'I NEEDED HELP'
Gemma Collins in furious clash with her mum over self-harming after accusing her of turning a blind eye
GEMMA Collins clashes with her mother Joan amid heartbreaking scenes in her documentary tonight.
The 41-year-old former Towie star opens up about self-harming in a one-off Channel 4 film as she accuses her of turning a blind eye.
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In a scene on Gemma Collins: Self-Harm and Me, Gemma tells her mum: "I obviously needed some sort of help or support at that time."
Joan tells her: "Which you would have got if you just spoke about it, when you done it, we didn't want to bring attention to it."
Gemma replied: "Your and dad's approach was like: 'Let's never mention it.'"
Her mum tells her: "Life was busy" as Gemma fires back: "But what's more important, life being busy or your daughter cutting themselves?"
In the documentary the star explains that she self-harmed because she struggled with her meteoric rise to fame.
Gemma was working as a car sales rep when she first appeared in Towie in 2011 and it wasn’t long until she became one of its biggest stars.
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Speaking about the impact of that for the first time in her new Channel 4 documentary she tells fiance Rami Hawash what triggered her to hurt herself.
She said: “It was never about you, it was never about any of that. It was to do with me, obviously I was going through something and the only way I could relieve the pressure was to cut myself.
“I never wanted to kill myself - that never went through my head.”
Gemma continued: “It was like a coping mechanism for me, so you know, when I just obviously, suddenly got famous and then people were coming up to me every five minutes.
"The pressure, the build-up, I couldn’t express myself properly.”
She added: "In the back of my mind because obviously we do want to go on to, you know, have a baby and stuff.
"I feel very happy with you and very settled with you and I think always in the back of my mind, you think, ‘Oh s**t, is it going to come back?’”
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123, email [email protected] or visit samaritans.org for more info
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