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Travellers call me a wannabe for £60k designer wardrobe – they wear dressing gowns all day while I’m in £700 Louboutins
WITH red-soled Christian Louboutins, Gucci trainers and Versace dresses covering every wall, Nikia Marshall's walk-in wardrobe is one any girl would dream of.
Worth a staggering £60,000, her designer gear has taken over the spare bedroom in the couple's rented penthouse flat in Slough, Berkshire.
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Nikia's bulging wardrobe is one of many reasons the 22-year-old former glamour model, who's married to Romany traveller Michael, 38, couldn't make life in a caravan work - with her clothes resigned to the back seat and boot of her car.
The couple were also keen to distance themselves from the community, as they believes other travellers are "jealous" of Nikia's look - and admit many housewives spend their days cleaning in dressing gowns.
They are fronting I Married A Traveller, an exclusive, six-part , revealing what it's really like to bring their two worlds together.
Nikia tells Fabulous: "Girls in the travelling community call me a wannabe, they say I want to be like them because I have dark skin.
"They all love sunbeds but I haven't been on one in ages. I am half Maltese, I think a lot of people forget that. They think I'm only dark because I want to be a traveller.
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"I don't think women in the travelling community are trying to look glam for their husbands. They dress up because they want to impress all the other women.
"They want to look like ‘that bitch’, they don’t want to be the ugly one, even though half of them look stupid with their thick eyebrows and the sh*t make-up."
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"The hatred towards Nikia is pure jealousy," Michael says. "Other women want to emulate her and how she looks, so they hate on her.
"A lot of these traveller girls will go out to empty their p**s buckets down the toilet in their dressing gown. If you ever caught them doing it, they'd run away.
"They'll make an effort to go to to shops, as that's the only time they really get seen, or on a weekend."
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For Nikia, glamming up is a 365-day a year mission - admitting her most expensive ever purchase was a Mercedes CLA-250, which she bought brand new for £60,000.
Now running her own clothing and make-up business, Red Hot Cosmetics, she says: "I have so many shoes.
"My favourite shop is Christian Louboutin in Harrods, everyone knows me there, I'm that crazy girl who spends loads.
Traveller girls don't want to be the ugly one. But they look stupid with their thick eyebrows and the sh*t make-up
Nikia Marshall
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"I’m on a list, they message me all the time saying ‘we have some limited edition shoes, do you want them? We've got your size.’ Because I'm a size 2, which you can't normally find anywhere.
"But we've set a limit, now I won't spend more than £2,000 in there on one shopping trip.
"My most expensive piece is my watch. It is a Rolex - Mike got it for me when we first met."
Louboutins cost upwards of £735 for a limited edition pair. Nikia has 14 pairs and five Christian Louboutin handbags - with her most recent purchase costing over £1,200.
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Michael, who owns his own property development company and works as a professional fighter, pays for the majority of the designer gear and says money was no object when they first met in November 2019.
He admits: "Before we got together, she’d say ‘I want this’ and ‘I want that’ and I’d put my hand in my pocket and buy it.
"But recently, because we’re saving up for a house, we can’t be doing that. Now I have to say ‘no’.
"If we go out to Christian Louboutin and she wants three, four pairs of shoes, I’ll say ‘no, we can’t do it. Pick one pair and that’s it’.
"Personally I don’t like talking about money, and you’ll find this with most proper gypsies and travellers.
"We’re not flash people, we will show off our possessions but we won’t talk about how much they cost.
"The most expensive item I ever bought was a 911 Carrera Porsche, costing £90,000. It was an import, I bought it from abroad and brought it back to England."
The hatred towards Nikia is pure jealously. A lot of travellers will walk around in their dressing gowns
Michael Marshall
Nikia, who "could not live without" her false lashes and hair extensions, says her glam look is down to her Red Hot Cosmetics business and leads to lots of attention from men.
And this is part of the reason they left Michael's life in a caravan park in Essex behind after six months of marriage.
He says: "When we walk down the road, everybody looks at Nikia. What am I going to do about it? Say ‘wear something else’? No, I love it when she looks good. If it's cold out, I'll ask her to wear a coat, but that's about it.
";We don’t react, but sometimes I pick up on it on when guys do the full neck turn, then look her up and down.
"At the end of the day, I feel more sorry for their wives who they’re disrespecting."
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Nikia adds: "He never makes me change my outfits and I love that about him. I'll wear revealing clothes if I want to. If I wanted to go out wearing a thong, he would let me.
"I do get a lot of looks and reaction from men. I get some unbelievable messages from married travellers and I get more attention walking down the street than Mike.
"I will never change the way I look or anything about me just to fit in. If the traveller community don’t like me, they can go and suck it."
Michael says: "This is a big reason why I thought ‘let’s move away from the travelling community, make our own life and our own home and do our own thing’.
"We don’t want to answer to anybody. If somebody thought they could have the audacity to tell my missus how to dress or how to look, I wouldn’t accept it."
I've never had any cosmetic surgery and I think I look banging. I think you have to be happy with who you are
Nikia Marshall
Nikia, who has FF boobs, says she's never had any work done - but will when she hits 30.
She explains: "I've never had any cosmetic surgery, I'm too young so in 10 years it's going to look sh*t.
"When I'm older, maybe at 30, I'll have a bit of Botox. And I'd get lipo after having kids.
"But as for now, I think I look banging. I think you have to be happy with who you are."
Michael adds: "I’ve said to Nikia, when you get to 30 years old, have a look at yourself and think ‘do you want to try and get a few nips and tucks?’ I know one thing, she’ll never need a boob job.
";Me personally, I’d never get anything done, I’ve got a face like an old boot anyway. But I’m happy with it and she’s happy with it, that’s the main thing."
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You can read last week's episode of I Married A Traveller, where Nikia revealed how traveller girls clean like psychopaths and thought she was dirty for not scrubbing tarmac, here.
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You can follow Nikia and . She also has her own beauty and fashion range, Red Hot Cosmetics, which . You can also follow Michael .
You can now watch the whole series of on YouTube.
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