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Great Company with Jamie Laing

Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu: ‘Don't Let Other People's Opinions Define You’ | GREAT MOMENTS

Great Company with Jamie Laing

Jampot

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.6951 Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2026

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When you're going through a tough time, it can feel like there's no way out. But it's often in those moments that we find the strength we didn't know we had.


Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu knows that feeling all too well. Since winning Love Island in 2022, she's gone on to become the Queen of Reality TV, from Love Island All Stars to Celebrity Big Brother and now Vanderpump Villa. 


But behind her confidence is a young girl who lacked self-belief, was severely bullied at school, and developed disordered eating in an attempt to change herself to fit in.


In this Great Moment, Ekin-Su opens up about meeting her bully later in life, and the powerful process of unlearning the idea that other people's opinions get to define you. She shares why the things that once held her down ultimately made her the woman she is today.


Listen to the full episode HERE!


This episode contains sensitive topic discussions including disordered eating and bullying. If you or someone you know is affected by anything in this episode and need support, please see the suggested helpline and website links below. 


BEAT - 0808 801 0677 - beateatingdisorders.org.uk


Samaritans - 116 123 - samaritans.org


If you enjoyed the show, you can also follow us: 

Instagram- @greatcompanypodcast

TikTok - @greatcompanypodcast 


And if you've got thoughts, questions and comments, you can email us at: greatcompany@jampotproductions.co.uk 


THE CREDITS

Producer: Helen Burke

Assistant Producer: Issy Weeks-Hankins

Video: Jake Ji

Social Media: Laura Coughlan

Exec Producer: Ewan Newbigging-Lister & Jemima Rathbone


Great Company is an original podcast from JamPot


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Lang and this is Great Moments.

0:09.1

Hello everyone, this is Great Moments, where I share some of my favorite moments from my conversations on Great Company.

0:15.2

Something that's made me think, made me laugh, or changed my perspective, and hopefully, hopefully there's something in it for you too.

0:22.1

So are you ready? Let's get into it.

0:27.5

You grew up in Islington, right? And then you moved to Essex.

0:32.2

When I was 10. Okay. And then what was that like growing up there? What was school like?

0:38.3

Tough.

0:39.3

This is when things changed. I went in very year six I went into, I remember having a very long skirt in primary school.

0:49.7

My name was very, obviously foreign at the time. Echinseu, Jujol, a very long.

0:57.6

And it was a very sort of like, it wasn't a multicultural school.

1:02.8

Because when I went to school in Tottenham, it was, you know, different, you know, backgrounds and stuff. So I went from that to go into literally me and everyone, basically, I felt like an alien.

1:09.3

And almost like I had quite hairy legs at the time you're

1:13.3

only a young you're a child and then you had all the other girls of prada bags and prada shoes and

1:18.5

fake tan and mascara on and I'm like wow like that that I idolized that but I was never fitting in that

1:25.6

I was kind of the dork I guess teachers pet teachers' pet at school. I loved the teachers. Yeah. And I seat my school lunch in the toilets a lot.

1:35.1

Then the extreme bullying, bullying happened from year seven to year nine. How old were you at that point?

1:41.0

12, 13. I was quite big when I was near 7, chubby.

1:48.4

Got pushed down the stairs, being caught fat, being called ugly, racism.

1:55.1

Yeah, I had quite a tough time at school.

1:58.6

I'm sorry.

2:00.0

That's, it's just, it's, yeah. I, I chatted to, um,

2:05.2

Luke Evans, the actor. Amazing. So he, yeah, he's amazing. He grew up in Wales and he was really

...

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