Hello there. How are you? You know what? I love talking as you've probably gathered.
I love chatting to our incredible guests. But what I've been thinking, along with my
amazing producer Nick McClure, is we want to talk more and we want to talk for longer.
What we thought we'd do every second week for you is to have a big talk about stuff
that I've been thinking about. It might be something that's happened in my life,
it might be something that's happening in the news, but it's something that I want to share
with you. It could even be a question. And of course, I want to know what you think.
Are there some questions you'd like to ask me? Some issues that you would like to explore?
Because I do love to listen. So send me your thoughts. It might be via Instagram,
you send me the messages via TikTok, via the listener app, however you want to do it.
Send those thoughts through and I would love to answer them and talk with you.
So let's get cracking on the question that I have for this week. And I suppose it's not so
much a question, it's more sharing to you. Because I know when I hear other people talk to me about
what's happening in their lives, it makes me feel better. It makes me drop my shoulders because I
think I'm not the only one or it's not just me thinking about that. Some of you would know
this about me because I have shared it in the past, but I wanted to talk a bit more about it
is Botox. I get Botox and I'm a feminist and I believe you can do both. My brand of feminism
is about supporting the different choices that we make as women. We mightn't agree
with one another all the time about the way we lead our lives, but we support
one another's choices in what we do. So let me talk to you about why I get Botox.
And please, I'm not for a moment advocating it or advertising it or saying,
come on, off you go, you all need to do it. No, you do what's right for you. You do you,
I'll do me. When I get sprinklings of Botox on my face, I feel like I sparkle
just that little bit more. And I'm not doing it for anyone else. I'm not doing it because
every now and then I'm on the telly or I get my picture taken. I'm not doing it because of pressure
from other sort of role models, so to speak, or because of the patriarchy. I'm doing it because
I want to do it. Because when I wake up in the morning, sometimes I look in the mirror
and I think, oh, I look a little bit tired as we do. And I might've had a great night's sleep.
That's the really annoying thing. I haven't had a late night. I don't have late nights. I mean,
what I do to have a late night is that I'm eating caramel chocolate in bed,
reading my Kindle while everyone else is asleep. So why am I waking up looking so exhausted?
So I decided, you know what, I'm going to give Botox a crack. And I have been getting it done
now for, let's see, that's 17 years. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So since I was about 35,
so it was soon after I'd had both of my girls where the shock and horror is just on your face
at all times. And I really needed as much help as I could get. So I thought, I'm going to get some
Botox. So I snuck away. I didn't tell anyone, including my husband. And of course he didn't
notice. He had no idea. I mean, I came home and within a week or so, it takes about that long to
settle into your face. I was looking in the mirror going, I'm not frowning, even though
my daughter would be having meltdowns in the supermarket and lying around on the floor and
carrying on like a pork chop. I couldn't frown because my face was just so smooth.
But no one else noticed. But the point being, I felt better. So I was doing it for me.
I didn't tell anyone. And when I look back at that, there was a part of me that was a
little bit ashamed and I felt a bit embarrassed because I felt vain. And let's face it, yes,
it is vain to go and get stuff put in your face. So I think that was why initially I didn't tell
anyone. So I didn't tell my husband and I kept it that way for a while until I was sprung big time.
It was sort of a version of, you know, when you sneak your shopping bags into the house,
if you've been at the shops and they go, what's this? Oh, what do you mean? I've had this for
ages as you try and sneak the big shopping bag and tissue paper into a cupboard. No, no, no.
It's just been in the bag for months. What do you mean? I've just bought it. So what happened to me
was almost a bit of a version of that. Petey, who is very organised, for those of you who know
my husband, who might have seen him on the telly, you've heard him over the years, he's very
different to me. And he's one of those people who has a checklist and he likes to go to the
mailbox. And I should have thought about this. He went to the mailbox before me one morning.
This was at the time when more people would send letters, mind you. And he got to the letterbox
before me and in the letterbox was the receipt from the Botox clinic. And he opened it. And there
was no shirking this. It said Botox treatment and there was the cost. I couldn't possibly say,
oh, no, that Botox was for my toes or whatever. No, I had to fess up. And he initially, as I think,
I don't want to generalise, but I will, as a lot of blokes are, he was cross and he was also,
you know, he calls me pussycat. He's like, pussycat, what a waste of money. That's
ridiculous. You know, what a waste. And that's vain. And you don't need to get that done. What
are you doing? And I did feel initially, as I'd said it before, a little bit ashamed because I
thought, oh, God, maybe he's right. But then I thought, no, wait a minute. I want to get this
done. You haven't noticed it. It's made me feel better and I'm going to keep getting it done.
So I told him and, as I often do, tell him things. And so what is it? 17 years later,
I'm still having it done and I feel, I suppose it's weird, isn't it? I feel more like me.
And I get it that some of you might be listening and thinking, how ridiculous that you're talking
about this. There are far bigger issues in the world, really. Must we hear all of this?
But why I'm talking about it is we need to share this sort of stuff because otherwise,
I know for me, if you don't, you start to look around at other people and think, oh,
what's their secret? What are they doing that I'm not doing? I used to read in the magazines,
the stars, beauty secrets. And now I know when I read those things, they are lying. They are not
drinking green juice and wearing sunblock. This is why my skin looks like this. I think, no,
cut that crap. You are lying. The only reason your skin looks like that is because you're getting
poison injected in your face. Please be honest about it. And if you don't want to be honest
about it, don't feed us this nonsense of what you're doing to look this particular way.
Because I'm all for building one another up. I mean, come on, we've got enough pressure on
our shoulders getting through day to day life without looking at other people's lives and
thinking, oh, they have it all together. They're the same age as me, but why do they look so
together? You know what? We are all doing our best. And some days we struggle more than others.
So for me, it's about, yes, I get my Botox. Yes, I wear my sunblock. But getting the Botox,
it just makes me feel a bit better about who I am. Also, some people might say, oh, but you're
erasing all of the experiences from your face. And I say back to you, no, I'm not.
All those experiences are still there. The heartache, the joys, the dark times,
that's still there on my face. You know why? Because it's in my heart. And if you talk to me,
if you spend even a moment with me, you will know that. So no, I'm not erasing that. All of
those gloriously sad, bad, and mad times, they're etched into my makeup. I'm not erasing them because
they make me who I am. So no, Botox isn't erasing any of that from me at all, because the essence
of who I am is still very much me. I carry all of that in my heart and in the way that I live
my life. So that is just a little bit of a thought from me about Botox, about why I tell
you I do it. As I said, by all means, you don't need to go out and do it. But I'm just explaining
this is why I do it. Makes me feel good about who I am. And you know what? I hope whatever it is
you are doing for yourself today, you're doing something that is for you. You might be doing
Botox, you might be eating licorice of all sorts, or having some caramel, or having a walk,
or patting your pussycat. I mean, I'm not wanting that. That is literally patting your pussycat,
not doing anything else. But you know, do something that is for you. Just do you, be you.
And I can't wait to have a talk with you again very soon. All my love, my wrinkle-free love.