At some stage, during one of her heartfelt television shows, we’ve all fallen for KATIE PIPER, a woman who has OVERCOME SO MUCH and has used her own trauma as a platform to constantly help others. Here, she talks confidence, recovery and motherhood with HANNAH POPHAM …
Even when she is hidden just ever so slightly out of eyeline, Katie Piper still manages to command a room. Peeking through a separating door at her posing for a shoot at The Dean Hotel, she exudes not only palpable confidence but the quiet sense that she has achieved much more than you’d even be aware of.
To date, along with several extremely touching television series, the thirty two year old has published three books, and has one on the way in November, entitled Confidence, The Secret, which she wrote with a psychologist she worked while battling her own trauma. Although you would never sense it, Katie admits that she like most women, struggles at time with confidence: “People always ask me, ‘how can you be so confident? How can you get up and face the world?’ And there isn’t one answer and it’s not as easy as just deciding to be confident. The book gives you coping mechanisms and methods on how to be consistently confident. I could say I’m a confident person, but could I, hand on my heart, say I’m confident everyday? Definitely not. And I think that the thing that everyone definitely struggles with is that consistency.”
Unlike most women, Katie has had to build that confidence from its very foundations. When recovering from her traumatic acid attack inflicted by an ex-partner at the age of 25, she was forced to take her life one day at a time. “I would say that there is no quick fix, or quick answer. After what happened to me, I worked out why they call it a patient when you’re in hospital because it is a slow, slow mental and physical recovery. You do need to be patient and appreciate the small steps and the small goals. I remember thinking, ‘OK today I walked down the road by myself – that’s a big goal and I should celebrate it.’ Celebrate all the triumphs instead of the things that you’re not doing anymore, because one day you will do those things again but just not right now.”
After what happened to me, I worked out why they call it a patient when you’re in hospital because it is a slow, slow mental and physical recovery. You do need to be patient and appreciate the small steps and the small goals. I remember thinking, ‘OK today I walked down the road by myself – that’s a big goal and I should celebrate it.’
These days, when she’s not filming new television series for Channel 4, (she is filming one later this year, with details to be announced), Katie is the face of TK Maxx Give Up Your Clothes For Good Campaign, something that more than possibly any celebrity, strikes a personal chord with Katie: “TK Maxx are working with Enable Ireland which is a cause quite close to my heart because it’s young children and young adults affected directly by disability. Enable Ireland have a week called No Limits, which is all about not placing limitations on people, a message that is basically everything my own charity is about and how I live my life. I like to encourage the message that there are no limits on us, no matter what has happened to us.”
Inside Katie’s own walk-in wardrobe, she admits that despite being sent a lot of designer clothes (which she usually ends up donating to charity), she prefers to stick to high street labels and has room only for sentimental items and her most dependable pair of black jeans: “I’ll never get rid of the shoes I wore to my wedding even though I’ll never wear them again. My staple items are the most boring – like my favourite pair of black jeans. Because you can wear black jeans with anything. And once you find a pair that fit you and that you love, you keep them even though they’re faded and they’re your go-to pair.”
Although Katie has a firm and deeply loyal fanbase (with almost 310,000 followers on Twitter alone) and despite sharing the impact of her traumatic attack with millions of viewers, she still suffers at the hands of cyber bullies: “I think when you put yourself out there on social media, it’s inevitable that you are going to get mixed reactions and sadly trolling is part of life. I think it’s important to use the internet for the right reasons and not be on it constantly. It is going to give you anxiety and you’re going to over-analyse it but try to remember that the kind of people who do bully and troll people wouldn’t even have the guts to do it in person.”
It’s not just trolling Katie has fallen victim to at times, but the pressure of other people’s social media too. “A lot of what you see online is just a facade. It’s just photoshopped, edited, or it’s just people making up out that they have a lifestyle that they don’t. So it’s not actually happening but it still makes us feel insecure, it’s quite ironic.”
I think it’s important to remember in life that your only competition is you. Why are you competing to be somebody else? You’ve got to be you, so try to be the best version of you that you can be. I’m never going to be 5”10, but I can be a really good 5”2 version of me.
Always determined to be a model, Katie has never let her attack or indeed, her height stop her from achieving what she set out to achieve: “I think it’s important to remember in life that your only competition is you. Why are you competing to be somebody else? You’ve got to be you, so try to be the best version of you that you can be. Like I’m never going to be 5”10, but I can be a really good 5”2 version of me. I can only just work on myself. And you know, I don’t want to live for somebody else, I want to live for me but I’m easily led as well, I look at pictures and feel inadequate but it’s about trying to pull yourself back to those values that you have and to remind yourself of your core values.
Recently, Katie has been conquering unchartered territory, as she tries to adjust to life with a toddler. When asked about her two and half year old daughter, Belle, her eyes immediately light up with the same enthusiasm that talking about the stars of Katie And Her Friends inspires: “I was just away in Kent for the weekend with her and she was going to all the arcades and she was taking my money out of my bag and putting pounds in the 2p machine.”
And Katie’s friends?
“They all were very brave, very courageous and they all had very difficult journeys. They’re ambassadors for the charity, but as the charity has grown, there have been new friends of the Katie Piper Foundation. I see some of them, but it’s more on Facebook and Twitter I see what they’re up to. I mean, it’s testament that they don’t need me – that’s a really good thing. They’re all getting on with their lives.”
To take action on disability, donate unwanted clothes, accessories and quality homewares in store and nominate a friend, colleague or family member to do the same. Share your donations and nominations using #GUCFG here.
For more information, visit www.tkmaxx.ie.
Hannah Popham
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