Living Life the Essex Way (19 page)

Out of other celebs, I’d probably say Eva Mendes has my dream figure. She is slim, but still curvy, and that, for me, is always a good look. I also think – like probably every girl
in the country – that Abbey Clancy has an amazing figure, even after having a baby. But while it works for her, I think her frame would be too skinny on most people, and is not necessarily a
body shape to aspire to.

When it comes to my family, Mum is a naturally tall and slim person. Looking back at her old photos, she has always been skinny. My biological dad is more of a muscular figure. I reckon I am
somewhere in between. Billie is smaller and curvier than me. She has bigger hips and boobs, and where I am an eight to ten, she is a ten. Though that’s mainly because of her boobs! She takes
after Nanny Wendy – our biological dad’s mum. I don’t think either of us envy each other’s figures. We just see them for what they are – both the advantages and
disadvantages, and we have always been brought up to be proud of them.

No book about me – or any of the
TOWIE
lot for that matter – would be complete without a chapter on Marbella. It is like a home away from home for me and
loads of Essex people, and I reckon I could go there every year for the rest of my life and never get bored of it.

If you don’t know it, Marbella – or Marbs, as we call it – is a city in the south of Spain, but while the weather might be much nicer than at home, the mentality there really
is the same as in Essex, and the lifestyle suits us perfectly. It’s as if someone’s transported everyone from Essex onto the beach!

You can see from
TOWIE
how much of a part Marbs plays in our lives. When it starts to get closer to party season, and people are sorting out their trips, there is an immense amount of
planning going on, as everyone makes a real effort in the run-up to their holidays.

As Marbs is all about posing, everyone wants to get in shape. That’s why that famous
TOWIE
saying came about – ‘No Carbs Before Marbs!’ Ellie Redman came up with
it on the show as a motivational saying when she was running a diet class for Arg, and it just kind of stuck.

Back in the day, Marbella was a more exclusive, expensive resort. Everyone there had money, and it was more likely to be filled with Arab sheiks and billionaire businessmen than Essex girls and
boys on holiday. But in recent years it has become more known for its partying, although still in a classy way. It is like a posh Magaluf! So rather than going out on a night in shorts and
flip-flops, you will find that people make a real effort, in glamorous dresses and heels. And it is still very expensive. You have to have money to go there. I would say that for a five-day
holiday, even for girls – who generally get a lot for free or paid for them out there – you should allow at least £1,000. Drinks are really expensive too, so there is still an
exclusive feel to the bars and clubs.

We used to go on holiday there when Billie and I were little. I have loads of lovely memories of us going as a family and just relaxing on the beach, going for nice meals and playing around the
pool. When we were kids, there was a place called the Ocean Club, which was a gorgeous private pool and sunbathing area. Now it is home to a big party each bank holiday, with huge white beds and
everyone spraying champagne at each other at 5 p.m. It is one of the most exclusive places to go, and if you want to get noticed in Marbella, that is where you have to be. The way the Ocean Club
has changed shows exactly how Marbella has changed from upmarket and family-orientated, to still upmarket, but more party-focused.

I’m not sure what actually caused the change in Marbella, but at some point the clubs that held nights in Essex, such as Love Juice, Sintillate and Unique Parties (which was the name of
Mark Wright’s party nights), started holding nights in Marbs too, and it was like the Essex crowd just followed them out there. So before you knew it, half the county was over there, for the
bank holidays originally, and then it extended into the whole summer season.

I always go out with my girl mates, and end up in the same hotel as loads of people I know, Hotel PYR, in the centre of Puerto Banus. Mark and his mates are normally there too, and we try to get
rooms near each other. It can descend into carnage. It’s like half the people I went to school with are out there. In fact a lot of people I don’t have time to catch up with back in
Brentwood, I catch up with in Marbs!

The boys go a bit mental when they are there, and do some proper disgusting things. I remember them pooing in each other’s bags, and one of them putting Josh’s (Mark’s brother)
toothbrush up their bum. He realised what had happened before he used it, but still! Once Lydia and Arg fell out, and Mark told Arg to play hard to get, but it backfired and she just didn’t
talk to him, so Arg stayed in the hotel for two nights, sulking. We found Mark weeing on Arg’s bed after the second night, saying it was revenge for him staying in. It was all really
childish.

Mark really thinks he is Mr Marbella. He is so worried about his image over there, and loves to think he is the centre of it all. I remember one night the girls and I were standing on the
balcony blowing a foghorn we had found, and he went mad, yelling at us that it was Marbella, not Magaluf!

It’s a funny place really, Marbs. So much of it is about image and posing. People will be strutting around the pool in diamante bikinis and heels, wanting to know where each person had
bought their outfit. And no way could you be seen in the same bikini two days in a row. That would be the ultimate mistake! The big hair is also out in force, and everyone gets properly
made-up.

But actually all that effort is just to look good at the start of the evening for the photographs – by the end of the night, it is all forgotten, as it is impossible to keep looking glam
and on top form at a pool party. So after a few drinks, people’s true colours and sense of fun come out. By the time everyone is going home, they have flat hair and their lashes have been
left behind, floating in the pool. Classy! But memorable – if you haven’t drunk too much.

There is always a lot of scandal and rumour going around Marbella. The same as back home in Essex, everyone loves a good gossip when they are out in Spain. So if you talk to a boy in, say,
Sinatras or some other club one night, by the next day, everyone is saying you went back to your apartment with the guy. Everything gets exaggerated. Then again, there is a lot of that kind of
thing going on – the
TOWIE
boys definitely don’t go home without a girl when they are out there because so many people are up for it. There is a real holiday vibe of everyone
just being up for a good time and letting their guards down a bit more than they do in the UK.

Take Arg, for example, who I have known for years. I love him to pieces, and hope we will always be friends. But he was always the single one out of his group of friends, and the rest always had
girlfriends. He was the cuddly, nice one, who everyone loved being around, but no one wanted to date.

I always used to feel sorry for him and would dance with him when I saw him at Faces nightclub or wherever. We’d be like grinding together, but my boyfriend at the time didn’t mind,
because he knew it was just Arg and we were all friends. Arg and I laugh about it now.

But then Lydia came along, and suddenly she was his girlfriend – it was a proper whirlwind. Everyone was like ‘Oh my God, no way, she is too good for him! I can’t believe he
has done it!’ Arg didn’t mind though – he is good at taking jokes like that. Lydia was the first person Arg slept with, although I’m not sure if Arg was her first.

But then they went to Marbella, and he cheated on her. I’m not sure exactly what happened – he told her it was just a kiss, although Marbs rumours are that he had sex with the other
girl. But, as I said, everything gets exaggerated out there, so who knows what to believe! Although it was discussed in series one, we never found out the truth. And I’m not sure Lydia has
exactly been a saint either. My point is just that even those two, who are really tight, were tempted to stray when they were out there, as it is that kind of place.

As for Mark, he is shameless when he is out there. I know that it’s not as if she has much of a choice, but Lauren has been very naïve over the years, letting him go to Marbs on his
own. Take those pictures that came out in the summer of 2011, of him naked on the apartment balcony while Lucy Meck was in the room. Did she really think nothing had happened? Talk about kidding
herself!

The first time I was allowed to go to Marbs with my friends rather than my parents was when I was 17. The year before, Billie had been allowed to go away with her friends, and they went to
Magaluf, but I wasn’t allowed. I was so mad! But once I hit 17, off to Marbs we went. Other than a few holidays elsewhere with boyfriends, it’s always been about Marbella since then. I
go at least three times a year, for two weeks at a time if I can – a week of partying, then a week of relaxing. My grandparents live about half an hour away from Marbella, so I go and see
them as well. I’ve got quite a good set-up going!

It’s weird because each year you see the next wave of younger people coming out. It’s like a rite of passage you have to go through when you hit 16 if you want to be proper Essex! A
lot of people say the recent publicity for the place is making it go downhill, but either way, I can say I have had some of the best times of my life there, and I have some great memories.

Last year I went to Ibiza for the first time, and I’m not going to lie – I loved it. It was a class above Marbella in a way, and I can see it having a bit of a comeback. We had an
apartment overlooking Bora Bora beach, and I loved waking up in the morning and seeing people still partying from the night before. It’s great because people still make an effort, but not too
much. Looking good is not the only thing they are there for. Sometimes that side of things can get a bit much in Marbs, so Ibiza made a nice change.

My next plan is to go to Vegas with some girls I went to school with. We have wanted to go for ages, but I am the youngest, so they have had to wait for me to turn 21 before we could plan the
trip, because you can’t drink until you are 21 in the States. We have had a few meetings to plan it already, because we want to get it right. We want a big penthouse apartment in the middle
of Vegas. How amazing will that be? I can’t wait until I’m in a casino out there, with a cocktail in my hand . . .

I went to LA a while ago, for the TV quiz show S
cream If You Know the Answer
, and I loved it. No one knew who I was, but I was still treated like a celeb – the customer service
there is amazing. I can see why a lot of people end up moving over there. Who knows? Maybe I will one day!

The other place that is becoming more popular among the Essex crowd is Dubai. Marbella is for the posing and partying, and Dubai is for couples or those who want a more chilled-out holiday.
It’s obviously further away, but it is hot all year round, and is shamelessly glamorous and luxurious, which is just what we like!

I went there in 2011 for the first time, and loved it. I went with Jess Wright, and we stayed in the Grosvenor House hotel in the Marina area. We were there for the opening of our friend Mark
Fuller’s Embassy club, and the whole night just summed up the city. The club has a gorgeous view over Dubai – it is on the 45th floor, higher than any club in the UK. And everything was
that little bit more extravagant too – the food and drink, the glamour of the place, the effort people put into their outfits . . . it suited me perfectly! Billie has been out there a few
times, and she loves it too. I hope to go back there regularly now.

So these are the places that seem to have a closer link to Essex than most. It is almost like you can see little pockets of Essex around the planet.

Essex is a totally unique, amazing place, and I wouldn’t be happy with anyone who disagrees with me about that! The people, the mentality, the fashion . . . Everything about Essex really
gives the place its own identity that people all around the UK instantly recognise.

The county really is like a little bubble within the UK. I know it sounds stupid, but when I leave Essex, I honestly expect everywhere else to be totally different, like I have gone to a
different country or something. And actually, most of the time it is! When I do personal appearances and that around the country, I am always surprised by other areas. I can’t always explain
it, but when I was in Glasgow, for example, I felt like I was on another planet, because it was so different from Essex!

Actually, when I say Essex, what I mean is only a small part of it. That’s what all the
TOWIE
people mean when we talk about Essex. For us, the true Essex is only a small part of
the county – Brentwood, Loughton, Buckhurst and Chigwell, and the smaller places nearby. They are the centre of the real Essex mentality – and, to be honest, I don’t think the
other parts have quite the same thing going for them.

Anyway, I’m not sure what has made Essex like it is, but I know people have a real loyalty to the area. A lot of families have lived here for generations, and wouldn’t think of
moving anywhere else. So because of that, a lot of people know each other and have relatives living nearby. It’s great and definitely makes for a closeness and sense of community, but the
downside of that is sometimes it can feel a bit too incestuous. Like if you date someone, chances are they have dated one of your friends, or they are friends with your ex, or your cousin, and so
on. It also means it is pretty hard to keep any secrets! You can see that with my own love life. The minute Mark and I even started to talk about going on a date in series three, for example, it
was only a matter of hours before people were reporting it back to Joey and stirring things up.

On
TOWIE
some scenes are set up to get a reaction for entertainment reasons – like someone will be encouraged by the producers to go on a night out to a certain bar without
knowing why, then they will find their ex is there with a new partner. Then of course it kicks off! So their reaction is real, but the actual scenario has been set up. The fact is though, because
of the incestuous nature of the Essex community, that is not much different from how it really is. The chances are that if I went for a drink with a guy, someone he or I know would be there, and
would tell other people they had seen us. Before you know it, everyone knows your business and has an opinion on whether you should get married or not!