Ex Emmerdale beauty Roxanne Pallett reveals she piled on pounds for new movie to hit back at body shamers

SLIM, stylish and pretty, actress ­Roxanne Pallett seems to have it all.

But now she has revealed that throughout her career she has been told repeatedly to lose weight and has been offered free cosmetic surgery and Botox.

In an exclusive interview with The Sun on Sunday, the 33-year-old former ­Emmerdale star has told how she coped with backstage bullying and being told she was not pretty enough for a role.

Now Roxanne — a healthy size 8 and petite 5ft 2in — has put ON weight for her new film role and hopes to show younger women they do not need to be skinny to act.

Roxanne remembers one occasion when she was told to lose weight during a costume fitting for a theatre show. She said: “This woman measured me but when it came to putting on the costume she couldn’t zip it up.

“It fitted the previous actress and she hoped it would fit me but it didn’t. The last actress was obviously a different shape. I’m petite but curvy and I’ve got hips, boobs, thighs and a bum.

“She leaned forward and said, ‘What have you eaten today?’ She implied that I’d eaten too much and it was my fault the dress didn’t fit. It was so humiliating.

“She then said, ‘If you diet from now until opening night, this dress will fit and I won’t have to let it out’. She basically wanted me to lose an inch off my body in a couple of weeks to make her job as a costume mistress easier.

“I was furious. Years ago I perhaps would have kept quiet in embarrassment but I was older and stronger and told her that my diet was irrelevant and her job was to make the costume fit and not pressure me to change my body to fit the costume.

“I also complained to her boss. If she said that to someone else, the next girl may have taken the comment to heart. And that’s where insecurities are planted and eating disorders develop.”

Roxanne, who played Emmerdale’s Jo Sugden from 2005 to 2008, added: “I recently met a young drama student and aspiring actress who had been told by a drama professor that if she wanted to be considered for television she’d have to lose weight.

“I was absolutely horrified. I spoke to her for half an hour and told her she didn’t have to worry.

“I told her that when I was in Emmerdale I was the heaviest I’ve ever been and that there were roles out there for every size of woman.

“I explained it was the size of her dedication that mattered, not her waistline.”

At the time Roxanne had just been cast in the movie thriller Recoil, which is released next month, based on the real-life story of a fun-loving girl who falls for a former Royal Marine Commando suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

She said: “I decided I would put on 6lb to prove a point and to make my role in Recoil more real. It saddens me that anyone would tell another person to change. We should be celebrating ourselves and complimenting each other on what makes us unique. Those quirks make us interesting, and interesting is beautiful.”

After playing abused wife Jo in the soap, Roxanne revealed the storyline had parallels with her own life, having once had a boyfriend who hit her.

Men certainly seem attracted to Roxanne, who is rumoured to be dating actor Elliot James Langridge, 28. But even at the age of 24, while in Emmerdale, she was made to feel she wasn’t beautiful enough.

One company approached her and offered her complimentary Botox, liposuction, fillers and even a free boob job. She said: “A whole array of surgery was offered to me. I declined it all, but how insulting is that? It’s like they’re saying, ‘We want to help you change for the better’.”

Roxanne was raised in Carlisle by her single mum and her grandmother, and said she was brought up to be happy with herself and not to judge by appearances.

It was only her inner strength that prevented the Botox offer from shattering her confidence.

She said: “I had two strong women in my life and I was more influenced by my grandma than TV commercials and magazines. She brought me up to appreciate that beauty comes from a kind heart and a strength of character.

“Recently a couple of people have said to me, ‘You should get some Botox because you’ve got little lines around your eyes’. And they say it as if they’re saying, ‘You should check out this new restaurant’.

“It’s become so normal that I don’t think they realise it’s offensive.”

Roxanne believes she could miss out on roles if she doesn’t succumb to the pressure — but doesn’t care.

She said: “It is getting ridiculous. I know men who get Botox. A while ago I had a date with a guy and weeks later I met him again. I said, ‘Something’s changed about you’. He said, ‘I’ve had my eyebrows threaded’.

“That was game over for me. I want my men to be men, I don’t want a man with better-shaped eyebrows than me. I’m sure I’ll miss roles because the ideal of beauty is changing. But if I’m told my lips aren’t big enough or my skin should be flawless, I’ll just think it wasn’t meant to be.

“The duck lips and startled expression isn’t a trend I’m going to follow, even if that makes me the odd one out. To go under the knife and tamper with what I was I born with, albeit not perfect, I just couldn’t.

‘We’re all going to get old and you can’t stop time’

“If you’re ironing out the creases and making your face exactly like the next person, how do we know it’s you? We’re all going to get old and you can’t stop time.”

Even after a decade in the business, with TV, theatre and film roles — including a new tour with stage musical The Wedding Singer next year — she finds the pressure is still there. Roxanne — whose exes include former Coronation Street hunk Richard Fleeshman and Leicester City footballer Danny Simpson — said: “I was sitting in the make-up chair ahead of a promo shoot a while ago and one of the make-up artists whispered to another that it was a shame I was in the group picture because the other actresses were more beautiful.

“I felt sick and embarrassed. They were saying I was ruining the picture. It was a horrible moment.

“The hardest thing was then having to go and smile in front of the camera, feeling like the weakest link who was ruining the picture, like a fraud who shouldn’t have been there.

“People seem to think it is OK to say things like that but it isn’t.

“I hope by speaking out, and being myself, I can make a small difference.”