Gemma Collins reveals she’s been forced to hire £500-a-night bodyguard after turning into a recluse
GEMMA Collins has revealed she splashes out £500-a-night on a security guard to keep her safe when she leaves the house.
The bubbly former Towie star said that she used to struggle to cope with even friendly fans approaching her.
Her growing fame affected her so much that she became a recluse, before seeking advice from her therapist and learning how to better handle the attention.
Gemma said one of the reasons she ended up creating her own Christmas-themed wonderland in her garden last year was so that she wasn’t mobbed at the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.
Speaking to Robbie Williams’ wife Ayda on the , she said: “I addressed this in counselling because I was getting like a bit of a recluse. I was getting reclusive but I wasn’t depressed or anything, but I was like ‘oh no, if I go out it’s going to be hassle’.
“My friends then get asked to take loads of pictures. Then I get really bad anxiety about it and then I’d end up staying at home and everyone would come to me. I live in the country now, I moved way out of it all.
“But then you don’t want to live your life trapped in your house, but I did massively go through that. And then I’ve got an amazing therapist, Mandy Saligari, I said to her ‘Mand, how do I cope with this?’ Rami’ll be on a date and we’re just about to go in for a kiss and someone will be ‘Can I have a picture?’
“And then you feel bad, and you don’t want to be horrible because they’re your fans, so it’s a whole mixed emotions.”
Gemma had a breakthrough when her therapist suggested there’s nothing wrong with her politely declining requests.
She continued: “If it’s young kids and stuff I always do it.
“But then I kind of think ‘Is it kind of the price we’ve got to pay because of what we do?’
“But then it was made very clear to me the public don’t own you, no-one owns you Gemma. But I can’t always.”
Talking about her dilemma last Christmas, Gemma said: “We did want to go into Winter Wonderland – I was like ‘Ram, let’s go Winter Wonderland’. Then it kicks in ‘How am I going to get round Winter Wonderland? Shall I put a different coloured wig on, put a beanie hat on, and glasses?’
“But to be honest, people still recognise me – I’ve got quite a distinctive voice.
“Then it’s like ‘Shall I hire Sid?’ I’ve got this close protection security – it sounds dramatic because I’m not Mariah Carey, fully aware of that – but people don’t understand it’s the only way I can get about.
“Then I’m ‘well that’s going to cost me 500 quid before I’ve gone out for the day. I’m five hundred quid down. I only want to go Winter Wonderland with my boyfriend, but it’s actually impossible for us today’.
“So we kind of ‘let’s not go – but we shouldn’t be missing out’.”
Instead of going to Hyde Park, she took three days creating her own ‘GC Winter Wonderland’ at home.
She added: “But I find if I’m with Rami people don’t come up to me. If he’s with me, especially if we got the baby, if they have come to us, really weird, they ask ‘Rami, can I have a picture with Gemma?’. I don’t know why. He’s like ‘Let me check with the boss’. He makes a joke out of it.”