Nicola McLean has spoken honestly about her struggle with anorexia and bulimia, claiming she feels ‘more loved’ when she’s unwell.
Discussing the eating disorders in an interview with new! Magazine on Tuesday, the reality star, 39, also said she was back on her anxiety medication because of the ‘awful’ year she’s had amid the coronavirus crisis.
As she reflected on where her struggles with the diseases, which she has struggled with since the age of 11, stem from, she explained: ‘I feel more loved when I’m ill – it sounds so mucked up!
‘I feel more loved when I’m ill’: On Tuesday, Nicola McLean spoke candidly in a new interview about her battle with anorexia and bulimia as she details ‘awful year’ during Covid crisis
‘But when I was at my smallest, when I was really anorexic, it was the most I’d felt loved. People would say, “Oh my God, are you OK?”
‘And where I’m a big character, people don’t ever think that I’m not OK. Sometimes that’s hard.’
Nicola went on to detail how being stuck in lockdown during the global pandemic has been ‘horrendous’ for her anxiety and has also impacted her eating disorder.
Honest: Reflecting on where her struggles stem from, she said: ‘When I was at my smallest, when I was really anorexic, it was the most I’d felt loved’
Looking back: Nicola went on to detail how being stuck in lockdown has been ‘horrendous’ for her anxiety and has impacted her eating disorders as she couldn’t access foods she’s used to
Reflective: Nicola explained that during the first lockdown panic buyers had bought up all the food she would normally have eaten, leaving her family with just chicken nuggets
She explained that during the first lockdown panic buyers had bought up all the food she would normally have eaten, leaving her family with just chicken nuggets as an option which she couldn’t have.
The Celebrity Big Brother star added that she felt ‘done’ because of the lack of food she was used to, and claimed she must have been the ‘only person who lost weight’ at the time.
In June last year, Nicola detailed her struggle with controlling her eating disorder while in lockdown amid the coronavirus crisis.
The I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! star previously spoke with new! magazine about her battle with bulimia and anorexia during the crisis.
Explaining how difficult she’s found it, the mother-of-two admitted: ‘A lot of people have been relapsing, because it’s been so tough. It’s the first time in my life that it’s been completely out of my control.’
Nicola said panic buyers clearing the shelves at the start of lockdown ‘threw a lot of [her] normality’ as it meant she couldn’t get the food she needed for her set diet.
As a result Nicola has found herself limiting her food intake and has lost weight, she admitted: ‘You hear a lot of people say ‘If you can’t buy that, just buy this.’
‘But if I could control how I feel do you think I would have lived like this for this many years?! It was the fear of eating things I wouldn’t normally eat.’
Saying it is a ‘control thing’, Nicola claimed the pandemic has led her to feel ‘out of control’ because she has to rely on another person to get her food.
Nicola added that while she has been able to fight her anorexia following the birth of her son Striker, who she shares with husband Tom Williams, she still struggles with bulimia which becomes her ‘go-to’ when she’s stressed.
She went on to call lockdown ‘really tricky’ as she doesn’t deal well with change, and because of this she is also concerned of what will happen when the public are allowed to come out of lockdown.
In May, Nicola claimed she was sexually abused by her masseuse while recovering from an £18,000 cosmetic procedure at her family home.
The mother-of-two was advised to book lymphatic drainage massages after having five litres of fat removed following liposuction and a boob job in 2019.
But Nicola, who lives in Buckinghamshire with retired footballer husband Tom and their two children, has since told The Sun her male masseuse overstepped the mark, leading to a spike in her anxiety and the return of an eating disorder.
Arriving on June 13th while Tom was away on business in the United States, Nicola said he immediately commented on her husband’s absence from the family home.
And the hour-long session took another unexpected turn when he asked the glamour model, who had been left bedridden and reliant on iron supplements following her latest cosmetic procedure, if he could massage her legs.
She explained: ‘I wasn’t really very with it so I said it was OK. I was lying on my front and he started massaging my inner thighs and then he kept going up.
Ordeal: In June last year, Nicola detailed her struggle with controlling her eating disorder, saying ‘a lot of people have been relapsing, because it’s been so tough’
‘I was utterly petrified. I was in the house on my own and I was completely helpless. I was searching through my mind as to whether there were any heavy objects in the room but I was just so weak.’
Known for her feisty, outspoken nature, Nicola says she wasn’t strong enough to fend off the masseuse, whose inappropriate actions lasted ‘for 15-minutes.’
As soon as he left she ‘bolted the doors’ and immediately called her husband, who admitted he felt ‘horrendous’ for leaving her at home alone.
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Family: Nicola lives in Buckinghamshire with retired footballer husband Tom and their two children Rocky and Striker (pictured in 2017)