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BIG BROTHER'S LEA SEARCHES FOR PERFECTION
Ex-Big Brother 7 contestant Lea Walker has just released a new book on body dysmorphia. Jennifer Scott discovers the truth behind her quest for perfection
THE next tweak to Lea Walker's constantly-evolving appearance involves the addition of hair extensions, which are being attached as I enter the salon where I'm due to meet her.
She's having red interwoven into the inky tresses that have superceded locks that were formerly, famously, blonde.
"You didn't recognise me, did ya?" she laughs, seeing me glance blankly around the room.
Embarrassing though it is to admit, I missed a woman with 30M boobs (the biggest in Britain).
In terms of the Lea Walker cavalcade of cosmetic adjustment, I'm way off the pace.
"How long have you been brunette?" I ask.
"A few months now," she breezes.
Carlton lass Lea, 38, will always be a work in progress.
The black-and-white cover photo of her new book Living With BDD (body dysmorphic disorder) shows a pouting, pencil-browed blonde.
Yet, despite the efforts she and others pour into the Lea look and the £150,000 she has spent on plastic surgery, she will never be happy.
Even now, she keeps peering into the mirror to announce how fat and ugly she is.
"No, you're beautiful," soothes Jo Capelli, her stylist and friend, but the words don't seem to register with Lea.
Lea's book Living With BDD describes her lifetime battle with dysmorphia, a condition which causes sufferers to view their bodies as defective – and continue to do so despite reassurances about their appearance. Its cause is unclear, but it may be genetic or caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.
It is a self-hatred which, Lea says, led her into one difficult relationship after another, made her contemplate suicide and now drives her quest for constant shape-shifting via the surgeon's knife. "To constantly battle day in, day out with your body image is hard," she tells me, as someone switches off the radio so we can talk in quiet.
"Thank you babes!" she calls out cheerily, before resuming.
"I know there are millions of people in the world out there like me. But it's frustrating because there aren't the funds to help people. There is so much help out there for anorexics and bulimics. But if you were to nip dysmorphia in the bud, there wouldn't be as many anorexics and bulimics because eating disorders are a form of dysmorphia."
As well as anorexics and bulimics, obsessive body builders also fall under the dysmorphia umbrella, Lea says.
Lea is a "surgery dysmorphic", her illness having driven her to spend more than £150,000 in 11 years on successive nose jobs, a tummy tuck and boob jobs.
"It's my brain telling me, 'You are bloody ugly'," she says.
In her book, Lea describes growing up as the youngest of four in a mining house. Her dad Cliff worked in pits at Babbington, Newstead, Calverton and Gedling. Lea describes a childhood in which she frequently fell victim to bullies at Frank Wheldon Comprehensive. However, she doesn't blame her condition on these early experiences. "No, it's a neurological disorder," she says.
At 18 she became bulimic.
"That was all down to Vanessa Feltz," she says, perplexingly.
By that time, she was living with a body builder in Bulwell and weighed 23 stone. "I came home from work and Vanessa Feltz's chat show was on the telly and she had this guest who used to be bulimic.
"There was a cardboard cut-out of how big this woman used to be. She was a big, big girl about 20-odd stone, then there was this little skinny thing sat on the stage.
"She was going on about this bulimia. Then she spoke really openly about eating chocolate, cake and takeaways, then putting her fingers down her throat and that was how she lost weight. I thought, 'I can do that.' So that's what I did.
"I think I've got an addictive personality and I'd set my heart on being thin. I wanted to make my boyfriend at the time proud of me and I needed to be thin, so that's what I did."
She got married and gave birth to Henry, or H, her son of 13 years whom she describes as a godsend.
Pregnancy caused her to pile on weight again. Suffering with post-natal depression, she went to her GP who diagnosed her as dysmorphic and put her on antidepressants.
Lea said her weight dropped off again, she got divorced, moved into another difficult relationship and had an abortion and a miscarriage.
In her late 20s, she also had cervical and womb cancer.
"It went on for eight months and I thought I was going to die," she says. "I had chemo and radiotherapy. It made all my hair – everything fall out."
In despair, she twice attempted suicide. On the second occasion, a neighbour found her passed out from an overdose on the kitchen floor and called an ambulance.
Odd though it sounds, Lea sees the combination of plastic surgery and Big Brother as some sort of salvation. "Without Big Brother, I dread to think the way my life would be," she says.
By the time Big Brother came around, she had already had her 30M breast implants. Her divorce had left her in financial straits, so she made an adult sex film, sold her house and was helped out by a friend. Having paid off her debts, she could afford her surgery. It is, she says, her one means of feeling even slightly happier about her appearance.
"I don't regret it. I've had everything done you could ever imagine and I'm having more," she says.
"I know people say it's unnatural, it's unethical, it makes people look like freaks. But it's up to me if I want to look a certain way. You're a long time dead. If people don't like the way I look, I don't care."
Following the chemotherapy, her eyebrows had never grown back.
Knowing eye-pencils were forbidden in the house (in case they are used to interfere with voting), Lea hastily arranged to have her eyebrows tattooed on prior to the show.
"I thought I'm not going to go on national TV with no eyebrows," she said. "Could you imagine the press? They'd have ripped me to bits... this stupid girl with big boobs and no eyebrows," she says.
"Unfortunately, they went wrong because the guy that did them put them on too high. What could I do? They was there, they was on."
Lea had won over the show's producers with her brassy back chat. During the auditions, she had been asked: "What makes you stand out?"
"Well, what do you think?" she retorted.
What they didn't know was that when she had applied to do the show, her life was a mess. She was addicted to alcohol, cocaine and painkillers.
Although not an avid fan of Big Brother, Lea says she felt drawn to take part in the show. But once in the house, she says, she had a complete mental breakdown.
"I was a mess. I'd gone completely cold turkey. I had to eat and I had to keep the food down. I enjoyed the experience but I wish I hadn't been the state I was. I was a complete and utter wreck."
She was evicted in the seventh public vote, having found herself going head to head with her bosom buddy (so to speak) Richard Newman.
"It was between me and my best friend in the world," she sighs. "He never judged me and he was always there for me."
Owing to a rule-change, Lea was allowed to return to the house, briefly, before leaving with Richard to host their own show on Gaydar Radio.
"We're inseparable. We talk to each other all the time. If only he wasn't gay!" she sighs.
The radio show is no more but Lea has several more projects in store.
One of them is a small part in a film called The Rapture, which stars Jaime Murray, the Kemp brothers and Steven Berkoff. She can't say much about it but it's due for release next year.
And there's also been the publication of her book, which is part autobiography and part self-help.
Initially, she turned down offers to write a book, before eventually agreeing. "Just because I've been on Big Brother, doesn't mean I'm not a normal, everyday person," she says. "And I didn't want to be like Kerry or Katie Price with a new book out every two years.
"It was traumatic to go through some of the things I had to relive again but I did it and I'm glad," she adds. "I hope it helps some sufferers to feel they're not on their own. Dysmorphia is a horrible, horrible condition, babes. Horrible."
Her post-Big Brother life is a world away from her old one. She's dropped the drug and alcohol addictions, although she stills takes painkillers.
And the reason she stayed in so many unhappy relationships is simple, she says: "I thought I deserved it because I was worthless."
Lea's book Living With BDD is published by Apex and costs £12.99.
Nottingham Evening Post
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"Living with BDD" is a real page turner; I found myself reading the entire book in one sitting. It has the same captivating elements as the prime-time hit "Big Brother" - we are allowed the guilty pleasure of playing voyeur, obtaining a completely honest, no frills look into the private life of another. The book takes us through an entire range of experiences, from drama, cruelty, pain, and suffering to victory, success and joy. Lea proves herself to be a strong, honest person who is easy to relate to. This is a thoughtful book, which teaches many valuable life lessons. It also does the great service of exposing readers to the internal, often tormenting life of a BDD sufferer. Through this exposure and honesty comes understanding and ultimately a change in public perception of the disorder.
www.bddcentral.com
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Lea’s story highlights the plight of many BDD sufferers who end up having plastic surgery only to find that the work is needed to be done on the inside. BDD is a psychological disorder dating back over 100’s of years. In her book we see the struggles of someone with low self-esteem and a distorted body image who is trying to cope on their own without effective treatment.
www.thebddfoundation.com
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LEA WALKER
www.channel4.com
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Living with BDD, Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Lea Walker werd vooral bekend door haar aanwezigheid in het Big Brother programma van de Britse zender Channel 4. Ze was daar een nogal aanwezige en opvallende verschijning die veel mensen aan de buis wist te kluisteren. Niet in de laatste plaats ook vanwege haar uiterlijk en optreden in pornofilms.
Het imago van stoeipoes en het zelf ook nadrukkelijk exploiteren daarvan maakt het misschien wel extra triest.
Achter deze facade van glitter, glamour, beauty en sexy verschijning blijkt een wereld van van verborgen problemen te bestaan. Een laag zelfbeeld en verstoorde lichaamsbeleving domineerden haar leven. Lea Walker hoopt met haar boek anderen te kunnen helpen hun persoonlijke drama's te overwinnen. Naar eigen zeggen heeft Lea Walker haar trauma's achter zich gelaten en voldoende innerlijke kracht gevonden om nu een waardig bestaan te leven.
Of ze zichzelf nog steeds profileert als pornoster is me niet geheel duidelijk, maar het geeft in elk geval aan dat BDD zich achter vele maskers kan verstoppen, soms grensoverschrijdend met een hoog gehalte freakshow en wansmaak, maar een oordeel vellen is zoveel gemakkelijker dan het proberen te begrijpen. Dat deze manier van overleven niet representatief is voor de gemiddelde BDD-er zal iedereen wel begrijpen, maar het geeft ook maar weer eens aan dat BDD een zeer ernstige stoornis is. Of Lea Walker zonder BDD ook zo had gehandeld zal overigens altijd een vraag blijven...
Naast BDD speelden meerder negatieve elementen een rol in haar leven: eetstoornissen, mishandeling, zware omstandigheden thuis als jong kind. Haar veelvuldige plastische chirurgie heeft haar natuurlijke voorkomen volledig doen verdwijnen wat het lastiger maakt om haar onbevooroordeeld te kunnen ervaren.
Lea Walker woont met haar moeder en zoon Henri in Engeland.
Voor meer informatie en een review:
Apex Publishing
Schrijvers: Lea Walker en Janet Lee
Website: MySpace van Lea Walker
ISBN nr: 9781906358068
Prijs: € 18,99
Bestellen kan bijvoorbeeld bij BOL.com
www.bdd-info.nl
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A moving account of someone who suffers from Body Dysmorphic Disorder, or BDD. It is difficult to work out what makes people react so negatively to minor flaws in their own appearance, and, like bulimia anorexia, BDD is a condition that you'd have to experience to truly understand.
Nevertheless, Lea Walker comes as close as you can get to achieving the impossible in this moving book. I suspect that it's not just BDD sufferers who will benefit from this, but also the victims and families of other enigmatic illnesses and conditions.
Mike Hallowell, The Shields Gazette
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LEA WALKER
By Alex Fletcher, Entertainment Reporter
Lea Walker was first thrust into the public eye when she starred on Big Brother 7 in 2006. Her larger-than life personality and straight talking was one of the highlights of the series, but her time on the show masked personal troubles with drugs, men and her own image. Lea has now written a tell-all book describing her lifelong struggle with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, where she explains in close detail how close she came to death. We gave the reality TV star a call to find out all about her life before and after Big Brother.
* What is Body Dysmorphic Disorder?
"BDD is a neurological disorder. You have two sides of your brain, one that likes you and one that hates you. Unfortunately with dysmorphics, the bit of your brain that hates you outweighs the other half by 100 to one. It's a self-hatred and self-loathing of yourself and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It's horrible, baby."
* What are the symptoms for average sufferers?
"When I look in the mirror, I can't bear to look at myself. I get angry at me being me. When you feel ugly and look ugly, it doesn't matter what anybody tells you otherwise. Equally, it doesn't matter when anyone criticises you - they can call you all the names under the sun, but you hold more hatred for yourself than anyone else does."
* When did you first realise you had BDD?
"Since I was at infant school I haven't liked the way I looked. I hated my huge nose and how skinny I was. I was tall at school, so I hated that, I hated my ears and I hated my hair. I couldn't turn around at six and say something to my parents. I just thought that was normal and how people felt growing up."
* How difficult was it to sit down and write this book and reveal your secrets?
"It was hard. I had breakdowns because I was reliving what I went through. I haven't put everything in that book because I don't want my son to know everything I've done. I did things at stages in my life when I was off my t*ts. Just to feel semi-normal I had to be on vast amounts of painkillers, drunk or on coke. For me to cope with me being me, it's the hardest thing in the world."
* How does Big Brother fit into your life story?
"When I went in Big Brother I was having a mental breakdown. It was horrible. I had gone totally cold turkey. I was completely addicted to coke, a total alcoholic and I was on about 60 painkillers a day when I went in. If it wasn't for Big Brother I would probably be dead. People said I was selfish because of my son, but I was in such a deep, dark depression, I didn't see anything wrong in what I was doing."
* Did it not worry you that people may criticise the way you look?
"I know people take the piss out of my eyebrows on the show. But I didn't want my eyebrows to look like that. My ex-boyfriend did them after a five-day bender in Amsterdam. He was off his t*ts and did it wrong. I think he did it on purpose because I was off on Big Brother. They were tattooed on and I couldn't do anything about it."
* Has the public's acceptance of you on the show helped your struggle with BDD?
"It did help because I've always not been accepted. It was nice to meet other people that felt like me. Going on MySpace and the radio, it's allowed me to meet like-minded people. People say Big Brother ruined my life, but it didn't for me. I've been on Digital Spy a few times and seen people don't like me, but that's up to them. You can't go through life wanting everyone to adore you."
* Do you regret being so open about your sexual exploits on the show?
"That was taken out of context. Most of the time I was joking. You only see the power of TV when you come out and go, 'Bugger! How have you taken that seriously?' I was just winding up Nikki 90% of the time. There was something with a carrot in the house and literally everybody did it, but they only showed me because it fitted in with the character they wanted me to be. My character was a sex thing. They used me and that's fair enough."
* Were you not offered modelling work after Big Brother?
"I get offered bits and bobs all the time, loads of glamour work, but I turn it down. People say I shouldn't, but I don't want to be doing the lads' mags. What I did six years ago, I don't want to go down that path again. If other contestants want to do that then good on them, they earn a bloody lot of money. I was given the choice and I turned it down."
* What are your plans now you've finished the book?
"I want to do a lot of work with the Body Dysmorphic Association as well. I'd like to go around colleges, schools and universities and talk about it. I'd love that more than anything else. I'd love to help people. I'm not one of these fame hungry people that wants to be on the telly. I used to be, but it wouldn't phase me if I was never on TV again. Just to go back to being normal and helping people would be brilliant. Most people go on Big Brother and are heartbroken when they don't become TV presenters afterwards. I'm not like that. I went on for the money. I'm a single parent and I needed the cash."
** Lea Walker's Living With BDD is released on November 21
www.digitalspy.co.uk
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LIVING WITH BDD
The Brit (Madeira Newspaper)
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LIVING WITH BDD
Cannock Chase Post
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LIVING WITH BDD
The Self Publishing Magazine
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LIVING WITH BDD
Out in the City Magazine
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Living With BDD (Body Dysmorphic Disorder), By Lea Walker (Apex £12.99)
Lea Walker grew up wanting to be like Dolly Parton. She certainly had enough heartbreak (Reviewed by Paul Burston)
Faced with a book on body dysmorphic disorder, my first thought was, "Is this me?" Granted, my breasts aren't nearly as big as Lea Walker's (we gay men refer to them as "pecs", by the way). And I haven't had nearly as much "work" done. I go to the gym, watch what I eat, and occasionally I indulge in a bit of Botox or the odd facial filler to freshen up my appearance. A lot of men do, though few will admit to it – especially the straight city-boy types who, I am reliably informed, are a huge growth market for non-surgical age-defying procedures. But at what point does all this become body dysmorphic disorder? Let's turn to the book and find out.
Walker is a charming narrator. She didn't write this book herself and she isn't too proud to say so: "I'm not the brightest of sparks, so I'm having someone help me." (Her co-author is Janet Lee.) She also compares life to a glass of milk. "One day it's OK, the next it's like cat sick in a bottle." Well, give me that over Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates.
If you can get past the "I'm a celebrity, get me a book deal" aspect of this publishing enterprise, there's a really moving story here about a little girl who grew up thinking she was ugly and who went to extraordinary lengths to rectify the "problem", before finding fame on Big Brother in 2006 and undergoing a very public mauling, followed by a lot of soul searching. Much of the story you perhaps feel you already know: poor background, warring parents, bullied at school. As children, Walker and her siblings were known as the "the pit house kids" or "tramps", which really isn't so different to the cries of "chav" thrown at her now.
At the age of nine, Walker discovered peroxide. She turned herself into a blonde, but she wasn't quite the bombshell she hoped. "I knew that I was really ugly", she writes. "If I caught sight of my reflection I would shut my eyes because I didn't want this ugly thing looking back at me." Her idols were Dolly Parton, Samantha Fox and Pamela Anderson. Her main ambition in life was to live up to this ideal.
At 16 she lost her virginity, fell in with a rock band and developed an unhealthy relationship with food. She was skinny one minute, fat the next. Her boyfriend beat her up and broke her nose. It's hardly any wonder she started hating herself. After breaking up with one boyfriend, she settled down with another, a body builder who was injecting steroids. Despite his frequent 'roid rages, she worshipped him. She cooked for him, cleaned for him and even put the toothpaste on his brush in the mornings.
Bullied at work, she lost her job and ended up watching hours of daytime television – a recipe for disaster if ever there was one. Watching The Vanessa Show one day, she saw an item about bulimia and thought: "I could do that!" She took laxatives and threw up constantly. Her dentist warned her that her teeth were rotting, but she didn't care because at least now she was thin. Later she swapped the body builder for a man she calls Mr Black. "Trust me," she says. "This man was angry." Then why go with him, Lea?, you feel like pleading. But by now the answer is painfully obvious. He beat her, and he made her pregnant. She says she stayed because of her baby, whom she refers to simply as "H".
Not surprisingly, she found it hard to bond with the child and suffered postnatal depression. Meanwhile, the baby's father reminded her of how fat and ugly she was. Finally he did her a favour and left, but not before "he kicked the shit out of me in front of H".
From there, it was only a short trip to the plastic surgeon where Walker had another nose job, a tummy tuck, liposuction and a total of five boob jobs, reinventing herself as the woman she thought men wanted her to be. She made a regrettable venture into soft porn. Then came the media circus that is Big Brother and the creation of another "celeb", those strange creatures we love and hate in equal measure.
Despite their many similarities, in some ways Walker is the anti-Jordan, clearly vulnerable where Katie Price is not, and someone who lacks the brashness necessary to turn herself into a brand. But there's a saving grace, which is that Walker emerges from this book a far kinder and more thoughtful person than Jordan appears to be. If nothing else, she's convinced me that I don't have BDD, and for that I'm profoundly grateful.
The Independent on Sunday
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BIG BROTHER'S LEA WALKER LAUNCHES NEW BOOK
BIG Brother fans will be used to it by now - first comes the eviction, then the tell all story and photo shoot followed by the autobiography.
But ex-Big Brother seven housemate Lea Walker has been putting her 15 minutes of fame to good use promoting awareness of body dysmorphia.
The 38-year-old, who suffers from the mental illness and subsequent surgery addiction, was in Swindon’s Borders store in the Orbital Retail Park, on Saturday signing copies of her book Living With BDD.
“When I was on Big Brother I was just a freakshow,” said the mum-of-one from Manchester.
“I had the bleach blonde hair and the big boobs and wasn’t taken seriously. BDD isn’t like other body dysmorphic disorders like anorexia and bulimia, it’s not seen as a real problem.”
Body dysmorphia is an umbrella term for mental illnesses which create a distorted perception about the sufferers body.
“Some people have eating disorders, others have skin dysmorphia and will cover themselves in tattoos and some, like me, feel the need to have surgery to continually ‘improve’ themselves,” said Lea, who was diagnosed in 1995.
In the last 12 years she has had three nose jobs, teeth veneers, cheek implants, lip implants, five breast enlargements, lipo suction, lipo sculpture three times and a tummy tuck but her surgery hasn’t stopped yet as she still plans to have a facelift, thigh lift and buttock implants.
Lea’s book Living With BDD: Body Dysmorphic Disorder is out now priced at £12.99.
Swindon Advertiser
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LIVING WITH BDD
Full House Magazine
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LIVING WITH BDD
Up Beat Magazine (Beat Eating Disorders Association)
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LIVING WITH BDD
Tenerife Property Guide
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LIVING WITH BDD
Daily Star Sunday (Take 5 Magazine)
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LIVING WITH BDD
New! Magazine
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