Essex Boy: My Story (18 page)

I used some of the money to get Mum’s house redecorated for her as a present.
She had moved around a few times, and never lived anywhere very nice, but she seemed happier with her house at
that time, so I decided that if she was going to stay there, I would do my best to make it as nice as possible.
That was a really good feeling.
Until then I had been able to give her money and
presents, but this was the first really big difference I was able to make in her life.
I know, though, that it was only a small way of repaying everything she did for me when I was growing up, and
I still have a long way to go.

But although the money was good, I started to hate doing the PAs.
They brought out my anxiety in a big way and I started to suffer bad panic attacks.
I can’t remember the first time it
happened, but every time I would go to a PA, I would start to worry on the way.
‘Why am I doing this?
Who do I think I am that people are going to come to a club to see me?
Everyone will be
looking at me, thinking, “Who the fuck is this geezer?
What a twat,” and they’ll hate me.’

I’d get more and more worked up until I was just about to go on stage, then the first sign of a panic attack would kick in – my fingers start to tingle.
They start to go numb, and
then I breathe in and it feels like it is the last breath I will ever take, so I panic more.
Then my breath will get shorter and shorter and I feel like I am going to faint, bang right there on the
floor.

A panic attack is like a build-up of adrenalin, a load of energy that you can’t release.
I didn’t know this at the time, and couldn’t understand what was happening to me.
But I
didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, so I tried to deal with it myself and work out my own solutions.
The best way to get past that panic is to release the adrenalin somehow.
I
didn’t realize that is what I was doing, and it sounds weird, but I found that shouting was the best way to get the adrenalin out.
If I could, I used to try to shout and be active before I
got on stage, or even have an argument.
I also started working with two tour managers, Ian Stoddart and Dave Almond from Peace of Mind, who would make sure I got to the PA on time, take care of my
security, and so on.
It was reassuring to have them around, as they would take the edge off my nerves a bit.
They didn’t even have to say anything – they could tell what was going on in
my mind, and would do everything to make sure I got a bit of space.

Then once on stage I would shake my hands to get my circulation going, and dance around to keep using up the energy.
It sounds ridiculous, but at least to everyone watching it would look like I
was having a good time!

It got so bad that I was doing anything to get out of attending the PAs.
Despite the nice pay cheque at the end, I hated them, and I felt that the money didn’t make up for the mental
torture I was putting myself through to be there.

Amy left
TOWIE
at the end of the second series.
I think she hadn’t had as much air time during that series as the first, and she was annoyed.
She also thought
she could go off and do her own thing, and be bigger than
TOWIE
.
So she went into the
Celebrity Big Brother
house in September 2011.

I am a massive fan of the show, so of course I was going to watch if there was someone I knew on it.
Amy and I still hadn’t really talked since series one, when I thought she had made me
look like an idiot to boost her own image, but I wanted to see how she would get on.
And I thought she did well.

I texted her when she came out to say well done, and we fell into general talking.
We didn’t dwell on the past – I don’t like to go over old arguments, I just prefer to be
like, ‘How ya doing?’
and start from scratch.
And we did that, and got to being mates again – and this time only mates!

Instead my head was completely taken over by another girl – Gemma Massey.
Ahh, Gemma, the most perfect girl I have ever met, apart from one massive problem: she was a porn star.

Not that it was a problem in the beginning.
In fact, that was what made me want to meet her.
She was friends with my mate, so I said, ‘Introduce me!
I wanna shag a porn star!
Wahey,
that’ll be good!’

I know that sounds bad, but come on – it must be every lad’s dream.
So we met up, and we got on, and she ended up back at my flat, and we had sex, and, yes, it was as amazing as I
had imagined.
We seemed to fit together physically on every level.
The next morning we woke up next to each other and I was just lying in bed looking at her, thinking, ‘Wow, you are
perfect.’

She had beautiful long dark hair, an amazing figure, really smooth, tanned skin, and what I always like in a girl – great fake boobs and pouty lips.
But I loved her personality too.
She
had lots to say and was really down to earth and fun.
We really clicked, and had such a laugh together, talking for hours on end.
I fell in love with her then and there.

Even though it wasn’t what I had planned, it was like a relationship began over the next few days.
I found that I was really developing feelings for her, so I stopped for a moment and
thought about it.
I said to myself, ‘I can’t do this, she is a porn star!
Am I supposed to date someone who spends her days having sex with other people?
There’s no way I can cope
with that!’

But rather than just tell her that, and attempt to explain what I was feeling, I tried to convince myself she was a bad person, to make it easier to cut her off.
So I was horrible to her, even
though I loved her to pieces, and accused her of all sorts of things, even though the poor girl didn’t deserve it.
I made her cry, and sure enough she left, which is what I had wanted.
It was
really wrong of me to do that to her, but I just couldn’t be the person to leave, as I had liked her so much.
The way I behaved is something I feel bad about to this day.

Celebrity Big Brother

Meantime in September 2011 I had taken on new management.
At the launch party for the website for Sam and Billie Faiers’ shop, Minnie’s, which we held in Sugar Hut,
I started talking to Sam’s manager, Adam Muddle, who had previously also managed Brian Belo, and we decided to work together.
I liked what he had done with Sam, and he had some good ideas for
me that didn’t just involve doing as many PAs as possible to make some quick cash, and so I started to get quite excited about the future.

Before we could put any of this into practice, series three of
TOWIE
started, and, well, straight away I wasn’t enjoying it.
The one bit I did like was my bromance with Joey
Essex.
He had joined the show in series two, and now that I was single we had a proper good laugh.
Joey was like a little brother to me, and I wanted to look out for him.
He was good fun as well,
and we would go out together doing stupid things.
We combined our names to take the piss out of all the famous duos who did that, and called ourselves Team Jirk!

But Joey was really the only good thing for me in that series.
Dad had started dating Maria Fowler, and I wasn’t a fan of hers.
She had interfered too much in my relationship with Lauren,
and caused a lot of problems there.
And I hated the idea that she was hanging off my dad’s arm just to get some more air time on the show.
The relationship didn’t last long after a
national newspaper ran a story about claims Maria had worked as an escort (something she has denied) but the whole thing still left me with a bad feeling.

Also I didn’t get on well with the producers at the time, and I felt like they were only ever showing me in a bad light.
Every single scene had me asking Dad for money, or arguing.
The
money thing wasn’t fair, because the agreement with my dad had always been that I would get a basic salary at Sugar Hut, but it would be topped up with bonuses, as I was doing so well for the
club.
So I would get £300 a week as my staff payment, which is lower than what I should have been getting, and then Dad would do something like buy me a car, which would more than make up for
my low salary.
But the way it was shown on
TOWIE
, I was just the scrounging son asking for yet another thing off my dad, and doing no work for it, and it was frustrating.
People were
abusing me on Twitter, thinking I was this spoilt brat who had been brought up with money, and didn’t know anything about a hard life, which was completely wrong.

The producers also liked to show me getting fiery in arguments, particularly with girls.
In everyday life I hardly ever argue with girls – in fact, I love women!
But I had argued a lot
with Maria during the second series, and it spilled over into the third.
The thing was, as I watched the shows back I felt like I was starting to learn something about myself and my anger.
While I
had always thought it was all down to simply having a bad temper that I struggled to control, combined with the ADHD when I was younger, I now started to think there might be more to it.
Every time
I lost my temper on screen, it followed directly from a situation where I was on edge and anxious about something – a moment when I thought everyone was judging me, or making a fool out of
me, and my anxiety was kicking in.
And I started to think, ‘Is my anger a part of that?
Am I lashing out because my adrenalin is so crazy high that I don’t know how else to get rid of
it, and that is how it comes out?’

It was a different way of looking at it, and I was now realizing for the first time exactly what anxiety is, and in how many different ways it can show itself.
I began to do a bit of research
into it, which didn’t really make me any more in control, but at least I felt I better understood my temper after that.

Meanwhile, I was sick of being called things like ‘wife-beater’ on Twitter because Maria was playing the sympathy card – I’ve never hit a woman in my life!
I just
thought, ‘I don’t need this.
My being on
TOWIE
has done what I needed it to do in terms of helping Sugar Hut, and I’m happy with my job there, so I’m going to go
back to that.’
There was a lot more to me than what they were showing, but it felt as if the storylines were putting me in a bad light, so I was out of there.

When I left, I had no intention of doing anything more on TV.
I didn’t like the life it was giving me then, and I didn’t need it.

People thought I was trying to do a Mark Wright, as he was leaving at the same time to try and get into TV presenting, but I wasn’t after that at all.
I felt like I was struggling to work
myself out.
I’d found that all the problems in my head were only exaggerated by fame, so I wanted to step away from the limelight and get myself back on track.

Despite everything that had been going on during series three of
TOWIE
, there was one person I couldn’t get out of my head: Gemma.
We hadn’t talked since
she had left a couple of months before, but I thought about her every single day.
I felt sick that I wasn’t with her, and when I woke up each morning she was on my mind.
Everything reminded
me of Gemma; every love song I heard would instantly take my mind back to her.
It was driving me crazy, and just when I thought things should have been getting easier, and I should have been
getting over her, my feelings were only growing stronger.

Eventually I caved in.
She was in America, but I called her up and said, ‘Gemma, I know you don’t want to talk to me, but I wanted to say I don’t care if you are a porn star.
I
miss you too much, and I want you back.
I can’t not be with you.’
It was so good to talk to her again.

‘If you’re big enough to say that,’ she told me, ‘I want to be with you too.
I’ll quit my job for you.
I just have two more commitments, then that’s it
– I’ll give up porn.’

It was the dream response.
She still wanted to be with me, and she was giving up her job without me asking!
I thought this was it – this was my future wife.
When she hung up I called the
hotel she was in and said, ‘Please send the biggest and best bouquet of flowers you have up to Gemma Massey’s room, and tell her I love her!’

From the minute she was back in the UK, we became proper close.
And I mean proper close.
We were together all the time, and just the feeling of being around her was incredible.
I couldn’t
stop touching her or wanting to be with her.
If she left the house just to go down to the shops, I missed her.

It drove me crazy when she went off to do the two scenes for the porn movie she was still on contract to do.
The idea that she was going to have sex with this other guy when she was my
girlfriend killed me!
But it was the same guy in both scenes, and I told myself she was doing nothing wrong.
This was her job before I met her, and she was giving it up for me – we just had
to get through those two days.
And it was difficult, but we did it.

While it was just the two of us in our relationship, working everything through and having opinions on how we should do things, it was great.
But the problem was that I was famous, so the two of
us couldn’t be alone for long.

One of our dates was at Winter Wonderland, a Christmas market and ice rink that gets set up in Hyde Park every year.
We went in November and had such good fun there, and got papped messing
around on the ice.
You can see in the pictures how happy I look with Gemma, but once it was out there that I was dating a porn star, the Twitter abuse started.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with Twitter.
I really like being able to chat with fans and friends on it, and to see what is happening in everyone else’s lives.
But there are
so many idiots who just use it to throw abuse.
Half of the time they don’t even know or mean what they are saying, they just want a reaction, but you know my personality – I find it
really hard not to react!
And dating Gemma was like handing all the little trolls a load of ammunition.

I was constantly getting messages calling her a slag, or pictures of her in porn films having sex with another guy, while the tweeter told me what they had enjoyed watching her do.
I tried to
ignore it, but I couldn’t; it played with my head, and we would row about it.
I really took it out on Gemma and it wasn’t her fault.
It was like I had fallen in love with the wrong
person, and I couldn’t decide whether or not I could handle everything that came with her.

When we were hidden away in my house, in our own little world, I felt like there was nothing I couldn’t face if I was with her.
Then the next day I’d see an especially nasty tweet
and it would get my mind working.
Even though I was madly in love with her, and I could handle it for now, how would I deal with it in the future?
If we got married I would want to be the only one
who sees my girl naked, the only one having sex with her and knowing what it is like, rather than half the UK male population being able to watch her in action somewhere online.
Take it a step
further.
Say we had kids and they were at school.
Even if Gemma hadn’t done porn for years, the Internet makes it impossible to hide this sort of thing away.
One day one of the kids might
pull my kid over to a computer and say, ‘Look at this, here is your mum getting fucked by another guy.’
How the hell am I supposed to decide that is what I want for our future?
Then
I’d go and spend a day on my own with Gemma again, and know that I loved her so much it didn’t matter.

My head was all over the place.
And it didn’t help that everyone else had an opinion, especially when it came to my image.
My dad really liked Gemma, but kept telling me, ‘Kirk, you
can’t be with her.
I get that she is a really lovely girl, but it doesn’t make you look good.’

And my manager, Adam, would tell me, ‘She’s lovely, but you need to decide what you want from your future, because if you want any TV work, you can’t stay with her.’

So Gemma and I would row and break up for a day, but I would feel shit straight away, and I know she did too, and so one of us would text or call the other.
Then we would get back together, and
it was on and off, but I was getting pissed off with everyone else, and I kept telling them I didn’t want to be famous.
I had left
TOWIE
for a reason, and I just wanted to get on
with a normal existence.
I couldn’t help that I loved Gemma, and I wanted everyone to stop tormenting me, and just let me be with her.

And I did that.
I kept trying to step away from ‘celebland’, but it’s not so easy once you have stepped in.
Then
Celebrity Big Brother
got in touch.
Now, I have been a
huge fan of that show since day one – you might almost say obsessive.
You know those people who would sit up watching the live feed when it used to run through the night?
Watching the
housemates sleeping and going, ‘Oh quick, look at him, he’s rolling over!’, then five minutes later, ‘Listen to that, is she snoring?
How funny!’?
Yep, pathetic I
know, but I loved it!

So to be asked to go on .
.
.
well, there was no way I could say no, so all my plans to turn down any television work went out the window.
Oh, and did I mention they offered me a lot of money to
do it?
If I needed a little nudge (although I didn’t) that would have been it.

My first thought was to get in shape.
I’ve never had a bad body, but knowing I’d be filmed in the shower, bed, getting changed .
.
.
I wanted to be in the best shape of my life!
My
friend Kenzie – a rapper from Blazin’ Squad who had been in the
CBB
house himself for series three – was now working as a personal trainer, so I got his services in.
He
had me working out non-stop – on the weights in the gym, running round the park, all sorts of circuits.
You name it, we did it!

Meantime I was still with Gemma – in fact, we were tighter than ever.
No matter what people had said to me about her, I knew she was right for me and I wanted to stick with her.
We spent
Christmas and New Year together, and I even got her to join in with my baking obsession, and we made gingerbread men on Christmas Eve!
She made her one to look like me, and I made one that looked
like her.
They were really cute, and it was a great evening.