21Speaker 03

  was working so much, doing so much, not to let anyone down. And then ultimately on top of that, as you're becoming the first, as I'm the first female, all the negative stuff that come with that. All the trolling, all the online abuse, all of that. Like, just got to a stage where I just, I couldn't take it anymore. Like, I'd been numbing everything, just carrying on. I can't show I'm weak. If I show I'm not strong, if I show my weakness, then the only thing I can't handle it. Oh, no, here she is. Look, a female can't handle it. It's too much for her.

• 57:02Speaker 03

  So all of this, I'd just been bottling and just carrying on, putting on this face, like everything's okay.

• 57:09Speaker 03

  And then that night was when it all got too much. I didn't wanna come home. I was drinking to switch off, to sleep, to numb it all, to forget about it. And I just got to a stage where I'd had a dad filled with drink. An uncle passed away, was an alcoholic. It's like drink problem and alcohol has been huge in my life. And here I was, repeating those same patterns.

• 57:41Speaker 03

  Drinking every night to switch off from the world.

• 57:44Steven Bartlett?

  After work?

• 57:45Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:46Steven Bartlett?

  So you'd be presenting on TV and then you'd come home and?

• 57:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, to switch off from it all, switch off from just life. Switch off from not talking to someone. Don't wanna speak because then I'd have to speak about emotions and the heaviness continues, right? If I don't speak about it, it's great, it's gonna go away. If actually it doesn't, it just gets bigger and bigger. And I think it was, we go back to how you said about Christmas and New Year. It was that I was on my own because it was my choice, wanted to escape everything, the feelings. And then just being so sad, so sad.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  And I was like, I can't continue like this.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  So I was at choice in that moment, the next day, to Google therapy.

• 58:40Steven Bartlett?

  What happened that night?

• 58:41Speaker 00

  Just couldn't stop crying, could not stop crying, drinking, then the drinking wasn't switching off what was going on in my head. Just numb, just, I was literally on my bed curled up, just uncontrollably crying. And I don't know why, I don't know why I was crying the way I was.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  And why, why should I be crying? Cause from the outside, I should, I'm okay. I've had amazing football career, I'm now working on TV, I can still pay my bills. Like, why should I be sad from the outside world? Who am I to be sad? I've got everything going for me, right? Couldn't understand it.

• 59:22Steven Bartlett?

  You understand it now?

• 59:24Speaker 00

  I understand, yeah. That for so, all my life, I'd locked up all these feelings that I didn't know. Like I said, they eventually find its way out.

• 59:39Speaker 00

  But I've had all these, I've had all this trauma. Everyone has trauma, whether big, small, everyone goes through trauma. And I suppose I'd put up all this protective walls around me. And then now they're just flooding out, like I needed help.

• 59:56Steven Bartlett?

  How did the trolling online exacerbate, make all of this stuff worse? And like, be honest with you, you know, we all pretend that that doesn't affect us.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:00:07Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. No, that's so easy when people say, I don't read it, forget about it. Like, but when constantly, every day, and yes, my job to sit in front of a camera. But the abuse of, you know, your skin colour, what you're saying, just everything, the pure hatred.

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  And I'm like, what, what have I done? That was some of the, like, what have I done? Like, should I just stop? Cause ultimately, I was just talking about something that I love. You know, I was just someone that worked super hard to then try and go and get a degree, to get into this world, to get another job. You know, to be able to pay my bills and look after myself. And here I am getting nothing but pure hate and abuse every single day.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  And I got to say, I'm like, can't do this anymore.

• 1:01:05Speaker 03

  But why? Like, who, why should I let them win? You know, so I'm fighting this battle constantly every day with myself.

• 1:01:13Steven Bartlett?

  Did that make it harder to like really love showing up at work every day?

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  No, do you know why? Because like the football cage, the actual work being on screen was an escape. It gave me like an hour and a half where I'm doing Super Sunday. That was an escape. I was actually, you forget about everything. It's straight away when I'm going home. Once again, then I'm on my own. That's when it all spirals out of control. Like, I can't take it. Functional depressive. Like, at work, I'm totally fine. Put on the walls, like I'm doing the work, enjoying it, loving it. And then straight away, then I can't take it.

• 1:01:52Speaker 03

  Hence why most probably I threw myself into more work. Didn't give myself time off. Work, work, work, because I'm loving doing it. Keep it coming, keep it coming.

• 1:02:01Steven Bartlett?

  It's a distraction, isn't it?

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Steven Bartlett?

  It's a distraction from just sitting with oneself and confronting.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Steven Bartlett?

  I see this so much in so many people I know, this, oh, I just make myself so busy that I won't have to actually deal with stuff.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:02:14Steven Bartlett?

  It's almost like, it's almost like, um, I sat here with Maisie Williams and she, she'd been through a lot when she was younger and her, with her father, Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones, the actor. And, um, she talked about how acting was her escape. And the interesting thing is, when, when we in work and in, I guess, in acting, we kind of get to disassociate from our, our, our true self, our identity. Like, we become this character. Like, even me now.

• 1:02:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Steven Bartlett?

  This is obviously not, you know, I'm being as authentic as I can, but I'm also trying to be a fucking host of a podcast here, right? So like, when I go upstairs and I'm on my own, that's my truest self, obviously, when the camera's on or whatever. But it is, it's like, this is our work is our escapism. It's, we get to, we're playing, especially when you're presenting, you are, you know, you're

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Steven Bartlett?

  High pitched and you're like, I don't know. So, um, it's funny, I've seen it a lot in some of my really close friends, that work is their way of distracting themselves from their life.

• 1:03:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:06Steven Bartlett?

  Just getting past today.

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  But you know what? Maybe for me, I suppose, maybe I didn't learn that part because actually what you see on screen is actually me. Like, I didn't learn how to either be this presenter or be a different form of myself. So I've always given, just, it's just me.

• 1:03:24Steven Bartlett?

  But who's the person at home?

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  Is the person that had dealt with all this trauma and done stuff, but had like I hadn't.

• 1:03:32Steven Bartlett?

  That's what I'm saying. It's like so on on TV, there's this expectation for you to be a certain way. Right. Which is you've got to be at least, you can't be sat there talking like this. You've got to be a little bit up and you've got to be more a little bit more interested than maybe you you might be feeling. But but when you go home on that that night in particular, that's probably actually you.

• 1:03:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Steven Bartlett?

  Cause there's no camp, there's no one watching. That's when there's no distraction. And I think that sometimes we are who we are when we're least distracted.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Steven Bartlett?

  When there's no phone, there's no nothing. Go put us in a jungle and sit there for an hour, you'll find out who you are.

• 1:04:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:06Steven Bartlett?

  So like. When you are, when you were alone.

• 1:04:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:11Steven Bartlett?

  And when you are alone and when there is no distraction.

• 1:04:16Steven Bartlett?

  Who are you now?

• 1:04:19Steven Bartlett?

  Can I ask, are you in a relationship? Cause this is quite.

• 1:04:22Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:04:22Steven Bartlett?

  You're not in a relationship.

• 1:04:23Speaker 03

  I'm dating.

• 1:04:24Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, you're dating. Okay, you're you're dating.

• 1:04:28Speaker 03

  I didn't want to put a label on it.

• 1:04:30Steven Bartlett?

  Here we go. Here's the trauma. You don't want to let you don't want to commit. That's a toxic trait. So you're dating, you're not in a relationship, but you're dating.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Steven Bartlett?

  Okay. So I'm just trying to figure out if you're going home alone.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  I say, yes, I am.

• 1:04:45Steven Bartlett?

  Okay. What do you like now when you when you're in that space alone? And what's the journey been like of like being alone, undistracted?

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 1:04:54Steven Bartlett?

  Now.

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Steven Bartlett?

  Have you always loved it?

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  I know what those moments have given me in my life. But maybe because I was clouded by a lot of stuff going on, I was scared to be in those moments. Where actually I think about the best moments that I feel now are my most quiet moments. So I have this special place in Portugal and I always escape to it. Because why I love nothing more than getting up in the morning and going on a hike in nature. And I feel I come alive, like the thoughts that enter my brain about life or what I want to do or where I want to go. Like it fills me with so much energy. So I love those moments. I love going away. I go alo- um away a lot on my own.

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  And people can't get their head around it. Are you going on vacation on your own? I'm like, yeah. Cause I need it. I know what it gives me.

• 1:05:46Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  So like, I would say those moments I love. I need it to recharge and refocus sometimes.

• 1:05:55Steven Bartlett?

  Were you ever the person that didn't want the party to end or didn't want work to end?

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:01Steven Bartlett?

  You were that person?

• 1:06:01Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:02Steven Bartlett?

  I had a suspicion you might have been.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  I suppose this is my, my lever trait, those scales that I love this end. I love connection. I love people, the energy that it gives me. And then also love the other side of it. I need to be alone sometimes, like not speak, not have the conversation. Just literally be in my own thoughts.

• 1:06:22Steven Bartlett?

  I say this because the friends that I've got closest to me that struggled the most with unaddressed issues were always the ones that never, so say one night out, a couple of drinks, one or two, I'm like, ah, I'm done. They would always want to continue. And it was, it was this interesting observation that you'd, and people listening will know this friend. They do not want people to go home. They do not want the, you know, they want to have one more drink. And then they have, I think someone's referred to me before as like the fear either upon sobering up or having to go home alone at the end of the night.

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:56Steven Bartlett?

  And I, I sat here with a, with a guy that kind of explained that to me, but I was just curious if that was ever you at all.

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  It's not the, that I want to, I love nothing more than seeing people have a good time.

• 1:07:09Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  That in those moments, I often forget that I need to have a good time.

• 1:07:13Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:07:14Speaker 03

  Like I'm trying to make everyone have a good time. Do you need a drink? I'm gonna go get you a drink. Let's go out for food. Let's do this. I'm planning your biggest thing.

• 1:07:20Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:07:21Speaker 03

  And I've never planned anything to celebrate my own stuff because that's what I love seeing in other people. So it's not a fear of like, I want you to keep staying out or keep giving you a drink. It's just, I'm loving seeing you have a great time. And that makes me so happy.

• 1:07:35Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:07:37Steven Bartlett?

  The trolling stuff.

• 1:07:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Steven Bartlett?

  I, there's no, there's nothing more toxic than football Twitter. It's just the cess, it's like a cesspool of like negativity and anonymity and everyone's display picture is some footballer from their favourite club and they just say whatever. People will just say whatever. I've, I just don't post on Twitter anymore.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I'm kind of the same.

• 1:07:57Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, what, what happens on my Twitter, if you look at it, it's just the podcast clip goes out and that's it.

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:02Steven Bartlett?

  Cause you can't back it.

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:04Steven Bartlett?

  I don't wanna be baited into some shit. But in your job, it's, it's almost part of the job to be on Twitter and to have a voice and to be comment like, you know, I see, see it with the pundits like Gary and Jake Humphries and all, they.

• 1:08:16Speaker 03

  Always.

• 1:08:17Steven Bartlett?

  It's part of the job to kind of.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. I would say it's part of the job for them or, but I would say to the extent that what I've gone through with it is maybe they haven't experienced that level. And I think I remember Jake Humphries saying as well, like he hasn't, or he couldn't believe the stuff that was coming my way.

• 1:08:37Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:37Speaker 03

  And you wouldn't until you're going through it or actually see it. Like, and I suppose I, I hid it for so long. Like I tried to hide it for so long because I was scared of being seen as being weak, not strong enough to deal with it all.

• 1:08:52Steven Bartlett?

  Did you have anxiety?

• 1:08:55Speaker 03

  Yes, of the fear of what might happen to me to that extent. Like because the abuse then would turn into death threats also to the fact is that I am going home alone. You know, what, what happens there? Like we've seen in the past of, you know, some presenters, what's happened? Stalking, all of that stuff. So all of that anxiety goes through my head. Like I wanna just be safe. Like I'm just going to work.

• 1:09:27Steven Bartlett?

  Did you have stalkers?

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  Wouldn't say stalkers, no. But in terms of the death threats and everything, that's when, and then I suppose that's when I don't tell my mum, don't tell anyone. So actually then I'm dealing with all of this on my own.

• 1:09:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's a lot.

• 1:09:41Steven Bartlett?

  That day, so the day after the you're crying on your bed, you don't know why you're crying.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Steven Bartlett?

  It's uncontrollable. And you you said the next morning you Googled therapy.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  Therapy, yeah, yeah. Do you know what, I laugh because people, when people had spoken to therapy, I've had conversations about it in the past, like straight away, I would screw up my face and be like, well, no one can tell me about myself. I know myself, like what they're gonna do, they don't know about my life. Like, that would be the attitude for me for therapy. Until that day where I Googled it, one, I didn't even know what to look for. All this long list came up of all these different therapies. I'm like, what do I need? I just need to talk to somebody. And then, yeah, then ended up Googling someplace that was close to where I live. Went there and it was everything that I thought therapy would be, like that feeling of someone sitting there and just saying yes and no to me.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  And I was like, no, this is not gonna work for me. Like, I'm that person. I need someone to be brutally honest with me. Like, the saying yes or no is not gonna, it's not what I need to hear.

• 1:10:42Steven Bartlett?

  Were you scared when you um you went for that first therapy session? Like, you've Googled a place close to you, you don't, you don't, haven't had a recommendation.

• 1:10:48Speaker 03

  Walking up to some, knocking on some door.

• 1:10:51Steven Bartlett?

  To a stranger and being like, are you ready?

• 1:10:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so uncomfortable, so uncomfortable. And then went home, the same thing. It's like, this is not gonna work. Am I gonna stay in this dark place? Get out some wine, let's drink, let's numb it all. That that experience didn't happen. But then actually, then something in my brain was like, no. And then something clicked that I'd heard about this place, Sporting Chance. Actually, I need to reach out to them, see if these people can help me. And then straight away, within a day, someone had come back to me. Saying, we found this guy, go and see him. And the moment, Stephen, I walked into the room with him, I knew he was the guy.

• 1:11:33Speaker 03

  He was the person.

• 1:11:35Steven Bartlett?

  How did you know?

• 1:11:36Speaker 03

  How he spoke to me. It was no bullshit. He's character.

• 1:11:43Speaker 03

  And you know, I almost felt strange is that I've had this relationship, strange relationship with men my whole life. But then I actually tend to gravitate back to that kind of form. Like, and here he was, this big man telling me and making me see myself in a way, pushing me to see myself in a way that maybe I've been scared to do before.

• 1:12:06Speaker 03

  And not allowing me to just be like, yeah, no, I don't want to talk about that. No, yeah, that's okay. And just seeing me and knowing it's not okay.

• 1:12:15Steven Bartlett?

  This was what, two, three years ago, almost, two, two and a half, three years ago?

• 1:12:18Speaker 03

  Uh huh. He made me start seeing that some of it isn't my responsibility. The guilt that I'm carrying my whole life, the heaviness.

• 1:12:29Speaker 03

  Making me see it in all a different way, making me see myself and learn about myself in a different way, why I've done things the way that I have, to understand the patterns, to understand my patterns when I need help. And that it's okay to ask for help. It's not weak, it's not a weakness. Even, we talk about like the heavy stuff, but even it's the nice stuff. Wanting someone to say, no, I'm gonna pay for this instead of me. Like, I always, I'm the first to try and pay for everyone. Because I just want everyone to be happy, you know, like, I've treated you to a meal, like, it's all good. Sometimes that awkward feeling, don't like it. Actually, no, just being like, okay, yeah, thank you. I appreciate that you're gonna buy me dinner tonight. No, it's okay, learning that.

• 1:13:15Steven Bartlett?

  Why was that a struggle?

• 1:13:17Speaker 03

  Because you're just kind of, it's just, when I just hate awkwardness. Or like, now I found myself that I can pay my bills and I've, you know, earned some more, that I can take care of people. Also, so I'm trying to take care of you where actually.

• 1:13:34Speaker 00

  I'm not earning that money when we're talking about men's football or women's football, even in TV now, like I'm earning a salary. So actually, what am I doing? I'm trying to pay for everyone. Like, I'm not actually, I'm not made of money.

• 1:13:48Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:48Speaker 00

  But it's just that feeling that I can, like I can treat you, like it's good.

• 1:13:53Steven Bartlett?

  I guess if you spend your life like trying to help everybody else and make everyone else happy.

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:57Steven Bartlett?

  It's coming at the cost of something, coming at the cost of your own happiness often. And that is difficult. You're what, you're two and a half, two and a half years on now. When you, when you reflect back on, you know, that, that, the person you were at eighteen years old.

• 1:14:12Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:14:15Steven Bartlett?

  Or in your early, you know, years go, you know, playing for Arsenal in England.

• 1:14:21Steven Bartlett?

  If you could go back and just have a chat with her.

• 1:14:25Steven Bartlett?

  And she would believe every word you said.

• 1:14:28Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:28Steven Bartlett?

  What would you say to her?

• 1:14:32Speaker 00

  That you're gonna be all right.

• 1:14:41Speaker 00

  That you're gonna be okay.

• 1:14:47Speaker 00

  But at the same time, I almost wouldn't change any of it.

• 1:14:54Speaker 00

  Because I feel like I've been through or so much that has taught me so much and I'm so grateful for the lessons.

• 1:15:07Speaker 00

  So ultimately, I'd tell her that she's gonna be okay, but you're gonna go through some stuff.

• 1:15:16Speaker 00

  But it's gonna make you even stronger, but in a different way.

• 1:15:23Steven Bartlett?

  Why would she need to hear those words about you're gonna be all right? Because those aren't the words that

• 1:15:30Steven Bartlett?

  most people would say to the younger self. Why would, why would young eighteen year old Alex need to hear those words?

• 1:15:36Speaker 00

  Because I suppose it was always just a feeling of fear and worry.

• 1:15:46Speaker 03

  So even though things might be going okay in your football career, or you know, you've finally earned some money to pay for something, there's always just you're living in a worry all the time. So it's able, instead of just rushing on to the next or thinking what next, be more present in that moment, you're gonna be okay. So just take it in. I think there's a lot I've not taken in.

• 1:16:12Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. How do you feel about your, your career in terms of what you've achieved? Everyone looking at you must think Alex has an unbelievable success. She's

• 1:16:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:21Steven Bartlett?

  smashed everything. She must be just over the moon.

• 1:16:27Speaker 03

  I, I find it hard.

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  I suppose a lot of people do, right? To hear the good stuff.

• 1:16:36Speaker 03

  Like, yeah, like I've, I've done all right. Like from one career, made it into this career. But I, I suppose I'm scared to always just sit there because it can be taken away. It can end. So I'm always thinking, no, I need to be better. My next show, I need to study my lines. I can't mess up. I need to be better. So there's always that of I'm letting someone down. So I don't think I've ever sat and taken it all in. What, what have I done? I have great, like I've managed to play for England. And now what I sit on TV and have a conversation. I suppose that I don't take it in.

• 1:17:17Speaker 03

  When people now come up to me in the street, I, I understand more. I would say I didn't understand before, but now I'm starting to understand.

• 1:17:26Steven Bartlett?

  Do you feel like you're a success?

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  It depends. How do you define success? What does success look like?

• 1:17:31Steven Bartlett?

  That's the great thing. Are you a success in your own eyes?

• 1:17:36Speaker 03

  Yes. Not because of my work or that stuff. Goes back to your question that, you know what, I'm, I've done okay. From the kid on that council estate that only had the concrete football cage, like

• 1:17:53Speaker 03

  you've managed to do something when a lot of people, kids from those areas, they have an expectation that you're not amount, not supposed to amount to much. So in my eyes, I've been a success for those reasons.

• 1:18:12Steven Bartlett?

  Are you happy?

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:17Speaker 03

  I'm still learning to be more happy, to be honest. I think I've always been kind of happy go lucky person. Like, I feed off positivity, wanna hear the good things. It's, you know, if you've got energy or sap around you, like, it dr- it drains me. I'm that sort of person. So I kind of navigate to the people that see life in a certain way and wanna have certain conversations. And I'm starting to, yeah, look at that and be more happy, be how, celebrate something. Not big milestones, maybe just little things. You know, it doesn't always have to be the big things, but taking those moments and, yeah.

• 1:18:56Steven Bartlett?

  If, if your happiness was this list of ingredients and you looked at it and thought, well, maybe there's one ingredient missing for me to, for the recipe to be perfectly balanced, what would that ingredient be?

• 1:19:07Speaker 03

  I would say it's finally accepting love.

• 1:19:12Speaker 03

  I think I've always been scared. But like I said, like I've been on a journey, not been in relationships for a while. For that reason, I knew that I had to do some, a lot of work on myself. Like, I've had people come into my life that wanna show me love, that wanna give it, but I've always had those walls up, no. Well, I think finally now I'm at a stage where I'm ready to let that in. And I think that's something that's been missing from my life.

• 1:19:41Steven Bartlett?

  And what do you want for the, from the next chapter of your life? What is the, you know, as you look forward and ten years from now, we say, oh god, that was a successful chapter. What happened?

• 1:19:53Speaker 03

  To be, I would say be more present in the moment. Really is. Like, it's weird because I don't ever look like five years or ten years. People's in terms of like my next job or anything, people are like, well, what show do you wanna be presenting in five years? I think I've always been, I'm, I'm quite spiritual, but I've never, like, I might have these small goals, but I'm also open to that, actually, I might go right a bit and it might, I might learn some lessons here to push me in that, or open to. That you might have an idea of that's my presenting goal, I need to be on that show. But actually, because I'm on this path, it might take me a totally different way. And I'm I'm okay with that. Same like the football decision. You know, do I sign a two year contract in my Arsenal career? Or actually, do I listen to how I'm feeling?

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  And it's taking me on a totally different path.

• 1:20:43Steven Bartlett?

  I wonder if there's a bit of like the survival mindset in there where like it's just okay, I hear this a lot like. I'm just trying to make sure I don't lose this shit to do my best today. So thinking about the future seems like a waste of energy because I want to make sure that, you know. Because because there's sometimes a fear in us of of of going back. And I think I think people that have come from harder times understand this a little bit more. I think maybe if I if you'd come from a privileged place, you wouldn't have, you wouldn't have ever had a fear of like. What happens if I lose this contract?

• 1:21:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:13Steven Bartlett?

  Because you can just, you know. Fall back on the safety net of your like parents mansion or whatever. But there's more of a like a fight in the moment I I see, which ends up, I think, as you've described it, like deferring our happiness. Because we're just trying to get through today. We're not enjoying it. We're just trying to fucking hold on here. You know?

• 1:21:31Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm scared of that. Yeah, like a fear of like losing that contract. But I also have a fear of standing still. Like just being okay, like being not just average. Like I always want to be better than I was yesterday.

• 1:21:47Steven Bartlett?

  But you must have dreams, but no.

• 1:21:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, like dreams of for me, like owning a house in the area that I am now. Because I know I love that area.

• 1:21:57Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:57Speaker 03

  So isn't dreams of like when I went into the TV career. Like there's a select group of people that I'm like, God, if I like get into that category. Like I know I've done all right, because that's how I view them like top class. Same like in if we're talking football terms, when you're playing for England, you're the best right back. You know, like I want to be in a category where I see those presenters that you know they are top class. Like, so I suppose I keep working towards trying to be seen at that level. Which I think for me is hard because I don't know honestly if I'd be viewed like that.

• 1:22:31Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 1:22:32Speaker 03

  Because I already have a perception around me that I have just been given a role.

• 1:22:43Speaker 00

  Right?

• 1:22:46Speaker 00

  That I'm ticking a box. So I think that perception now for a lot of people, like, that's always gonna stay with me, no matter how hard I work or have worked to get to where I am. That's kind of a perception.

• 1:23:03Steven Bartlett?

  Makes you upset, doesn't it?

• 1:23:05Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:11Speaker 00

  Cause I I've worked so hard. People can't, they see just sometimes the end process of it, or they don't see the actual, the whole process what actually taking you to get to that.

• 1:23:24Speaker 00

  Which like I'm fine with, but the fact that like, yeah, you're not respected for the work that you're doing or have been done, that's hard for me.

• 1:23:33Steven Bartlett?

  When you say people think you you're there because you're ticking a box, what box do they think you're ticking?

• 1:23:38Speaker 00

  Female, black, the quota.

• 1:23:44Steven Bartlett?

  Do you, why, do you carry that?

• 1:23:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Speaker 00

  Goes back to another thing that's heavy. It's been heavy.

• 1:23:53Speaker 00

  It continues to be every time a subject's brought up. Because maybe I've been that first to then breakthrough. It's like I am that spokesperson or, you know, we'll go to Alex, she needs to speak about this. So it's just, it's just always there, always. And it's like as if it's become my, it's me, it's my story. And I'm like, no, there's a whole lot to me, you know, going on in my life. I'm not just being trolled. But that's how now people would either just see me or all the abuse or, yeah, this.

• 1:24:28Steven Bartlett?

  I didn't see you like that.

• 1:24:29Speaker 00

  Thanks.

• 1:24:30Steven Bartlett?

  Didn't even write down trolling on here, I didn't, was was completely irrelevant to obviously who you are. So it's interesting that you're carrying that in your mind, but it didn't cross my mind today. I didn't even think we were going to talk about it today. Though I don't consider it to be part of your story.

• 1:24:47Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:24:49Steven Bartlett?

  Not even saying that to make you happy. Like, I just didn't think it was, it's not, it's not anything to do with you, is it? It's actually someone else's problem in every sense of the word.

• 1:24:58Speaker 03

  I suppose it's when you're getting phone calls every day about that, or straight away, that that's constantly everything that you read online.

• 1:25:08Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:08Speaker 03

  It's that.

• 1:25:09Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah. There's this interesting thing when you, when you represent an unrepresented community that it ends, it ends up becoming like your personal brand. So like, as you've said, oh, we need to talk about black issues or women issues in football. So microphone over to, and it, and, and it's, that's on one hand, the right thing to do because other people shouldn't really be speaking on those issues. But in another way, it's, um, it's kind of the wrong thing to do because it pigeonholes you as a, it reduces your identity, as you've said, down to just like black woman. When you are so much more, everyone else is allowed to be so much more.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:42Steven Bartlett?

  But, um, people don't really think about that. They think they're being kind or thoughtful or considerate.

• 1:25:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I suppose like in terms of, there's parts that I find it hard because like I said before, I also understand my responsibility more with it. Where before it was just, I was just finding a job. I'm just sitting on a sofa, having a conversation like, oh, this is great. Actually, what I didn't understand, me sitting on a BBC one show so far, a flagship programme for BBC, is actually doing for a lot of people. I didn't understand that until maybe there was one time that I'm riding back through East London. It's actually during the pandemic. I'd rode from like North London to East London to see my mum. And riding home, there was two black women on a park bench and they were shouting at me, Stephen. And I was like, well, what's going on here? What's going on? And I was like,

• 1:26:31Steven Bartlett?

  Like family.

• 1:26:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, basically pure joy that they'd seen me.

• 1:26:35Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:36Speaker 03

  And then they just told me, keep going. Nothing more. And I was like, wow. It touched me. Yeah. Because of all the stuff you see online, those two people on that park bench, I understood what I'm doing.

• 1:26:54Steven Bartlett?

  What's your relationship like these days with your father?

• 1:26:58Speaker 03

  I don't speak to him.

• 1:27:00Steven Bartlett?

  When was the last time you spoke to him?

• 1:27:03Speaker 03

  Twenty nineteen. And it wasn't a conversation, it was a text message. The last time I'd actually spoken to him was my nan's funeral in twenty seventeen. I remember standing on the balcony and wop him. It had some drink, but him telling me that he knows he's not been the person that he should have been. And he's carried a lot of regrets and he's gonna change. And I was already so distraught because my nan was one of the closest people in my life. But I remember just feeling like, I, I, I don't care. If you do, then great. I'd spent my whole life sending him Christmas presents, birthday presents, ringing him just to check in because I had this guilt that he would be lonely or.

• 1:27:49Speaker 03

  And then from that moment, I was like, no, I'm done. Like I didn't hear from him, so I'm not gonna chase him. Like, once again, it was just this, that. It's just all talk. Like, I'm over it.

• 1:28:04Speaker 03

  And then I was doing Strictly in twenty nineteen and I got to Blackpool. Strictly was like this bubble of happiness that at a stage in my, I just needed it and it gave me that, Strictly did. And then I remember I got to Blackpool and I was on the train on the way up, sitting next to Michelle Visage, who's this character, I'd never thought I'd have someone in my life like her and here I am, opposite ends, she's from New York, but we just had this connection. She was my person on Strictly.

• 1:28:33Speaker 03

  And she saw my phone flash and she's like, what the heck? What's that? She must have seen something in my face. And it was a message from my dad asking for tickets to come to Blackpool. I hadn't heard from him the ten weeks I was on the show. Um, and he asked for tickets.

• 1:28:49Speaker 03

  Not for him though, for to be with his friends where he lives. And you know what? I'd seen the Elton John film and I remember crying in the movie theatre because there was a part in that that I was like, jeez, that's how I feel. There was a part, um, Elton John, he was just trying to connect with his dad the whole time. And then there was one point where the dad reached out to him and was like, come around for dinner or something. And when he turned up, it was literally just for him to sign autographs. So there was no love or he didn't really want him to be. It was just to sign autograph for the kids he had around the house. And that's how I felt in that moment. Like it wasn't, you didn't care about me or ask how I was. All you want is strictly tickets for your mates.

• 1:29:34Speaker 03

  But I remember I had the courage to finally write back to him, that's wrong.

• 1:29:41Speaker 03

  And I think it must have touched him in a way because I'd never done that. Like if I was mad or felt angry about anything, would never tell my dad because I always still had that fear. Um, and so he must have known and then straight away you text back apologising that, oh no, it was just his way to try and connect with me to ask for tickets and they were really for him. And I was just, oh, this is just bullshit. And I've not spoken to him since.

• 1:30:07Speaker 03

  But I'm gonna have to. Uh, and I wanna speak to him.

• 1:30:15Steven Bartlett?

  You're not finished talking?

• 1:30:16Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:30:22Speaker 03

  It's on one hand, like I've done this book to free my mum.

• 1:30:28Speaker 03

  On the other hand, I'm scared that it could ruin my dad's life.

• 1:30:35Speaker 03

  And I don't want that.

• 1:30:44Speaker 03

  So I need to plug up some courage.

• 1:30:50Speaker 03

  Cause yeah, I need to tell him

• 1:30:53Speaker 03

  that I've wrote about stuff that's not gonna be comfortable for him.

• 1:30:59Steven Bartlett?

  We sit here on the

• 1:31:02Steven Bartlett?

  ninth of September.

• 1:31:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:03Steven Bartlett?

  What comes out in ten days from now, on the nineteenth of September.

• 1:31:10Steven Bartlett?

  Are you, are you thinking of speaking to him before the publication or after the publication?

• 1:31:14Speaker 03

  No, before. I think it'd be very wrong if it's just out there and I hadn't spoken to him.

• 1:31:23Speaker 00

  Like, I've not wrote the book. I I didn't write it to destroy his life or make him seem like this person. And I truly hope he's not that person anymore. Like, people change. So I don't want him to be judged on that in the past. Like, I want people to take him for who he is now.

• 1:31:46Speaker 00

  So I want him to understand that I've not wrote it from a place of being angry with him or that ultimately it's not about him. It's about wanting my mum to break free of it all.

• 1:32:04Steven Bartlett?

  Scary. I was just thinking a few things. I was thinking it's a it's a difficult conversation. And I've got to be honest, I there's a part of me that thinks, you don't owe him that.

• 1:32:15Steven Bartlett?

  This, this is my, look, it's not none of my business, but there's a part of me that thinks you just, you don't owe him that. It is, you've said it's not. It's your story. And it'll impact people you love, of course. And then, um, I think you have the right to speak on your own experiences, regardless of how that might make someone else, uh, uh, who's played that kind of role in your life feel. I just don't know. I just, you know, that's easy for me to say. He's not my dad. You know, I, I, you know, so but that's, that was what I was thinking.

• 1:32:48Speaker 00

  I think, yeah, that's gone back and forth in my mind. Like, I don't need to, right? He's not been there in my life. I would say you sitting there, having this conversation with me, you know me better than my dad.

• 1:33:00Speaker 00

  Like, he doesn't know anything about me. Can't describe me as a person. Doesn't really know what's gone on in my life. Doesn't know. So, yeah, I don't, I don't owe him that.

• 1:33:11Speaker 00

  But it's, I don't know, something in me, it's telling me it's the right thing to do for him. Like, it's my dad, I love him.

• 1:33:19Steven Bartlett?

  Did you ever understand the cycle that he's in that made him the way he is?

• 1:33:26Speaker 00

  No. And I think that's where I always think that something, like, he must feel the guilt and the sadness. You know, and that's why I've always, like, there's a good person in there.

• 1:33:39Speaker 00

  Like, something's gone on that's made him feel like this, or I don't know if it's me just making up a story in my head.

• 1:33:48Speaker 00

  I feel like I always saw that from a kid. Like everyone has good in them, you know.

• 1:33:55Speaker 00

  I'm still trying to pluck up the courage. It's coming around soon. I've got to do it.

• 1:34:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. I will do it. I will do it.

• 1:34:06Steven Bartlett?

  You finish this book by, um, writing a, a letter to your mother.

• 1:34:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. That was hard in the audio book. I'm not gonna lie.

• 1:34:14Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I can imagine.

• 1:34:15Speaker 00

  Spent that whole chat to crying.

• 1:34:18Steven Bartlett?

  Why, um, why did you want to end the book in that way?

• 1:34:24Speaker 00

  Because I hope the book shows her

• 1:34:31Speaker 00

  that I am me because of her.

• 1:34:35Speaker 00

  That she's an incredible woman. Everything that she's done has allowed me to be in the position that I am. And for her to understand that she doesn't have to be the strong one anymore. Like I, I'll do everything to look after her.

• 1:34:55Speaker 00

  And just to enjoy her life. Like she still has this life. You, you don't need to be trapped by the past anymore. She's still trapped by it.

• 1:35:05Speaker 00

  That, yes, like me taking her out for dinner or a theatre show, like to try and give her that happiness. Like I can only do so much. Like I, I'm hoping that letter sets her free.

• 1:35:19Speaker 00

  That's why.

• 1:35:23Speaker 00

  Stop looking at me. I don't want to cry anymore.

• 1:35:27Steven Bartlett?

  How am I gonna look?

• 1:35:31Steven Bartlett?

  No, it's, it's beautiful what you write about her. And it was actually, it's actually difficult to read it because it's so beautiful and it's so, it comes from such an authentic place. So I can't imagine what it's like having to say it in a booth into a microphone when you're doing the audio book. I can't imagine. Even reading the words were just so, you could feel that the words were so intentional. Every word you selected in that letter is so, um, so intentional. So it's, um, it's moving for someone that, you know, has never met your mother, but, um.

• 1:35:57Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:35:58Steven Bartlett?

  What an amazing daughter she has raised.

• 1:36:00Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:36:02Speaker 03

  Do you know, it does actually, it does actually make me smile. Going back to one of your questions about, I don't know, being proud or like even seeing you just have that book, like, that's my book.

• 1:36:12Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Speaker 03

  Like, I wrote my own book. Like, I didn't even go to school. Like, education, it was a struggle. Yeah, dyslexic, the speech, like, they're all there, all the problems in my life. But I actually just sat down on my laptop, laptop, and wrote that book. And like, you've just, like, you've got it there, like, I don't know, it still doesn't feel real. But I'm just like, yeah, I did that.

• 1:36:39Steven Bartlett?

  You did that.

• 1:36:40Speaker 03

  I did that.

• 1:36:42Steven Bartlett?

  Alex, we do have a closing tradition on this podcast.

• 1:36:44Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:36:45Steven Bartlett?

  Which is where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, and they don't know who they're writing it for.

• 1:36:51Speaker 03

  Oh. Mm hmm.

• 1:36:53Steven Bartlett?

  You will also be asked to do the same, which is leave a question for the next guest. And again, you won't know who that guest is, but, and I don't get to read it until, until the very end of the podcast. So, oh, okay, it's very, very easy to read.

• 1:37:07Steven Bartlett?

  What is

• 1:37:11Steven Bartlett?

  your deepest fear?

• 1:37:13Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:37:16Speaker 03

  That is a good one.

• 1:37:17Steven Bartlett?

  At the very core of you, what is your deepest fear?

• 1:37:25Speaker 03

  I think my deepest fear is my mum leaving this world and not experiencing happiness.

• 1:37:39Speaker 03

  That is the fear.

• 1:37:47Speaker 03

  Is that all right? Do you need more from me?

• 1:37:49Steven Bartlett?

  No, I was just thinking about it. It makes sense because you've explained, you've explained it, you've explained it that you've seen this kind of numbness in your mum to the world. And you're, it feels like you've been fighting to try and solve that.

• 1:38:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:02Steven Bartlett?

  And as you've said, this book is part of the solution in your eyes to liberate her from that.

• 1:38:07Speaker 03

  She just wanted to be happy, wanted to smile more, take your moments and just not think something's gonna happen. Just for her to have some happiness.

• 1:38:20Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think she has to go and walk some of the same steps that you've walked in terms of therapy and going back to do that?

• 1:38:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:30Speaker 00

  I don't know how hard that's gonna be for her because you're gonna bring up the rawness, the stuff that she's tried to push to the side, but ultimately I know it can free her.

• 1:38:46Steven Bartlett?

  But she has to have a willingness.

• 1:38:51Speaker 00

  Hopefully. I think that's, there's a power in there, isn't there? I think this is what I'm, I hope, when I keep saying about, I hope the book sets her free, because I know there's so many people that have gone through the same stuff as my mum. And I think maybe if she understands that and sees that, that they're free or they've come through things, that maybe she can start to be on that journey.

• 1:39:24Speaker 00

  So there's, there's a huge fear, the answer to the question, but ultimately I look forward and when I look forward, I see there's a light and I feel that's where I smile because I'm just hoping and I pray that that's where she's getting, that's where she gets to.

• 1:39:42Steven Bartlett?

  Alex, thank you.

• 1:39:43Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me. Thank you.

• 1:39:45Steven Bartlett?

  It's been an absolute pleasure. You're a wonderful person and I know this is just the start of our relationship. So yeah, thank you.

• 1:39:51Speaker 00

  Thank you, Stephen. Oh, someone get me a tissue.