How do you start putting things together? Is, is there a moment where you managed to get yourself back on track, or was it just a gradual day by day thing?

Life is littered with, um, things that are out of our control, but it's also littered with opportunities, and it's not what happens to us that will define us unle- unless we let it.

It's how we then react and what we do with it afterwards.

We all know we're dealt this, this, this hand in life, these cards, but it's how we play it.

We play it different to our neighbor.

For me, um, I feel very strongly that, you know, I noticed this thing, especially with Gen Z, right? I noticed this thing in, in younger culture where we, we're such a disposable society.

Years ago, when I was seeking employment, I remember my parents saying, "You can't have different employments littered through your CV.

This sounds like a really stupid question, but why did you decide that's what you would make your cause?

Ugh

... my makeup journey was, I don't remember, like, choosing colors that suited me.

My makeup would be what was ever free on Shout Magazine.

God

... do you remember at school you'd, there was a lot of, like, really aggressive acne.

And they say if you look at, like, uh, Gen Z, Gen Alpha now, that you don't see as bad skin as you used to see, because there is a bit more education than our tutorial.

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like I do because I think we're sort of punished into living into the future because we have to economically, right? We have to plan for the future.

We have to provide.

We have to work out if we're going to still be in our house by next year.

And I suppose like very, it sounds a bit selfish, but that got taken away from me where I went to live with mum and dad as an adult.

And very kindly, they said, you don't have to pay rent.

You just have to get better.

You put your coffee cup on

And you've spoken on many, many platforms about confidence, about resilience, and I What would you say your definition of confidence is in this day and

age? I think people often confuse what confidence is and they often base it on what other people think of them, which then that automatically means it's out of your control and it can change just like that.

So that's putting yourself in quite a vulnerable space and there's some a kind of like fragility to that, right? And I used to be in that space.

I used to think, you know, who I was dating or how I looked or even like my professional achievements were what made me who I am.

And I suppose, you know, you mentioned about our young girls and even young boys as well, you know, how do we show them what's important and what makes them worthy? From my own experience, it's about not focusing on one thing being your offering and that that's all you bring to the table.

So I totally subscribe and understand why people feel confident if they have a certain watch or they buy a new dress.

Like that is a real thing.

just loved

Mm.

And, and I feel like what, what I can do here with you is say things, um, that might have been like a se- not a secret, but just, I just don't know if there was like the space for that, you know? A- and that you haven't, you know, you've, I've done interviews in the past with women, and it, and, and it feels like they wanna catch you out, and it's accusational or there's bl- that-

... everywhere.

So we're a national charity, the Katie Piper Foundation.

We're there for anybody who's had traumatic scarring or a burn injury.

We fund rehabilitation, scar management, psychological support, and we support, um, partners and family as well as the survivor, and we always need people to do crazy things for us to raise money as well.

[laughs]

She made it OK

for people to show up just as they are.

And it wasn't just about being a burn survivor.

It was also about her culture, her heritage.

You know, living with a visible difference wasn't her only adversity she faced.

She had many other health problems.

She also did, you know, she didn't do it all with her birth family.

And it's important to have a fair representation of somebody with a visible difference.

[laughs]

Um, but for, for those that, um, do know the story and have maybe seen it in a tabloid, like, I'm often referred to as a former model and former TV presenter.

Um, well, spoiler, you can see tonight I'm five foot three.

So [laughs] my old career wasn't exactly Claudia Schiffer when it comes to modeling.

Um, and if anyone used to watch Channel nine hundred and sixty-two at 3:00 AM on a Monday, that was me TV presenting on the jewelry channel and the DIY channel.

Um, so my old life, I was very much aspiring, and if I wasn't going to auditions to try and become a TV presenter, I was out clubbing in the West End.

Um, so it was my early twenties, and that life, it really revolved around not just my appearance and the way that I looked, but also my levels of confidence, my levels of self-esteem, which is why I assume when somebody wanted to hurt me, um, in fact, destroy me, the method that they chose was to throw industrial-strength sulfuric acid into my face.

So what do you think it, it, does it take to be a good person? What three qualities could you, could you kind of round that down to?

Oh, God.

But being pretty can actually be quite hard because, uh, nobody respects you and thinks you're intelligent.

Um, people can be quite dismissive of you.

They can make their mind up about you from a photo.

Um, like, female friendships can be harder 'cause people feel insecure around you.

They, they feel that you might steal their boyfriend.

There's, there's quite a lot of jealousy, passive aggressiveness.

Mm

All the best.

Exciting news.

I've got a show for you.

I've got a live show for you, and it's Pete Wicks' live show because he's taking his podcast Man Made on the road, and I'm gonna be the first guest on the live show.

So if you already listen to the pod, which I know lots of you do because it is very successful, um, he has really meaningful chats, and we're gonna be talking about some of my experiences.

In fact, they're things that I've shared in my new book, Still Beautiful.

I'm gonna be talking all about my experiences of dating.

Mm.

I think, uh, you know, and undoubtedly there's always things out of our control in all of our lives, whether they're written on our faces, visual, or completely invisible, and I think you have to accept that, and, and move forward, and then put all your energies into, into what you can do.

Like, so many of us wait for opportunity, or an apology, or the, the permission to do something and, and maybe that was more accurate in, like, the '80s and '90s when we grew up.

Like, if we wanted a job, we had to wait for someone to give it to us, right?

So you scan the QR code?

Yeah.

So I'll get my ph- and I'll have my AirPods in, and I'll get my phone out like that, and then it will turn everything you see on that packaging into audio, and it will say into my ears, "To your left is blackcurrant Fruit Shoot, no added sugars." Uh, "How many? 250 mils." And then I'll be able to walk over to it, get it.

Then if I want to, like, look at the small print while I'm there, I can be close up or far away, and it'll pick it all up for me.

the videos and social media and everything Is there anything that you do as a parent that, you know, we might not know about you?

I'm a bit like a parking attendant, right? So I have a fining system in my house.

It really, really works, right? So they have bank cards.

They've only just recently got bank cards because we got into that part in maths where you're teaching them money, coins, value of money.

The homework is like get out 20p, 10p, 100p.

guys, we're gonna have to go and like rob a charity box to do that because we don't have 20ps in our house.

So I said to Rich, like really to teach them the value of money, they need to start tapping with a bank account that they can see decreasing or increasing because they're not gonna get the value of money by coming to the shops of us because we're just not handing over physical money anymore.

kids would be broke.

Yeah.

And he was like, oh, right, babe.

Yeah.

And I was like, so, you know, it's probably like if you want to have children, I would just tell you that.

And like typical bloke is like, nah, not really bothered.

And I just think like men, maybe he's just thinking in that moment of like he doesn't want one now whilst he's going to see Borat, you know.

And we left it at that.

this wasn't the thing in the baby books that I read about what do you find the hardest part about being a mum

But how hard that must have been for her as a mum.

She'd try and get me out and we'd go to like pound shops, charity shops, the zoo.

Marwell Zoo was the old school trip.

So it was like a familiar place.

And then she'd like pack a cool bag of like medication, sandwiches, liquidized food for me.

And I'd get there and refuse to go in.

And it or in worse days, we'd go in the pound shop and we'd be asked to leave.

Would that be fair? I