S15, Ep1 How To Fail: Vanessa Feltz on divorce, body-shaming and Big Brother breakdowns
How To Fail With Elizabeth Day
Sony Music
4.8 • 9.4K Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2022
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
She joins me to talk about the breakdown of her marriage, her shock at discovering her husband's infidelity and how she had to rebuild her life in the aftermath. She also discusses the failure of her chat-show, the toxic media attention paid to her weight and what enduring such challenges in public taught her about resilience. And - of course - she chats about THAT infamous moment on Celebrity Big Brother 2001.
I admire this woman so much and I can't wait for you all to listen to this powerful episode to have your preconceptions shattered. (Unless your preconception happens to be 'Vanessa is a total legend' in which case, it will be re-affirmed).
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How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [email protected]
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Social Media:
Elizabeth Day @elizabday
How To Fail @howtofailpod
Vanessa Feltz @vanessafeltzofficial
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day. The podcast that celebrates the things |
| 0:19.2 | that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding |
| 0:25.5 | that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger because learning how to fail in life actually means |
| 0:32.5 | learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every |
| 0:38.4 | week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Vanessa Feltz is, |
| 0:45.2 | and I don't say this lightly, a cultural icon. She's also been described as one of the hardest |
| 0:51.5 | working women in media, and when you look at her schedule, it's hard to disagree. Her morning |
| 0:57.6 | start at 4am on Radio 2 and continue at 7 on her phone in show for Radio London. She writes columns |
| 1:04.3 | for the Daily Express and Best Magazine and appears regularly on ITVs this morning, but her iconic status |
| 1:11.4 | comes from her impact on popular culture. She is one of a select few who's been a contestant on both |
| 1:17.8 | strictly-com dancing and celebrity-big-brother, and her 90s daytime TV chat show saw her compared |
| 1:24.4 | to Oprah Winfrey before it was taken off air amidst a scandal concerning the alleged hiring of |
| 1:30.4 | actors as guests, something that felt herself knew nothing about. It's all a long way from |
| 1:36.9 | Totteridge where she grew up. Her father, Norman, was in the larger A business and wanted his |
| 1:42.1 | daughter to be a lawyer. After graduating with a first-class English degree from Cambridge |
| 1:47.0 | University, she'd only gone there to follow a boy she was in love with, Feltz persuaded her dad |
| 1:52.3 | to give her six months to make it as a journalist. I wrote as many articles as I could and made a living, |
| 1:59.3 | she said many years later. My motivation was that and nothing else. It certainly wasn't fame. |
| 2:05.6 | It was really just to make a few quid. It didn't occur to me for years that anything else might happen. |
| 2:12.2 | Vanessa Feltz, welcome to How To Fail. Hello! Hello, I'm so good at failing. This is my natural |
| 2:20.0 | habitat. I don't know why I didn't just come and live here in this podcast. You are my dream guest |
| 2:24.1 | and you're very welcome to live here. My dream podcast and I'm really, really pleased to be in |
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