Talia Mar’s Relationship With Sidemen’s Miniminter “We Didn’t Sleep Until 8AM On First Date!”

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0:27what was it about simon from the sidemen that led you to truly fall in love with him i never talk about this kind of thing we spoke the whole party i think we went to sleep at 8 a.m so then the wedding second best day ever second best day yeah what is best day ever hey guys hey guys hey guys it's talia welcome back to my channel

0:55I wanted to quit my job to do YouTube and music. All I did was that I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I didn't speak. My first ever paycheck was like pounds and I was so excited. But then I was diagnosed with anorexia and people would say I looked ill. That would really incentivize me. I'd be like, brilliant. That means it's working. That's when something just clicked. What am I doing? The world now knows you and Simon from the Sidemen are together. People are horrible. In my DMs, I hope you die. And how did Simon embrace your autism? It was one of the things he liked about me. How autism is presented in the media is not how I am.

1:39I think people forget that it's a spectrum. It presents differently in women. You've got the husband, the career, the child. How does that make you feel?

1:53All right. Before we dive in, a quick shout out to you for being here. If you're enjoying what we're doing, subscribing is an easy way to get notified when new episodes drop. It's totally free. By hitting that button, you'll be helping us grow this amazing community. Thanks again. Now let's welcome our next guest.

2:19can we talk about where you grew up yeah so where did you grow up so i grew up in south london okay but sutton is more my i guess my hometown um we have to stop for a second i was about to say i know i'm gonna say can we stop yeah can we give praise to sutton right now i was just like i saw that sutton united right that's right so rogue so rogue i saw that i was like there is no way sutton of all places like no one knows sutton that is wild isn't that wild i i invite you down to the mighty sutton united yeah so so so we share this i'm in sutton all the time now that is so rogue like honestly i don't even know how bizarre that is to me considering you're obviously you're from america so it's like sutton of all places it's wild that's my background but can we talk about the household in growing up so what was what was love oh my god what what did that feel like that is so deep um as a child i had a very friendship kind of relationship with everyone in my household in a good way um where like it was a very open very open line of communication like I knew what my parents were doing they knew what I was doing and I think that to me was what a family unit is is just like saying it as it is um being brutally honest and just keeping lines of communication open i don't think i genuinely hand on my heart can't think of a time that i've lied to my parents it was a nice way of communicating and it made the house feel quite free yes can i say i love that actually i think one of the biggest myths that parents perpetuate is when there's conflict yeah hide that from their child yeah also you see things if they argue you see it you hear it like right you can't hide it from a kid like kids know kids know they always know they always know so sometimes talking about it is like actually well we know you know and now you understand it a bit better right and you get a chance to see how do they deal with the conflict yeah and the fact that they had conflict but then they're still together yeah and so it teaches children conflict resolution skills yeah um so from that standpoint it's it's great do you feel like culture played a role because i know that you have italian heritage as well so did yes oh yes italians there is no secrets like very loud very honest sometimes to a fault like my mom's side of the family my mom's the italian one we are all very very close like my cousins are more like my sisters so everyone is very close everyone knows everyone's business so yeah it's everyone's open okay okay and also i would imagine so open household kind of loud household all right were your parents musicians or in music my dad was a drummer okay um i mean my mom can sing um she wasn't necessarily a musician but like we had a karaoke machine we had like we would sing together and i would sing at bedtime with my dad like that was always part of my routine growing up it was getting to bed sing a song go to sleep all right so music was a part of the household yeah okay what kind of music was in the household early on mostly r &b and hip-hop um that's all my parents listened to really a little bit like motown and soul um can i just one thing i just want to give it up for mama dad yeah honestly i'm so grateful fall for the music they brought me up on Motown R &B come on now yeah they did it right they did so the love of music that you had that that came early yeah from the get-go from the get-go from the get-go that was I didn't have a choice in that that was drilled into me from day one okay but now what about music was drilled in were you thinking singing um producing dancing all the above from day one i was always singing was just something i love doing like i don't remember a time where i didn't sing like my mom used to stop me like i there was this time she said i was walking in one of the supermarkets and i just stopped and i just started singing at people and she left to be like hey people don't that's not normal um but i'd stand until people stopped and listened to me i'd be like you will hear me sing and i was four like it's enough talia um but yeah I think it was singing that started it and then as I got older I my karaoke machine broke so I was like how am I going to sing if I don't play an instrument so I found an old guitar from Argos in our attic that had three strings and I sat there and I just looked on YouTube looked online and I just learned and all I did was play the guitar until I could play it so you taught yourself yeah yeah because i was like how else am i gonna sing if i don't have music my karaoke machine's broken i'm i'm screwed right so that just made sense to me and then from there yeah i learned guitar and then i picked up the piano at 13 were you already thinking i want to have a career in music or yes 100 was it i want to have a career or i want to be a star no it was I want to have a career in music my goal was to be an artist and to like tour the world and be able to sing my own songs I've written but I always said if if whether it means whether I'm singing on a boat whether I'm singing at a wedding whether I'm writing songs for other people like I just want music to be my life and the my source of income and you know what my career is and is that what led you to the brit school yeah okay yeah can you brag on the brit school a little bit i'm sure this will be easy for you but can you brag on the school a little i loved my time at brit like i i remember i begged my mom to go but i thought it was a paid for i thought it was a private school so my mom was like absolutely not like we cannot afford private school there's no way and then she looked into it and she was like actually tally you know it's free like you just have to audition and you just have to get a place and it was honestly I remember my first day there I got my schedule and it was music recording and performance studies ethnomusicology and I was like oh my god every lesson is music and I sat there and I cried like I just could not believe that it was a real thing so I have nothing but good words to say about that school it sounds like you didn't feel safe in the school environment no prior no what was it about the school environment prior i went to a grammar school an all-girls grammar school so it was very academic very um intelligence focused even my music teacher said to me our first day he said obviously none of you are going to actually have a job in music i was like what how are you starting with this like technically you have a job in music what do you mean like what and i was like well this is a good start but then you also mentioned you were severely yeah bullied it was quite bad um i mean my yearbook is defaced with like people wrote things over my face on my own yearbook um my i got invited to a party told his fancy dress was not well turned up as lady gaga that was fun um i always say i was movie bullied like you know what they do in like the american movies where like people like my guitar got broken where I like shoved in school lockers like it was that kind of thing um why do you think that's the case I mean clearly you know um children are bullied and adults are also bullied for a variety of reasons what do you think the reasons were that you were bullied I think people are especially kids they're really unhappy when they don't know what they want to do and someone else does know what they want to do I probably came across as having a level of confidence that one I didn't have and two they definitely didn't have because everyone knew I wanted to be a singer I wanted to do this and I think everyone at school was like I don't know what I want to do and it was probably just a way of being like just shut her up like that's enough also I was a little bit weird I definitely didn't present myself in the way that everyone else did I made myself somewhat of an easy target okay how did you present yourself I struggled with like eye contact talking to people like openly I ticked I had tics at school like I had vocal tics and people would be like why stop doing that like why are you making that noise I'm like oh my god they noticed like in my head I was like no one's gonna notice it's under my breath like I did everything I could to control it but I just could not stop um and I think people yeah they just thought oh she's weird okay so these are the children saying this yeah did you have any friends among that that social circle so I had no I had like moments where I had friends or I had someone who like would call me their friend and then it would kind of go downhill for various reasons or whatever and I had a group that was supposed to be my friendship group but those were the ones that wrote stuff on my yearbook so I don't know if I would class them as really good friends yeah so how do you think that that impacted how you showed up at that time I think I just got better at masking and like fake it till you make it has been my favorite saying phrase quote whatever you want to call it my whole life and the older I get the more I believe it and the more I hone in to that like one saying um I think that's probably what really really triggered it so that's why when you just mentioned you showed up uh looking like you were confident yeah I'm like that that was an act oh yeah yeah 100 yeah I definitely have confidence in areas and like I can be really confident but I think it comes from a place of well if I'm not confident this isn't going to go well so I'll fake it and then sometimes it slips into real confidence and you have a moment where you're like okay I think I got this and then you might return to planet earth okay so if you were to give 11 year old Talia advice who's in that environment that she hates what advice would you give her do you know what I don't know if I would I don't know if I would give her advice like because I think and that sounds horrible but I think one I would have listened to it because I was so set on the way that I was doing things and two it worked at the time and I think I came out pretty unscathed considering and I think if I said something to her I might change the course of everything but you're saying she wasn't fine then yeah i don't know what i would say to her sorry no but this is what i find interesting she wasn't fine then yeah what would have made her fine people being nice i'd speak to them you speak to them i speak to them i'd be like look it's enough she's having a hard day yeah but i don't know if there's anything i could have said to me that would have made it better i really don't know okay this is fair this is fair so at that time despite everything that was happening you still wanted to pursue music yeah that was your north star oh 100 yeah and now i could see when you got into the brit school how why you're so euphoric oh my god it was literally the best day ever now it makes sense yeah yeah now it definitely makes sense yeah so you get into this safe space where music is a career but then also I would imagine your social circle changes yeah okay how so so I ended up having a friend who was like my best friend and that was the first time I'd ever experienced having like a best friend and it wasn't like a toxic friendship um so it was really nice it was such a break from what I'd experienced before yes how old were you when you when you had your 16 16 yeah so at 16 you get your first best friend yeah all right at 16 had you had any romantic relationships yet very very no very no very no i was terrified of that very no very no it just it just didn't make sense to me it just didn't it just didn't i never wanted to get married i never wanted to have kids hilarious sat here now but like it was just never on my radar.

15:38Okay. So what was fun for you then at 16? Writing songs, producing. That's literally all I did with my spare time. I sat in my room and I learned logic on my computer. I'd learn a new chord. I'd learn a new riff or whatever. And I'd sit and I would play until my hands bled and sing until I fell asleep. Wow. You were focused. It's all I did. Yeah. You were focused very how did you believe you were going to take this passion for music and create a career out of it so my first thought was the internet and youtube and i didn't know how necessarily at that point because i'd started a channel when i was at my previous school and got shock horror picked on for it deleted all my videos because it was just too mortifying and at that point i just I couldn't hack it I couldn't hack the the voices um but then when I went to Brit I was like actually maybe I can start I can start this up again and you know maybe I've got the confidence here because everyone here then no one is gonna laugh at me you want to do the same thing right um so the internet was my first thought I was like that's that's gonna be the way that I want to do it because I know I want control I know what kind of music I like I know what kind of music I want to do and if I pursue anything label or that route I know that I don't have enough of a presence to control anything right now okay so I started uploading to YouTube this is interesting so your thought was I'm going to upload to YouTube and create a presence yeah so in other words do I read presence by saying you wanted to create a brand yeah to give you power yeah and I okay posted non-music content and then I had a tweet a viral when I was 18 I think 19 okay that was a makeup tweet and I thought this is my in I'm gonna post makeup tutorials on YouTube I've got a little bit of traction I'm just gonna run with it right with makeup yeah so your thought was I'm going to build an audience I don't know how I'm gonna do it but I'm going to build an audience and was the idea i'm going to build an audience so that i can then do music at a certain point or was it i'm just going to build an audience it was with music so i was technically releasing music the whole time okay so my channel was called talimar music uploading my makeup tutorials okay and i released my first single at the same time as this tweet kind of going off and like everything's starting to have a bit of traction I think this was 2016 and yeah I thought okay this is this is the path I was like I don't know how but this is the way I'm gonna do it and we'll just figure it out all right so how methodical were you when you realized that makeup tutorials were getting traction very very thought out like whatever was trending I was doing Kylie Jenner looks I was doing whatever whoever at the time was big on makeup that was the look I'd do and because I was a makeup artist by trade that was my job as well okay so as soon as my interest outside of makeup size change as well I then started introducing that into my channel which is where gaming then started coming in and like more blogs like content side coming in because I thought people need to get to know me outside of just a tutorial now I need to see personality based and Like it was so thought out.

19:14Like it makes me sound a little bit crazy, but like I was really like focused on like, this is the way that I'm going to get my music heard. This is, this is what I'm going to do. Yeah. You know, I, I can't say it sounds crazy. It sounds strategic. Very strategic. You know, we had Dan TDM and what I will never forget was how strategic he was about I'm going to post at this time every day. And this is the content. and he was relentless with it, right? So it sounds like it was the same for you. Yeah. How did you know that you were headed in the right direction though on YouTube? To be honest, I didn't.

19:54I love analytics. I'm a big fan of like statistics and all the back end of YouTube and all of that. So anytime a video did well, I'd look, you know, where was the spike in retention? Where did the retention drop off? How long has this video been watched for? Okay, then that's how long my video should be. and, you know, videos with this in the title do better or videos with this in the title don't do as well so maybe I don't phrase it like that. And so I just kind of hoped for the best and thought, this is working for now, we'll just go with this. And every now and again you try something new. If it works, brilliant, carry on.

20:26Carry on, okay. And that's how you rolled in games as well. Literally, you were just, I would assume, that's something that you did on your own. Yeah. At the time I had a real issue with feeling non-productive if I wasn't putting time into what I thought could be a career so when I was playing games I felt awful about it I felt every time I finished playing I'd be like oh my god I've wasted my day I've wasted my life and I don't have that opinion anymore but at that time it's why I started my gaming channel because I thought well if I start a gaming channel then I'm working towards something and like I still get to pursue a hobby but like it could potentially turn into something that is you know monetizable could become a career can help with music and then that ended up shifting and being the thing that kind of worked the most okay interesting when was your first monetization from youtube oh well i started my channel in 2016 and i was i think my first ever paycheck was like 70 pounds or something and i was so excited i was like i'm rich this is the best day ever um and it was maybe do you know what not that long after that it was a few months in and i was like okay i'm starting to there's a bit i mean it wasn't money that you could live off sure but at 19 i've got a job i live at home 70 quid brilliant yeah so so when you got that check are you thinking all right i'm now doubling down on on this this is the path yeah it also was my parents my mom said to me she was like you absolutely can do that but i you have to try your absolute hardest like you have to put everything every fiber bill being into this if you want to do that and i'll support you you don't have to pay rent you know you can live here the way that you do now you don't have to stay in your job um and so that's what i did how supportive oh it's honestly i'm very very grateful that i've got parents that think like that i mean all right we have to stop for a second i mean clearly you've done well but think about so this is 20 2016 2017 2016 2017 yeah so at this point who is the youtube model like who is doing very well that you could bring to your parents and say look at this person i could do this probably zoella okay she was kind of like that was kind of that era of of who i would watch yeah i mean you know i think everybody has like these um inflection points in life where you could see it was this moment that changed your life yeah that moment clearly changed your life yeah because with their support you then quit your job yeah full-time job yeah and then what did you do i then i just started uploading more and i then was like okay i'm gonna do my ep i produced it all myself in my little room in our house and i all i did was that i didn't eat i didn't sleep i didn't speak i just sat there and i learned how to do it and i produced the whole thing which now listening back you can very much tell but it was it was having that extra time like not working on the weekends and not having school and like the suddenly I was like I've got all this free time to actually put everything into this career and this thing I want to do let's just go let's just do it she said tough decisions is the is the EP yeah was the idea to try to get a record deal from that I think probably there was always in the back of my mind at some point I want a record deal that was the dream that was the goal that for every new artist that is always the goal like oh my god I want to be signed to a record like record label and have this team around me but I don't remember the active pursuit of it I just remember thinking like I'd come out of a really bad management situation tough decisions was about that and I wanted to just put out music that was intrinsically me with no third party no one mixing no one mastering no one producing no one doing the PR no one doing the music video that wasn't me directing or like I was so hot on the control that I think I was just so focused on that period of time I didn't even think about what might come after it so you said you had come out of a bad management situation yeah so what was that management situation so I had management when I was again 17 18 after Brit school that just were nasty to me so horrible once we sort of realized we had different opinions on how I wanted my career to look you know I've got an email from them where they just ripped into me literally slated me everything about me the way that I spoke the way that I looked the music that I made and essentially tried to just tear me down so that I didn't leave I was saying I think I don't want to you know be in this situation anymore and they essentially were like you're lucky to even have this opportunity because of xyz you're not good enough essentially okay and the last line of the email was we're gonna have to make some tough decisions which is where the name comes from there you go yeah throw it back i was like brilliant thank you but but i could imagine though how tough yeah this moment is because here you have a management company so i think when everyone signs to a management company they think their life oh my god yeah I was so excited.

26:06And that's not happening. Life is not changing. You're at home. Yeah. And then also with the Brit School that we haven't talked about, there's some incredible alum that have come out of the Brit School. Truly. And you must be almost doing the comparison. Yeah. Right? 100%. So who's some of that alum that came out of the Brit School that you had in your mind as you were trying to develop your career? I mean I was a big Amy Winehouse fan and obviously she went there um Adele Leona Lewis Jessie J like there's some great voices and and careers that have come out of that school and also comparing to everyone else at the school and going oh who do you think's gonna make it who do you think it's gonna be the next I remember seeing a girl called Rachel in the ear below me and thinking she's sick who is now Ray oh wow and you know I went to a show of hers with like 30 people there and thinking like this girl is unreal and everyone was whispering about her and you're like who's whispering about who who's gonna have the next career who's gonna be the next this and that and like it was as incredible as it was there was a lot of comparison I think as well yeah and also I would imagine television because I think that there was the creation of these pop icons you know in the UK at that time like we had Cher Lloyd on oh queen yeah oh really you looked up to Oh my God.

27:32Her audition changed my life as a child. That shaped so many girls in the UK that wanted to be singers. It was like when I auditioned for The X Factor when I was little thinking I was going to do that. I was like, that's what I want to do. Really? Yeah, 100%. So getting that letter from those nasty people and saying we have to make some tough decisions, you just threw that back, created your EP. How well did the EP do? I was shocked my first single did over a million streams on Spotify and that was shocking at that time how did that happen I don't know it it kind of blew up on SoundCloud a little bit um but it obviously it was the first thing I'd released I had no team around me at this point on YouTube I think I'd released a single just before I posted my first video so I'd started blowing up on twitter a little bit okay and then posted the single and it just started doing well and i was like oh my god it's got over a hundred thousand streams like these numbers are ridiculous right i was hoping for a thousand because that's when you can see the number on spotify otherwise it says the less than sign and then a thousand i was like i just want to beat that yes then i've made it all right but for someone who like yourself who loves the the analytics yeah you must have you must be able to point to how that uh single did so well like i do what i genuinely don't know if i can really it was just an accumulation of luck at that point it was that like i'd started taking off a little bit on twitter uh it got into the uh algorithm on soundcloud it kind of got into the algorithm on youtube and they all just totted up together it was just pure luck wow how did that feel you know to see that happen gassed so excited could not believe it i was like i've made it i'm done you bye everyone i'm off yeah i was so excited oh my gosh how did your parents feel excited i think also just like what is they didn't get it they're like what is going on i was like i I don't know.

29:43I'm starting to get a following on social. This song's starting to do well. There was literally no one single thing that made that moment happen. So it was kind of a bit like a minefield. It was just the algorithms were just working for me at that time. All right. All right. So life feels good. How much money are we making at the time? Oh, like nothing. Very, very not much at all. All right. Yeah. I think overall my whole EP might have brought me in maybe probably under a thousand pounds okay yeah I did not know how to monetize music properly I didn't know what I was doing I don't think I even registered it to like the PRS foundation at that point my mom was trying to help with all that stuff she was like you need to do this and this she went on a little music course bless her to try and help and but we were it was a minefield right was she thinking or were you thinking okay let's get management let's do all that or no you're thinking i'm just going to do this on my own at this point i would have loved it i think like i was not i was not closed off the idea because my ep was out and i was like i've set my tone now if someone wants to come in and finesse it fine they can't change it it's too late to change it because it's out um but i didn't have an active like i must get xyz on board i have to do label i have to do management I just because I'd been scorned a bit for my previous management I just wanted to see how it went okay all right it seems like a lot of your work comes with a message yeah because not all uh I feel like not all artists have a specific message to yeah do but but you have a message around your work yeah I feel like as much as I'm I always say I'm an emotional person and I'm an open book i'm not i often don't talk about that kind of thing because i think because i'm emotional and like i can't just have um a conversation about something upsetting or sad logically and just have that conversation without being emotionally distraught and wrecked so i just avoid it i just avoid any any conversation like that where i'm going to be super upset which is under the carpet bye bye yes so then okay let's write a song so that it's out there and like i then have told everyone having a bit of a hard time but i've done it with like a chorus instead of actual words yes you just kind of move on real quick yeah pass it you know what's interesting is that you've even used that technique with me here oh really yes is that whenever there was a topic So take, for example, the bullying that was happening to you as a young child.

32:22Immediately, what I saw you do is you would smile and make a joke of it. Yeah, that's me. Yes. So that you could quickly move on and not feel that impending emotion of sadness or fear. Yeah. Right? So I'm just curious, in your day-to-day life, even to this day, do you ever just sit in the emotion? No, I absolutely do not do that.

32:55Do I? No, not really. I think I might have a moment, like it definitely gets to me, like I'm a crier, the whole internet has seen me cry. like it's not that I don't feel it but I I hate that feel I mean not that anyone enjoys it but like I hate that feeling so much I feel like as soon as I have a moment where I feel I can get out of it I grab it and I run right but what is it that you that you hate about the feeling you know so for example a lot of us feel distraught when we feel fear right and then I say okay But if you can get a get out of fear card moment, so you grab it and you run, then that means you never sit in fear.

33:39Yeah. And you don't fully know what fear feels like. Yeah. Now, is fear a good thing? Oftentimes it's bad. Yeah. But many times it's good. Yeah. It could save your life. Yeah. You know, it could save your life. But you have to know how to recognize it. Yeah. So then how are you then teaching yourself to recognize these emotions? I think I'm not. I think what I do is I go, no one else reacts as heavily as I do, which means I'm overreacting. So as soon as I can stop overreacting, I'm going to do it. Yeah. So that's you just telling yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Or I'll just have a moment where I spiral for a bit and then I get to the end and I go, So that's enough.

34:24That's enough. Okay. All right. Fair enough. No matter how much you plan, sometimes a date just doesn't go the way you imagined. Maybe you pick the worst seats at a gig, ones that are so bad you can't even see the stage. Or you thought that live drawing class would be fun until you realized the model was a very nude, very old man. Yeah, awkward. But you know, dates don't have to be perfect to be great. Because if you're with the right person, even the hiccups become part of the story you'll both laugh about later. And that's what Tinder is all about and a sponsor of this podcast. You might think it's just for hookups, but in fact, on Tinder, a relationship starts every three seconds.

35:11So forget about planning the perfect date and just pick the right person to go on it with. It starts with a swipe. Download Tinder today. All right. Can we talk about a boy? All right. So you were how old when you met your first boyfriend? My husband was my first boyfriend, so 20. There you go. Yeah. So at 20, do you feel as if you're behind or you feel like you're right on time? This is, I've arrived now. Yeah. I'm ready. I guess I did feel somewhat behind in the sense that the conversations my friends were having, I would sit and laugh and like, hee hee, kiki, whatever, not joining in. I have no valid input in this conversation whatsoever.

36:05I've got zero experience, nothing. You guys, this sounds like a wonderful time. Brilliant. But I still wasn't looking for it. I still had no particular interest. Like I've been on a few dates here and there. But you know, no boyfriend. No. Right. Because I'm imagining also you've not approached anyone. Definitely. No. No. Hell no. No dating app. No. No. My apps are new. You know, that was like my worst nightmare. Oh my God. Seeking it out. No chance. No. But I would imagine though, you know, Talia, folks have slid into the DMs. Yeah. Was not even like, do you know what? I think I was so not interested.

36:46people would pursue and I wouldn't even know it was happening until it was to the point where that they'd lean in and I'd be like what is that is not what I thought this was like I have been bamboozled um yeah no okay no no so then what turns it all around when you met Simon I don't know but it was just different like i pointed him out to my friends across the festival okay which i've never done before like they all looked to me and they were like all right what's okay why don't you go talk to him then babe because this is this is new for you and i was like absolutely not i'm not gonna go and speak to a boy no can we even back up a little because this has never happened to you no so this is big yeah this is big so you're at a festival yeah you spot him yeah and when you see what's the feeling that comes over you when you see him I just was excited I was like he's cute I like him I just I want him oh that one um yeah I don't know it was just like a I just had a positive feeling and I was like I just really want to talk to him like he looks cool he looks interesting like at that point didn't know we had any mutual friends okay um and you know maybe because people at this point he was a youtuber so not on the side of youtube that I'm on I was on makeup at this point and he was doing fifa videos so like but maybe i'd seen him who knows because it is unusual to just look at someone and have that kind of like hang on a minute yes especially when i've not experienced it before but i didn't think i knew who it was i don't i still to this day i'm adamant no idea okay which is fair because you're right because you could have seen him in passing yeah yeah so maybe that's what it was and then later on maybe an hour later a friend of mine came over and went oh my god like hey like bumped into us let me introduce you to my friends and pointed over to the group and I was like you're friends with the boy you're friends with the boy um so introduced us and I just remember thinking I I'm really struggling to make eye contact I was literally like looking like this it's like hey you're right and I'm like yeah I'm I'm good how are you I was like oh my god it's All of the masking suddenly was just like, I'd lost any ability to do it.

39:22And yeah, we then spent the rest of the festival together, like as a group. Can I ask too, is in those early moments that day, right? How did you, I know I can go back to feelings. It's like, get over the feelings, Paul, get over the feelings. But how did you feel? Like, what were the emotions? What were the feelings? I was giddy. i was very like like what i saw all my friends doing when they were talking about all the boys that they were talking about yes i was like oh i'm doing that thing i'm doing the like hee hee thing um because i'd like i said i'd been on dates and like i'd been on a few dates with the same person sometimes i'd been on like one two three dates and i literally would come home and be like mom i just don't get it why do people do this like this is boring and she was like well you clearly like them because you keep going back and i'm like i don't really to be honest i don't i'm just this is what everyone else does so i'm just doing it but i'm bored um and then met simon had like just one conversation i was like this is the thing that people talk about this feeling this excitement this like i want to keep talking i want to listen i want to hear what you have to say yes so it was the first time you ever had butterflies yeah genuinely though i've never had butterflies in my life over anything well I don't really experience butterflies it's very rare that I get them so then what about the emotion made you want to go forward because sometimes when people experience these things for the first time they retreat oh no I was the opposite I suddenly turned into this like very confident persistent human being okay I think I was just so shocked that i was capable of feeling this that i was like this has to mean something good um and so that night um we all went to the casino together like oh like laugh laugh laugh went home nothing happened and i remember that night i was like oh my god i am gonna do everything and my power to find out how to speak to this boy um and so i followed him on twitter okay and made like a tweet that was clearly he would know was about him but no one else would know okay what was the tweet it was something like it was no it was the day after it was something like oh i was meant to wear these shoes today but someone last night told me it wasn't a good idea and now i'm regretting it so it was he would know literally no one else in the world would know okay so all right can i get into the mind of talia oh again strategic yes i'm gonna say you are plotting this this out yeah so you probably even plotted to follow him at a certain time yes yeah 100 okay so what was two what was the right time so well in my head i was like well i know he had like i don't know three million followers or something at the time i had 100 000 okay and so i was like well if i follow him he's not gonna see it so i have to wait until like middle of the day when And there's like, he's not asleep.

42:27Followed. Tweeted. Immediately. Yeah. So he gets the notification on both. Yeah. Immediate follow back and response. And I was like, I'm in. I've done it. Oh, man. You're OG out here. Oh, gee. Man. So immediate. So what was the response? The response was like, it was he said to me in my DMs was like, oh, we blaming me for this or something like that. like he he clearly knew the tweet was about him he took the bait he did he took the bait he did all right yeah so okay so he took the base so now what's what's the next move so now this is when i suddenly became this confident human being that i'd never been before and i essentially was like i i think i was the one that said like are you going to take my number when are we going to go out or something like that it was like when you're going to teach me fifa i think i said something like that like so cringe also no interest in learning people whatsoever um and it kind of we just spoke from every day from that moment on we spoke every single day every day every single day all right yeah can i ask this too this is this is very important i'm tracking this this is an internal study yeah okay your first date yeah was where i don't know if you class it as a date okay but we'll go for it yeah first time that you saw each other after the festival yeah so we had a mutual friend's birthday that he was like why don't you come to ours before i'll pick you up from the station and we can go together to this party okay and i was like okay let's do it yeah do you know what part of me thought it was it genuinely what was it as in like that i was like this is this is i found him i'm like i found him this is the one this is the this is end game from day one from day one because i'd not experienced it before i remember i came home and i said to my mom i was like i've met a boy and she her jaw hit the floor she literally was like what have you just said to me like there's no way these words are coming out your mouth if you'd have told me to bet one way or the other i'd have probably bet on it that you knew yeah he was the wood yeah all right so here's the million pound question yes all right how long did you anticipate you would be together that day that first day versus how long did you end up staying together oh that's a good question i thought we'd just go to the party and i'd go home okay because one i didn't want to give any impressions that anything was going to happen because i was big no no but i stayed over and it wasn't it wasn't anything like that i was literally like this next to him in fully clothed like oh my god this is not why i'm here i just don't want to leave um but yeah we we spoke the whole party and then the whole until the next day until i think i think we went to sleep at 8 a.m so you were with each so you thought you would be together for a few hours yeah you were with each other for a day plus yeah all right talia this you've i got scared for a second i thought you were gonna break my study you have supported a study that i've been doing just personally where a hundred percent of couples who have met the person they think is going to be their partner and then end up in a committed relationship marriage etc they completely entirely break the rules on that first day together entirely my wife and i did it too we thought we'd be together for a few hours it was a day plus and the reason why is because of what you said is that i just don't want to leave your side yeah we don't have to do anything i just so adore being with you that i don't want to be with anyone else cute okay love that but this is this is what you're saying interesting yeah yeah that's literally what happened i thought it'd just be a party i'll go home so so so there you are together laying there like literally like a sardine terrified like just so you know nothing is happening can we explore this a little bit yeah because i would imagine you've not had sex no okay so here you are first time with a boy you like yeah at his place yeah in his bed i know this is why i kept my clothes on fully and i i i don't think i told him at this point okay i hadn't said that i was well not that i wasn't interested but i hadn't even alluded to the fact that i might not have had sex before so i was just laying there literally like just i want this to be clear on top of the covers on top of the covers you have to stay on top on top of the covers yes trousers long sleeve t-shirt like literally i am making it so clear that nothing is happening because i was just not terrified but i was like i don't want to leave he clearly is fine with me staying like it also made sense like it was late i was tired not that like we chatted until like 8 a.m like i said yeah but yeah no i was like absolutely not i'm not doing that right now no but he respected that yeah yeah yeah it wasn't even a question wasn't even a question all right so what was it about simon in those first few interactions those first few days that led you to truly fall in love with him

48:04I never talk about this kind of thing um there was something about the way that he was my little quirks that people would laugh at me for were coming out and I had absolutely no control about it but I also didn't mind um and at no point did he make me feel weird or like I was different and if if he did it was in a good way it was like i love the fact that you do that or like it was the little things that people picked on me for that he was like i think it's funny i like it oh so would you say that you felt safe with him yeah oh yeah immediately yeah and like especially being 20 him not trying to physically pursue me immediately when he could tell i was a bit closed off was really nice because i'd never experienced that every single boy i'd ever spoken to was always immediately on that and i was like oh please leave me alone okay okay i think this is very insightful because there's so many people who wonder am i with a good one right and how do i distinguish yeah if they're if they're a good one or not yeah right and from what i hear you saying what saman did is one is he showed you respect consistently it wasn't on off respect yeah no no he made you feel safe yeah and he affirmed you you know that's that's that's what yeah yeah exactly i think with the respect as well i could tell it wasn't forced he wasn't trying to respect me he just was respecting me because i think there is also a difference like sometimes i can see people make like fighting they're almost like inner demons yes there was none of that it was just like okay well if you don't want to do that cool we try and do that like it's not even a second thought gotcha but was there any concern though because he's a member of the sidemen yeah right so at this point he is already relatively well known would you say or well well very well known so he's very well known yeah massive following yeah right uh is he living because at the sidemen we're all living together yes they lived in the house together so they're all living together so you were in the house yes and let me tell you i had never seen a house like that in my life what did what did the house look like it was a mansion like i mean you can see it online like they showed their house that they lived in i remember he picked me up we drove in the gate and i went i was like how do i act normal because i have literally never in my life seen a house in person that looks like this because of the size because of the size i was like oh my so i was like oh you have a very nice house i was like because i don't want to not say anything but also i don't I want him to be like, geez, like, relax.

50:46Like, it's not that deep. So I was just sat there and I was like, oh, my God, I'm in over my head. And so everyone's living in the house. Yeah. Four of them, I think. Four of them were living in the house. So I'm sure you have to factor this in because he, from what I see from the outside looking in, you tell me if I'm wrong, but is that they all look like they're very close friends. Yeah. Right. So they're boys. Yeah. Right. right so you know you are the girl coming in to a crew that's already formed yeah so do you feel like you have to win over the crew as well um do you know what a little bit but not as much as you probably expect okay they're so not laddy they're so not like boys boys like as much as their content like they love football and they like all these things that maybe typically are very like boy led they're not what i'd call like typical lads so there wasn't that i didn't feel like i was i had to break through a barrier i didn't feel like i had to like worm my way in or sort of get to this point of being like do they accept me it was more just like i just hope they like me because we're gonna be seeing each other a lot well okay um because obviously they live together yeah but but but you wanted to know that you were liked though 100 okay 100 all right at what point did you realize you were liked i'm still still hoping i don't i don't know i don't think there was like one moment that stands out where i went oh my god we're friends but like i think as we i as i'd come over and maybe we'd all chat in the kitchen for a bit i'd be like oh okay i think i'm you know one of them i think they've accepted me in the group but they accepted me very quickly there was it was very like no one was stunned because he'd never had a girlfriend oh interesting yeah ever ever oh my goodness yeah i didn't know this okay yeah okay so to like he'd he'd been seeing girls and whatnot but he'd never committed and had a like girlfriend before so to them they were like there's the girl that you're calling your girlfriend okay we're gonna respect this yeah i would imagine this is this is this is big yeah at what point do you know you were boyfriend girlfriend so i don't remember the exact conversation of how it came up but i remember i was getting my hair done and i was saying to the the girl doing my hair i said in passing i was like oh my boyfriend and as i said it i went oh my god i've just said that and i haven't even got confirmation am i a psychopath like oh my god and I we then had a conversation following that I don't remember what sparked it but we both said he was like I've been calling you my girlfriend to people and I was like okay cool because I called you my boyfriend to my hairstylist I thought was a bit weird so glad we're on the same page you're doing content then together you start doing content yeah okay about six months six months yeah but once you start doing that content together I would imagine the world now knows you two were together yeah what's the reaction the reaction was much better after admitting it than the six months where we were a secret where people had kind of figured out in the background of one of his videos was one of my bags or one background of one of my videos had the same wallpaper as one of his vlogs we must have been in the same hotel room and like people were horrible at that point when it was a secret why like 12 year old girls been like you've stolen my husband like i hope you die it's like sorry you're 12 why are you speaking like that like relax they were seriously coming after you oh yeah yeah like in my dms on like tumblr there was threads about me being this like manny a horrible woman that's come in and is gonna ruin simon and like because he was known as the single one of the group he always did videos about being like the single one with no girlfriend and like it was like a running joke so like him no longer being the single one was a really big thing i see and you're and i was the one destroying that you're destroying destroying the legacy oh my goodness so once we actually came out and was like oh yeah we are people then are like oh this is no fun anymore we're not detectives okay so they give up but but when it before you had come out with oh yeah they were coming after you brutal i'm curious did publicly did anything ever happen did anyone ever say anything to you on the street at an event no not uh no no not negatively not like i think of okay people will shout stuff at me they would yeah yeah yeah but not like not like abusive stuff it's more just like they'll shout random buzzwords that might catch my like they might shout mini minter's girlfriend or mini into or like they might say his name just to see if it would spark a reaction with me okay but i've never been hurled abuse on the street okay that i can remember i think i'd remember all right all right it was mainly the keyboard warriors yeah yeah online horrendous person absolutely fine okay and it was you said it was mostly very young girls yeah very young girls that were like obsessed with him being single and obviously like because they were going to marry him of course obviously Obviously, yeah.

56:13We all have dreams. We all have dreams. Some of them don't come true. But some of them do. Yeah. Yeah. So because you have a lot more attention, is this, I would imagine there's good aspects to this. Yeah, I mean, it definitely helped my career. Like, people love to remind me of that. Oh, do they? Oh, they love it. But it's true. Like, there is no denying that. Okay. Like, anytime I achieve anything, it's like, well, would you have got this if you weren't with Simon? Being with him has boosted my online profile. I'm not going to pretend, sit here and go, no, being with someone that has 10 million subscribers has done nothing for me on YouTube.

56:50I'm not an idiot. So I'm like, well, I was doing all right. OK, you know, I put my work in. But I can't change the fact that, yeah, I am with him. It did help. So it is what it is. Right. How does that then impact your work? Your work. um i think rather than impacting my work i think it impacts how i view my work anytime where i have any glimpse of I guess success that's completely outside of um the sidemen or simon i'm like oh maybe maybe people will now like believe in me and then i go on the internet and i'm like no no they don't because even if that one thing had nothing to do with them like when i did say the night with sagala people will then go yeah but would you have been at that point of being able to get into that room if you weren't with him for all those years and i'm like well you know that's a good point i don't know right so as i don't know so how does that impact your self-worth right because a lot of us tie our self-worth rightfully or unjustly to the work or what we produce yeah right so knowing that this is commentary about you how does that make you feel i think it used to really upset me like really really upset me the older I get and the more I realize I'll never know if it's true the more I'm like well it doesn't matter then if I'll never know what's the point what's the point in dwelling my life is what it is I'm happy and as long as I I genuinely like the work that I do that's now what I put value in because that's that's kind of the only thing I can put value in now because it's the only thing I know is my true opinion like do i like this yes cool let's put it out then yes yes so then this is interesting because i didn't realize that was happening uh after you both had announced that you were together boyfriend girlfriend right so i would imagine the moment that you announced that you are engaged to be married that noise probably increases do you know what I think it had the opposite effect did it yeah I think people suddenly realized like oh because a lot of people also just call me a gold digger say that I'm just here for like I just I just want more clout I just want more money I just want the lifestyle whatever I think maybe the perception changed a little bit when we got engaged because they were like oh hang on a minute this is like you're committing to this like if this is a bit like you're fully committed um so although the noise continues it gets less i think also the more people see that like i'm not in every sideman video i don't have sideman in every title that i do i i'm not like i could be milking it a lot more than i am trust me on that one i can make in a lot more money with a lot more of simon in my thumbnails um and i think the more people get to know me as well online and watch my streams or the more they're like oh actually like i think she's genuine i think she does love him right i find that this unfortunately this disproportionately happens to women yeah right um and also i would imagine that he wants you to be as successful as possible yeah so if that means collaborating yeah you so it's your just your life right like i would imagine this is a minority of the public that thinks this way but they're just loud yeah and they're not as loud as they used to be okay like they're really not it's it's the very small minority now i'm lucky that it's massively changed so you two are married right is there any hesitation on your part thinking oh my god i'm going to marry my first boyfriend do you know what no okay not even a little bit it's the i think it was the opposite i was like brilliant one and done one and done i don't have to go through the the heartbreak that people talk about that seems absolutely brutal and i can imagine be brutal because if this ended my god it would kill me but i you know yeah i was like fabulous this is the dream jerry aliwell actually said to me we did a show together and she was like oh how old are you oh he's practiced babe i was like excuse me and a lot of people would say that and be like oh he's your first boyfriend like you get you get them out of the way like you do all the toxicity you do all the whatnot right also but i'm not experiencing any of these things that you guys are talking about um there is no toxicity we don't there's no arguments there's no like big blowouts i don't feel unsafe i was like i think he's just i've just lucked out i've just been it's been good um especially with the autism i don't think i could hack the getting to know new people constantly oh god no chance yeah and and this is exactly what i was going to ask is at what point do you have the asd diagnosis that was only three or four years ago 2021 2021 yeah All right.

1:02:20So this is, if we could spend a good moment in this, because I think this is one of these areas that even in the research for you coming in, I noticed that there's not a lot out there with regard to women with autism or autistic spectrum disorder. Yeah. Okay. So you were diagnosed at what age with ASD? 24. At 24. Yeah. What led to you even going in for that diagnosis? Because you had previously been misdiagnosed with dyslexia. Yeah. So I, for a very long time, had thought that I was autistic for a very long time. Ever since I learned about it at school, I remember I turned to the person next to me and we were learning about it and they were telling us, you know, xyz is a common symptom if you want to call it a symptom common whatever and i said to him i was like everyone does that i don't really get it like this is just people and he looked at me and went no they don't i don't do any of that and i remember thinking like hmm that's interesting and i just said oh no i'm joking obviously haha whatever move on and it just from that moment was always a thing in the back of my head of like every single thing they spoke about there I massively relate to but like no one has brought this up with me no one's ever said it no one's ever jested about it because we I was like maybe 10 at this point no like it's not even been a conversation around me so I kind of just had that moment let it go and then when individual incidents happen throughout the years that thought would come back and I'd go huh maybe this is the autism thing that I was originally thinking about presenting itself again.

1:04:16Can you give an example of one of those? Like I've really like growing up I never wanted to hug my family I struggled having dirty hands like I didn't want to touch things I was really really over sensitive to sounds to textures to um light to sensations i wasn't good at making friends i was really bad at eye contact i i just struggled with things that are what people would call typically human traits that everyone else would go that's that's not a hard thing and i'd be like this is debilitating what do you mean um and because of that fake it till you make it came in and i just learned to like okay well I hate hugging people it sends a shiver into the deepest core of my soul and it makes you feel blindly uncomfortable but I would just I then was like okay I'm just gonna go into a room and say I'm a hugger I'm a hugger and then I would start the hug I'd initiate the hug I'd give the strongest eye contact I possibly could no matter how horrible it made me feel inside because I was like no one else is struggling with these things I see and in doing so I masked and I covered up all of these little things to new people everyone who knew me could tell and they were like hold on there's something sure um but it I essentially what my psychiatrist said was I did CBT on myself um cognitive behavioral therapy yeah CBT yeah um so when I got the diagnosis He was like, there's obviously no cure, but like there is, you know, therapy and there are treatments that can help combat the issues that you might face.

1:06:03But it sounds like you've done this your whole life. You've essentially done all these steps and you've trained yourself to be, to cope with it. Why do you think it was that you were not diagnosed with ASD earlier? I think because of the media. I think how autism is presented in the media is not how I am the things I'm interested in the things that I do the way I look the way I talk like you look at these programs that talk about autism spectrum disorder and they they focus on one specific end of the spectrum which is obviously the more severe end which okay yeah people might struggle to communicate fully like They don't speak until later in life.

1:06:51You know, they have a lot more severe symptoms, again, if you want to call it that, that I think people forget that it's a spectrum. It presents differently in women. And also, you can have different interests. It's not, you don't have to just love trains. People are obsessed with this idea that if you're autistic, you have to love trains or you have to love these really specific niche things. When really you just need a special interest. Music. Music. There you go. So with the evidence being there, you said the media is the reason why. So you were, if you could just unpack that a little bit more.

1:07:28Specifically, what was it about, was it because you were so great at masking it or was it something else as to why you were not diagnosed? I think it was partly that I was masking it and partly that no one in, like even just little things like the amount of makeup that I wore. like you never see that presented in autism like people like the the people that play someone who has autism in a movie they they have one specific rigid image of what that person looks like or how they present and that i think my parents and the people around me just thought well you don't look anything like that you don't speak like they do you don't have their interests so like you can't be on the same spectrum as them i see i see um when obviously like it presents itself one again differently in women and two it's a spectrum everyone presents so differently and I was also hyper emotional and I think a lot of people have this idea in their head that people with autism struggle with emotion and don't have any and it's like well actually I do struggle with emotion I have too much okay um okay you so to the point of what you're saying with regard to women This is the one that blew me away in the research for you coming in is 80 % of females with autism are undiagnosed as of age 18.

1:08:49Yeah. 80%. That's crazy. Isn't it? That's wild. And to your point is a component of this seems to be masking is one component. Another component is the thought is that if you have autism, it doesn't look like her. It looks like him. Right. But then also in the research, what I found is that it looks as if a lot of the studies that determine whether or not someone has autism are predominantly based on boys and men. Yeah. And women were not incorporated into ASD studies until recently. Yeah, that's wild. It makes no sense. But I feel like that's a common theme in medicine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How do you think your life would have changed for you if you had received a diagnosis earlier?

1:09:49I think I'd have just had that like eureka moment, I guess, earlier and feeling like a weight lifted and an understanding. Because the reason I went to get my diagnosis was because I started therapy. and I remember I was talking to her about an instance of me being in a club and having a panic attack and leaving and she kept asking me she was like you know what does that bring up for you why why do you think you felt that and I was like I just I was overstimulated she's like no but what do you think that means and I was like I don't think it means anything I think I have autism and I was just overstimulated she would not drop it well and I was like I think I can't just go around saying I've got autism I'm autistic if I don't have a diagnosis so I was like I'm gonna go and get this confirmed or not confirmed and I'll find out something else about myself um because otherwise I'm just not gonna be able to explain myself and sometimes I need to just be able to be like oh that's this by the way we can move on from that like it's it's it's a mute point um so I think my life would have been just a little bit more I'd have felt a little bit better about things yes I'd have forgiven myself a little bit easier yeah yeah not so hard on yourself yeah yeah what how did your parents react once you told them about it they were just like yeah makes sense I mean they had to fill out a bunch of forms for it about my childhood and my mom and I were talking about the other day and she was like when you were a kid I didn't think it but now I look back and I'm like how how did I miss that how did I not think that because all the things that you used to do as a child that other children weren't doing she was like i just put down to you just being you know extremely interested in rules and you just loved justice you just love following the rules and like you were just a really good kid and it's like no my brain's just a bit different your brain is a bit different yeah yeah when i look at the uh asd i think uh i think this is how it's listed in the DSM, right, is that it is a disability.

1:12:01It ties to me. And that, you know, it's interesting because I think that everyone I know with ASD, including family members, I see certain traits and skills as they have super human ability to concentrate and focus and um and achieve things that i don't think i can yeah i get that yeah i definitely think again with it being a spectrum obviously there's certain points it gets to where life is a lot harder like and things will be harder for people with it especially at the higher end of the spectrum but i think even with that there's moments of of like i i guess moments of beauty and moments of like hang on a minute like the way your brain processes that it's actually very interesting and that's got you to a better conclusion than it would have got someone else okay all right it's fair it's fair so for everyone now who is in a space especially for young girls who feels if they have some of these traits these characteristics that you were diagnosed your thought is as a parent as that as that young individual to go after the diagnosis I definitely think like it's so hard in the UK like the NHS is so backed up when it comes to anything neurodivergency mental health anything like that it could take years to get a diagnosis years to even get that first consultation but I think there is no harm in trying um because it can just give you answers and like it can explain things and also I think as a parent it can be overwhelming when you're trying to do something with a child that has asd and they're not responding how everyone else's children are responding it's like why is that happening and you start to blame yourself you're like what am i doing wrong as a parent it's like you're not doing anything wrong you should do something slightly differently yes yes all right fair enough and how did you feel simon embraced your asd i think because like what i said before with me not masking from day one um it was one of the things he liked about me because he had to if he didn't he'd have known immediately and been like I don't like these traits this isn't gonna work cool I'm out so it's the little things like I think he just finds little things funny and it's like oh that's endearing that's cute whatever that's just Talia um and he's good at knowing when to calm me down or when to be like okay let's take a moment let's just like settle for a second and when to be like all right it's enough okay so he can read me like a book all right this is this is beautiful yeah this is beautiful and to your point of the best relationships are the least dramatic yeah oh yeah and i'm dramatic so i need someone who's not who's just yeah just just chill just chill yeah so then the wedding yeah must have been spectacular oh my god best day ever best day literally best day ever everyone family friends everyone yeah incredible yeah so good all the sidemen are there yeah all right so it must have been any stunts anything at the at the wedding or no um i mean yeah jj performed one of his songs as part of a speech okay jamie performed um just took the mic off of the band and just started rapping all right brilliant um it was very funny you could see the divide of age in our in our um wedding party when jj took the mic for a speech and started rapping one of his songs because half of us were like yeah rapping along and the other half were like what is happening this is a wedding who gave you the mic oh my gosh yeah uh so a lot of performers yeah did you perform so no but i was given the mic at one point because i had sagala dj and when he played our song someone gave me the mic i didn't really sing because i was like the worst thing i could do is sing at my own wedding like i do not want to be that person that's not why i'm here there's enough attention on me i don't need to make it even more about me um so i was like ha ha ha stay tonight okay please don't mind me um but no i did not perform all right all right cool but it was best day ever best day ever all right second best day ever second best day yeah what is best day ever finding out i'm pregnant so first can i say officially congratulations on you it is for many of us the best day ever okay good that's what i need to hear yes did you and if this is cross the line oh no no cross the line open book is this a plot and plan pregnancy yes this is yeah so this is big yeah because you've spent your entire life not wanting yeah to have a child yeah at what point did you change your mind on the child so I've done some in inner thinking about this recently and I actually think I probably always wanted children but I think it was my career that made me think I couldn't so I told myself I didn't on them and then I met Simon we obviously started dating whatever and as we kind of got more serious I was like hang on a minute like I think I really do want children and also growing up I loved children like I was always the one to like please let me hold your baby like at our wedding I spent the whole wedding with the kids like the speeches I've got a child on my lap the entire time she's not related to me um like i love kids i always have and i think when we sort of got more serious yeah i suddenly was like hang on a minute like why did i think i didn't want children i definitely do and then it became like a burning desire interesting you so you flipped into flipped i must have i must have children children don't get me wrong i definitely toed the line sometimes I'd be like whoa maybe not um and in fact when we had the first conversation like this first serious conversation about children I used to joke about it all the time when we were engaged I was like oh when we have kids and he'd be like all right chill out I'm like no when we have kids it'll be great and then one day I said it and he went yeah I think it is time and I literally went uh no too real I left the room I was like too real this isn't fun anymore I'm not ready I don't want to do it yet um and he flipped the switch on me deciding to become a parent is is a big thing yeah right fear isn't it interesting how immediately you become fearful of everything yeah what what did you become fearful of just like projecting any insecurities i have on someone else that i'm meant to protect that's scary to me yes yes did simon express any fears no no none and i keep like it'd be all good i keep freaking out and he's like it's fine i'm like no join me freak out i'm willing to bet that his freak out it will become oh yeah it will i'm waiting it will happen the moment that your child is born yeah good and and i need it yeah that that's when reality is truly going to set it yeah uh at least that's what happened for me yeah is i was you know happy-go-lucky fun jokes until that moment where i saw that little boy yeah and i thought oh my god this is it's real yeah it's real how do you plan to manage the fact that i mean you're a public figure your husband's a public figure yeah there's going to be a lot of interest yeah in your child how do you plan to manage that so we're not we're not going to be showing our child online at all no for how many years until they're at an age where they can you know their peers have social media and like if that's seven then okay maybe not but like you know when you're a teenager and all your friends have instagram i'm not going to say you can't have instagram because because of who we are because that's not fair but as long as there's a conversation that goes along with it of like things are different for you potentially than it might be for your friends let's talk about that well um but yeah we won't be posting like pictures of them as a baby or vlogs of them.

1:20:43Significant. Yeah. What's the reason for that? I think, one, they don't get to choose whether that many people see them. They might look back and wish that their childhood was private. You don't know when you're crossing the line sometimes with what's being posted. Are you posting a tantrum? Are you posting something that maybe they don't want people to see? and also with ai it's terrifying what people can do with images of children and i don't want any part of that isn't it fascinating you know your child will have parents who are predominantly um are known for their social media yeah right and and you will opt them out of yeah the thing that creates yeah really the livelihood yeah yeah because of the dangers yeah because you know the dangers yeah so ai is a large driver of the danger behind this yeah massively i've seen a lot with like what people will do with images and also like if they go to their if they find out what school they go to they'll know what they look like they know what to look for they know who to look for and things like that is really there's just a lot more that goes into it and a lot more to think about yes and it's no disrespect to people that do because like i love watching family channels It's literally my favorite content to consume, ironically.

1:22:06Like there's so many that I watch and I love it and I love watching children grow up and it's so nice. But I think I just I just don't have it in me to partake. Yeah, which is fair. And I think that's the part of that's parenting, right? Yeah. Is making the tough decisions, but you're making it for the benefit of your child. Yeah. Yeah. So pregnancy, you know, some people say it's the best time ever. Some people say it's the worst time ever. Where do you fall? It's awful. And like, I am so grateful that I have been able to be pregnant. And I'm so grateful that I'm able to carry a child. And I know that so many women would kill to be in the position I'm in.

1:22:50But I think I would be doing other women who also struggle a disservice to say that I'm having a good time. It's been really rough. What have the challenges been? you know in being forthcoming about it um uh i've had a lot of sickness like a lot of really bad sickness um i've also got my bones in general are just pretty weak from um sports i used to do when i was younger so i'm in a lot of pain all the time um and also just you know people say like these are your last nine months before your life changes i'm like my life changed the moment that that test changed like my whole life is different i have to think about there's i'm two people right now i've it's not just me anymore my life has already changed and don't get me wrong i know it's going to change tenfold again yes but my life is already different and i think i spoke to my obstetrician about it and i was like i'm struggling like i'm having a rough time she was like oh everyone says that she's like no one ever talks about it she was like but everyone says this and I was like, what do you mean everyone says this?

1:23:55I've got Lindsay over here saying like, oh, it's magical. At the best time ever, Sarah's in the corner going, oh, brilliant. What do you mean? What are you getting that I'm not getting? Like, I have had, it's been tough. Yeah. And like, there are moments of like magic, but it's so easy to forget what you get out of it, especially when you don't have a child. Like, I don't know what it's like to have children. I can imagine the love and I can imagine, oh, it's the most, I've been told it's this incredible thing, but I know you don't know what it's like until you experience it. So it's like holding on to this imaginary thought that like, I have no idea what it's going to be like.

1:24:35Yeah. Do you think it is important to normalize this conversation around pregnancy is hard? Yes. I've had quite a lot of stick online for saying it's hard. I've had a lot of DMs sort of being like I'm not gonna lie like I'm getting a bit bored of you complaining now I'm like all right block me click off right I'm so sorry that on my page I've explained my experience of something like I think also because a lot of people struggle to fall pregnant or like there's a lot of um people who want to be in that position that sometimes you then feel guilty for almost taking it for granted like i am so grateful but it's also so hard and those two things can go together absolutely you know what i find so interesting about this conversation is i often only see presentation of pregnancy should be joyous yeah it should be a time of bliss and i remember watching my wife yeah be pregnant twice and i saw a lot of what you are describing yeah and i think what's to me what seems to be important is a normalizing of this conversation so that you don't feel alone yeah in it yeah you don't feel like is something wrong with me because i don't feel good about what's happening so i think it is actually a good thing i think you are doing a service to many people by talking openly about how you feel if it means that someone else who's also feeling the same way as me who i know is a lot of people can sit there and go oh thank god it's not just me i'm not all right it's worth it right right it is it is when you think about this next chapter of your life what are you most excited about in terms of the future i find it really hard to like think about things like that but the thing I'm most excited about over the next few years is teaching someone to exist which sounds wild but like that's a big responsibility and I'm quite excited about having that responsibility yeah I mean that's very profound oh okay yeah teaching someone how to exist well yeah I don't know I think that's kind of that's cool yeah it's very cool that's very cool how much does does music um and new music fall into that for you i think since finding out i'm pregnant i've realized i care even less about what people think because my perspective has already shifted so i'm excited to put that into my music and like the stuff i have coming out is so different to anything i've put out and i'm excited to speak about things that maybe i've not spoken about before and also represent being a mum and still doing things and still feeling like I can be I can be cool if I want to be I don't have to just give up if but if I just want my mum that is also fine and if I want to stop doing music then I will but I don't think that's going to happen because music is my love yeah I was gonna say that's the one thing that you will never stop yeah I won't you will never stop that just a heads up this next section includes sensitive topics including eating disorders all right last topic this is a real quick one but plastic surgery oh love love a conversation about this i'm an open book okay because you know it's interesting because the as you describe your you know how you grew up your characteristics your behavior yeah i wouldn't say that that is someone who would be atypical of then going out and getting plastic surgery yeah so at what point in your life do you get plastic surgery and how many procedures have you had so I had a nose job when I was 18 okay 19 young I was very young and I'd wanted one from a quite a young age like I definitely grew up in an environment where like friends family whoever it was that was around me like I mean it was the 90s the noughties like looks were something that was quite spoken about and like looked down on and it didn't come from bullying like no one ever picked on me for my nose no one ever picked on picked apart my looks at school like that wasn't what I was bullied for I was bullied my personality so it came from within I think it came from looking at other people and going hang on a minute like that I don't look like that um my mum had one when she was like in her 30s so I saw that as well she's always been very open as well and been like if not pro plastic surgery but very like if you want to do something I'll support it as long as you're doing it safely and as long as you're researching and doing things you know well um and yeah so I turned 18 19 had had a nose job hated it hated it hated it like at the beginning i was like i was just happy it wasn't my original nose and then as years went on i started actually getting comments online as my profile grew your nose is xyz what is that nose on her and i was like wow i've already changed it once what do you mean but well i agreed with the comments i'd already thought these things about my nose and so i ended up getting another one when i was uh five years ago 2020 okay and not that i want to convince people to do it because i absolutely do not but very happy with the decision i made okay was so much more confident i could not believe i looked in the mirror and i remember i was like oh my god this is the first time i've looked in the mirror and not cried in a very long time so you met simon 2017 yeah yeah so when you met him you met him with the nose you didn't like yeah right but you still had the confidence etc yeah right but then also too you said that it was the first time i know you said it kind of jokingly but it was it was the first time that you looked at yourself without crying yeah so how did you feel like you looked say 2017 or 2018 or 2019 how did you look I just I just hated it like I would when I recorded I made sure my camera wasn't facing me so I couldn't see it because if I caught myself in the camera it would send me into a spiral I'd be devastated I think it all it all also stemmed around the time that I struggled with my eating and I think it all just spiraled into one and I was just a mess um but hey yeah but yeah you're here yeah but during that time you said you struggled with your eating how did you struggle with your eating uh well so in 2020 i was diagnosed with anorexia so i my was struggling my eating in the sense that i wasn't um it i'd always struggled with it from about age 15 i think and then lockdown hit no one was around to stop me i lived alone Everyone's talking about getting fit, talking about losing weight in lockdown because all they can do is work out.

1:31:56And I was like, this is perfect. No one can police what I'm eating. I just won't eat. Wow. Hmm. Not good. Were you living alone at that point? Yeah. Yeah, so in lockdown I was by myself for however many months it was that you weren't allowed to see people. Okay. That must have been terrible for you. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend. It was not a good time. You know, with eating disorders, what we're doing is we're trying to manage emotion and feeling through the control of food. So what was the feeling or emotion you think you were trying to manage? I think it was just the lack of control. Like I had no control of my life anymore because of lockdown.