First Dates star Jay Watkins was bullied for his burns but now embraces them through tattoos

JAY WATKIN won viewers’ hearts on First Dates when he told how his tattoos incorporated scars which had made him a target of bullies.

The business consultant, 31, was 13 months old when his mum accidentally spilled scalding water on him.

He was left with severe burns and needed multiple skin grafts.

It wasn’t until Jay, who was bullied for seven years for looking different, was in his twenties that he had his scars incorporated into tattoos.

Now he embraces them as “part of my soul”.

His Bolton-born mum Trisha Emery, who now lives in Chippenham, Wilts, says: “For a long, long time I felt shameful and blamed it all on myself. But he has said to me, ‘Mum, it was an accident and you didn’t mean it.’

“As he has grown up, he has helped me deal with it. We have all lived and learned.”

Jay, who also lives in Chippenham, said: “I would see the way my mum would look at my scars and the pain in her eyes. I could tell she blamed herself.

“It must have been very hard for her as a young mum at the time to have to explain to people how her son ended up with his body so disfigured by burns.

“You can just imagine people’s reactions. She felt responsible, as any parent would. My mum now knows that this is a part of me.

“I had opportunities to discuss surgery to remove the scar and make it look aesthetically pleasing. I made the choice to keep it there. It has been the most character defining part of my life. To get rid of it now would remove part of my soul.”

Cheeky chappy Jay, who appeared on the Channel 4 show in April, has not always found it easy to accept his scars.

Jay, who is dad to Amara, four, and Jay-B, two, explains: “I grew up as a mixed race or black person in a white family in the north of England so I stood out anyway.

“Combine that with all of my scars, taking my top off in the school changing rooms or at swimming pools and things was probably the hardest thing on Planet Earth to do. My body melted and transformed into something else effectively.

“I was badly bullied. It destroyed me inside. I was bullied for being black, for looking different.”

Trisha, a tailor married to Adrian, 51, adds: “I once found him in the kitchen with a scrubbing brush trying to rub off his skin. There was blood dripping everywhere. I had to sit him down and explain that we are all the same underneath.

“He was a very shy boy. He could be happy and confident around family but at school people would bully him over his scars and his colour.”

Jay says: “I didn’t start to open up until I left secondary school, and it still took me a long time. I didn’t learn to really accept my scars properly until I was about 25.

“Having my own children was a huge part of it. I want to be strong for my children and show them how I can deal with it.

“When my mum sees my tattoo around my scars, which tell a story about my life and incorporates my scars within the tattoo, she is proud of me. The scars are highlighted in the tattoos, they do not cover them. It took a long time for her to accept it like this but she is there now.”

Since the show, Jay has become an ambassador for the charity BulliesOut and has also been approached to work with Barnados.

He says: “Now I’m an ambassador for a number of different charities and I want to share with people what I went through — not as a sob story, but hopefully to help others in similar situations.”

Trisha says: “It’s been a tough battle, learning to accept what happened.

“Jay sat me down and said, ‘There’s one thing I need you to hear — you can’t keep blaming yourself’.

“He held me in his arms and I bawled my eyes out. He said, ‘I’m happy and healthy and what happened, happened’. He forgave me.”

IF you or someone you know has been affected by bullying, visit Bullies Out at bulliesout.com.