Gemma Clare Collins (born 31 January 1981) is an English media personality and businesswoman. In 2011, she began appearing on the ITVBe reality series The Only Way Is Essex. Following a brief appearance on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (2014), Collins has appeared in various television programmes including Celebrity Big Brother (2016), Celebs Go Dating (2018), and Dancing on Ice (2019). In 2019, she began starring in her own reality series and hosting a podcast on BBC Sounds.
Gemma Collins says she didn't get right help for self-harm – here's how to support a loved one
In a recent documentary named Gemma Collins: Self-Harm, the former TOWIE star, 41, opened up on her 20-year battle with self-harm and shared a side to her we'd been yet to see.
During the hard-hitting documentary, Gemma had a heartfelt and honest conversation with her mum as she asked: "But what's more important, life being busy or your daughter hurting herself?" The duo then spoke openly about Gemma’s experience with self-harm, as Gemma asked her mum: "Did you not want to get help?" To which Joan replied: "Well, no, because you’re my daughter and my eyes are on you the whole time.
We didn’t talk about it because I didn’t want to make a big thing about it, so we totally just carried on as normal and forgot about it basically.That’s how I dealt with it. "It was just like don’t bring attention to it.
She’ll get over it. But obviously I had my eyes on you if something did happen or you went weird or whatever, but you didn’t." Get exclusive celebrity stories and fabulous photoshoots straight to your inbox with OK!'s daily newsletter Gemma then assured her mum that it wasn’t her fault as Joan struggled to understand why her daughter did it.
