Latest news with #NikkiGrahame
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Big Brother stars Grace Adams-Short and Mikey Dalton are the ONLY couple still together after meeting on the show - and you won't believe what their family look like now!
Grace Adams-Short and her husband Mikey Dalton are still going strong 19 years after first meeting on Big Brother where they quickly fell in love. The couple, who were on the same series as Nikki Grahame and Pete Bennett, got engaged just four months after the show ended and married in 2009. Despite a string of romances that blossomed in front of viewers' eyes across several series of the show, Grace and Mikey are the only couple still together today. Grace, 39, and Mikey, 42, welcomed son Atticus in January 2022, and are also parents to Georgiana, 13, Spencer, 10, and Allegra, six. They have previously said they plan to show their children series six of the programme so they can see 'where mummy and daddy fell in love'. They announced their pregnancy in September 2021, when they revealed that, although they were actively trying for another baby, who was due on January 8, they were shocked at how fast the pregnancy came. She told OK! magazine: 'It's funny as people keep asking if we're having any more and I'm like, "We've just had a baby and four is a big number!"' While delightedly announcing their baby news, Grace also spoke about her pregnancy and revealed she suffered a rare condition which caused issues. She said: 'I had to be induced early as I had a condition called anti-C, which can cause complications with the baby's antibodies... 'I never had it with my other pregnancies, it was stressful. All through the pregnancy I had to give blood every two weeks.' She has previously revealed her highlight of her time on Big Brother was 'meeting the daddy of our three munchkins' and credited the franchise for giving her the opportunity to buy multiple homes and travel the world. She told The Sun: 'It was kind of like a holiday romance. We just enjoyed it really and everything we did since then has felt right for us. 'Without Big Brother, I would never of been able to buy a quarter of a million pound flat in London by myself at the age of 20 and travel the way I did.' Grace and Mikey recently revealed they're more in love than ever since welcoming their fourth child - but admit they struggle to spend time together. They have previously said they plan to show their children series six of the programme so they can see 'where mummy and daddy fell in love' She told The Sun of their relationship: 'We still bounce off each other like we did from day one. Obviously we drive each other mad sometimes like any other couple, but we're best friends and now we've got the children, it's even deeper. 'Seeing what a good dad Mikey is has made him even more attractive to me.' Mikey added: 'Grace just gets better with age, even though she hasn't aged at all. I tell her every day how good she looks.' Yet he admitted: 'We don't often have time for each other. I leave for work really early and when I get back, I spend a couple of hours with the kids before we're doing bath time and bedtime.' Following Big Brother's revival back in 2023, Grace and Mikey reflected on the beginnings of their romance on the famous show. Reflecting on the moment he set eyes on Grace, Mikey confessed: 'It was lust at first sight! I was lusting after her, I still remember the outfit you wore going in and the boots and everything. I was lovestruck when I seen her!' During her time on the show, Grace was dubbed 'the most hated housemate ever' and in shocking style she threw a glass of water over fellow housemate Susie Verrico when she became the fourth contestant to be evicted. Asked how she coped with the intense scrutiny at the age of 21, she revealed she had mentally prepared herself after hearing the boos from the crowds when host Davina McCall announced she'd been nominated the week before. Grace explained: 'I was thinking "what have I done?" You know, I b****d, I didn't play a game, I just didn't think and I hold my hands up. 'As we say to the kids, you get what you get and don't be upset!' 'That was a low point but I'm glad I heard [the boos] because that prepared me for going out and it was panto. I think if the doors just opened and I'd been confronted with a barrage of boos, I'd have been a bit "ooo."' Explaining how they coped with instant fame upon leaving the house, Grace mused: 'there was no social media then so it was a totally different time.' Mikey added: 'I also think us being together and kind of bouncing off each other helped us to cope with things because we were both in the same boat and we had each other to speak to.' Grace was the fourth housemate to be evicted on day 30, while Mikey narrowly missed out on a spot the final week, when he was voted off on day 79. After being reunited the couple made a short-lived return to the house on day 83 as part of a surprise twist, where the remaining housemates were given the chance to choose one evictee to come back into the main house for the final week. The housemates chose to bring back Nikki, meaning Grace and Mikey were evicted for the second time after living in The House Next Door for three days. Grace, who says she still gets recognised after appearing on Big Brother, sold the performing arts academy she set up to concentrate on looking after her children. The former dance teacher set up performing schools across the nation and was able to purchase properties in London and Liverpool following her Big Brother appearance, recently selling her company for millions. The Big Brother has long been a catalyst for romance, forming a string of couples throughout the show's 25-year history. Grace and Mikey are the only pair to have stood the test of time, though she previously admitted that she 'fully cringes' watching reruns of their time on the show. When classic episodes of the show re-aired on E4 in 2020, Grace wrote on Instagram: 'I just want to say a huge thank you for all the lovely messages I've had about Mikey and I and our family,' '14 years ago at 20 years old I decided to go on Big Brother for a bit of fun for the summer I never thought i would of found my future husband !!' Referencing the backlash she received at the time over her behaviour in the house, Grace continued: 'Yes I was opinionated and had far too much to say (I don't think this has really changed if you ask Mikey).' '3 kids later we are so close and happy and truly grateful for what we have. I hope the re runs of the show has given everyone some light relief and good old fashioned reality tv during lockdown.' Posting alongside a glam selfie of herself, Grace added that she was mortified by her appearance joking: 'I fully cringed last night watching the show and wish someone had introduced me to eyebrow tint and hair dye back then - something I'm well accustomed to now living In Liverpool.' Big Brother will return to ITV for a new series next month, with the series set to be extended to seven weeks, and once again will be hosted by AJ Odudu and Will Best. Last year's run saw Ali Bromley crowned series champion, while Marcello Spooks finished as runner-up, and Emma Morgan in third place.
The Sun
6 days ago
- Health
- The Sun
Fat jabs are a nightmare for anorexics – I'll never get over my girl Nikki's death but I'd worry if she was still here
NIKKI Grahame was just seven years old when her mum said she came home from gymnastics club upset because another child had said her bum looked big in her leotard. That one tiny comment sparked the beginnings of an eating disorder in Nikki, which would see her spend the next decade in more than 18 different institutions, including two-and-a-half years in Great Ormond Street Hospital. 16 16 When she shot to fame on Big Brother in 2006, fans had no idea that behind her iconic diary chair meltdowns was a lifelong struggle with anorexia so severe that even the most experienced doctors described it as "the worst they'd ever seen." Now in a raw and emotional interview, Nikki's devoted mum Sue relives her gruelling journey with anorexia and recalls the last days before her tragic death from the disease, aged just 38. And she warns against the use of skinny jabs such as Ozempic or Mounjaro by people who are already slim - saying it could trigger or worsen eating disorders. 'Worst they'd ever seen' "I think these jabs are a nightmare for people with eating disorders because they are already skinny and it means they can restrict their food even more," Sue, now 71, told The Sun. "It would have been a worry for me while Nikki was alive. I don't know if Nikki would have taken them or not. She was already limiting her calories every single day, that was a huge part of her life. "I wouldn't have let her take the jabs, I'd have said, 'over my dead body'. "For people like Nikki, everything is counted, measured and weighed; it becomes their whole life. She would weigh herself before breakfast and again after each meal. It's constant. "To me, it's a short-term fix, to get an injection, because you need an education on how to look after your body, how to nurture it, how to nourish it. And just getting an injection, that's not going to change your ways, is it?" When shown examples of "thinspiration' content which can be found on social media sites such as TikTok, where influencers post images of ultra thin women and what they eat, Sue was shocked. 'Nikki used to go on sites like this and look at this kind of thing," she said. 'I know when I've walked into the room and she suddenly turned her phone off. 'Back then there were lots of websites about how to be as thin as you can. These people should be bloody locked up. It's disgusting. 'People should be locked up' 'I can honestly say I've never been on a diet. Never. And so it wasn't something Nikki learned from me." Sue said the first signs of Nikki's anorexia came when she was seven and she suddenly stopped eating and became withdrawn. 'There was the comment from the girl in gymnastics and she started to become withdrawn, that was the first sign," Sue said. "She started to get smaller and very picky with her food, so the alarm bells started to ring. 'I took her to the GP and he stood her in front of him and he asked her what she had eaten today. Of course she lied to him. 'She was so young, doctors refused to believe there was anything wrong with her." 16 16 16 Sue remembers being fobbed off by doctors until one day, Nikki was so weak she couldn't stand, and she carried her into the GP surgery where she refused to move until they admitted her daughter to hospital. "I didn't want her to be admitted to hospital but I couldn't get her to eat anything, she'd trick me," Sue said. 'It got to the point where I had to make her eat naked so she wouldn't stuff food in her knickers or anything. 'Because it started so young, by the time Nikki became an adult it was so engrained for her. Her purpose, her way of life, was to stay as thin as possible. 'She was very competitive about it. She'd walk on to a ward and want to be the skinniest anorexic in there. I would despair. 'When she was in Great Ormond Street, she had this wonderful doctor Professor Bryan Lask and he said 'You're not the worst I've ever seen Nikki, you are by far the worst I've ever seen' - and he travelled the world lecturing on anorexia." 'Don't leave me mummy' Sue recalls the heartbreaking day she left seven-year-old Nikki as an inpatient in hospital for the first time. 'She kept saying 'Mummy don't leave' and I said, 'Nikki I don't have a choice because you won't eat for me'," Sue said. 'Then they said, 'You can't see or speak to her for two weeks'. I said no, but they insisted. 'As we were leaving Nikki was screaming and these people just came from nowhere and pinned her down on the floor while we were rushed out of the unit. It was hell on earth, it was unnecessarily cruel." Sadly, Nikki did not improve. She refused to eat and became so thin nurses would have to force her to eat through a nasal tube. 'It got to the point where I had to make her eat naked so she wouldn't stuff food in her knickers or anything Sue Grahame Later on, she had to have a tube fitted surgically direct to her stomach as she kept pulling the nasal tube out, but that didn't work either as she pulled the tube out of her body. Sometimes she'd be sedated for a month at a time, as doctors desperately tried to increase her BMI with forced feeds. Sue said it some of the treatments were so "cruel" it was "gut-wrenching". 'The whole system of trying to treat anorexics it doesn't work," Sue said. 'I've been to all those units and some of them are pitiful. 16 16 'In my mind none of them delivered for Nikki, it just strengthened her resolve. 'There was one place that I'd have to bring her back to after a weekend visit home or something, and she'd lie on the floor and beat her hands and feet and scream and cry and say 'Mum don't leave me here, please don't leave me!' 'But I didn't have a choice because she wouldn't eat for me, what was I supposed to do? 'Barbaric' treatments 'There was one place where they'd melt Mars bars down and make them set the table until it was gone and if they didn't finish it they'd have to sleep on the kitchen floor. "At one point she was put her under for a month to be tube fed. So I just used to go and sit by her bed and talk to her and hold her hand. 'She'd wake up and say 'I can feel all that food inside of me - I can't take it mum, it's torture'. 'Staff weren't always very kind. A lot of things I could accept if it was making a difference but it wasn't. 'It was very barbaric and cruelty just doesn't work." Nikki's admissions to hospital stopped when she reached 18, but her struggles with anorexia continued and she also developed severe OCD behaviour around hygiene and preparing food. Sue said she was supportive of Nikki entering Big Brother because she was pleased to see her having some fun after the "hell" she'd been through as a child, however she did worry about how she'd cope with her eating disorder in such an environment. 'Going on Big Brother was great for her, it did give her a taste of a normal life, but obviously those demons were always there," she said. "When she got a call to say she had been chosen she started jumping around saying, 'I'm in, I'm going into Big Brother!' 'I was pleased for her but worried because at the time she couldn't eat in front of people and she wouldn't allow people to cook for her. 'I couldn't even cook for her because it she had this OCD as part of her illness and she became obsessed with hygiene. 'She had to clean her own plates before she'd eat on them, she had lots of rules. "That was the thing that worried me. But I just thought you know she's been in hospital from age seven til 18. Give the girl a bloody break. She had no life up to that point. 'This is why she used to have hissy fits in the Big Brother house because she learned in these units that if you shouted the loudest you'd get attention. "I used to watch her on the live stream and I could see she was having fun but I also knew when the s**t was going to hit the fan. I could predict it when she was heading for a meltdown. I'd think 'Christ here we go' and all of a sudden she'd let rip." 16 16 16 After Big Brother, Nikki enjoyed the fame the show brought and would travel the country doing appearances, even landing herself a magazine column. She entered the Big Brother house a total of five times, including the Canadian version. When TV work dried up, she moved to Nice, France where she worked in a Hard Rock Cafe branch, and learnt to speak French. After moving back to London, she went back to college to try and get her Maths and English GCSE and got a job in a local junior school as a teaching assistant. Sue said that in the years after Big Brother "she held her own" in her battle against anorexia, but Covid exacerbated her condition. 'She had a flat with a gym so she wouldn't come and stay with me during Covid, but then they closed the gym and so she spent £900 on a cross trainer," Sue said. 'I used to illegally drive up to London because she was so isolated. 'And while I was there she'd get on this cross trainer obsessively and I'd beg her to stop. I'd say, 'I don't want to lose you' and she'd say 'I'm not going anywhere. I said, 'Yeah that's what Karen Carpenter said'. 'Covid definitely didn't help Nikki, but I can't help feeling she'd already thrown the towel in. 'Because for months before, we'd be walking. I'd turn around, she'd be on the floor. Her legs would just gave way. 'Her body was packing up. She had been starved for so long. She never even had periods. "I don't think she was ever meant to make old bones in this world." 16 16 16 In the weeks before her death, both Sue and social services tried to encourage Nikki to become an inpatient again but she refused. Instead she decided to travel to her mum's in Dorset, stopping on the way at a pharmacy to pick up her meds. 'She was only 10 minutes away when she passed out in the pharmacy, hit her head on the floor and they had to blue light her in to Dorchester hospital," Sue said. 'She was in there for two weeks and I went in every day for the two weeks because it was just a regular ward, not an eating disorder unit and I wanted to take the weight off of the nurses because she needed supervising. 'If they brought her food, it would either go down the toilet or in the bin or out the window. 'I moved into a Premier Inn so that I could just walk there each day and I used to shower her and and watch her eat her meals. 'The mental health team said there was an eating disorders unit but it only had six beds and they were full. That might have made the difference. 'The nurses at the hospital were quite aggressive with her. Maybe they resented her. No one ever has any patience for anorexics. 'Her BMI was dangerously low. She was just skin and bones. She was pitiful to look at. "Then this nurse came in and said 'This isn't the place for you. This is a surgical ward. Nikki if you can walk up and down those steps outside there you can go home tomorrow. 'And I looked at her and the state Nikki was in and I couldn't believe it." Final journey Nikki was discharged from hospital later that day alone and took a taxi to her flat in London. 'She rang me from the taxi and said 'Hi Mum, I'm on my way home'. She was so weak, I couldn't believe they'd discharged her," Sue said. "She told me she really needed the toilet and the poor thing had an accident in the taxi she was so ill. I told her to get her friend to come over when she was at home and help her clean up and then I'd come over in the morning. 'Then she rang me up half three that morning. She used to do that a lot but it was usually when she was out clubbing. 'She said 'My friend came around and she helped me in the bath and put me in my jimmy jammies and then she saw me into bed, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm coping all right. ''I've just got up and been to the loo by myself on my walker.' 'I said, 'Every day take it slowly, you're not in a hurry, you'll get there. 'She said, 'Mum I'm tired. I love you.' I told her to go to bed and that I loved her." Nikki died that same morning. Sue was on a train on her way to London when Nikki's friend called her and broke the news. 'Goodbye darling' She rushed to Nikki's flat, where she said her final goodbye. 'I just lay on the bed with Nikki and cried," she said. 'The worst thing was watching the undertakers come and put her in a body bag and taking her out. 'I went down in the lift with them and we got to the outside door and I said 'Which side is her head?' 'They said it's up there. I just stroked the bag from the outside and said 'Goodbye darling'. It's awful, awful. I'll never get over it. It was the worst day of my life." Sue said she blames the hospital for Nikki's death and even looked into taking legal action but no law firm would take the case. She believes it was irresponsible for them to discharge her when she "couldn't even bathe herself or dress herself" and says she should have been transferred to a mental health unit. 'Even if I'd have taken it to court and won, I didn't want the money," Sue said. "I wanted things to change. Maybe I would have tried to get a unit built somewhere that would help others with anorexia. 'That nurse shouldn't have said, 'If you walk up and down the stairs, you can leave', because she clearly wasn't well enough to leave the hospital. If that's a rule, it shouldn't be. 'Nikki died on a Saturday morning. And I was walking my dog on the Monday morning when that same nurse rang. She was crying and she said, 'I'm so, so sorry. She shouldn't have gone home.' 'They shouldn't have let her home just because she put a bit of pressure on. She didn't know what was best for her." Signs and symptoms of anorexia if you're under 18, your weight and height being lower than expected for your age if you're an adult, having an unusually low body mass index missing meals, eating very little or avoiding eating any foods you see as fattening believing you are fat when you are a healthy weight or underweight taking medication to reduce your hunger (appetite suppressants) your periods stopping (in women who have not reached menopause) or not starting (in younger women and girls) physical problems, such as feeling dizzy, dry skin and hair loss Four years on from Nikki's April 2021 death, Sue says she's still struggling emotionally. She has relocated from Dorset and lives in East Sussex with her chihuahua Joey. Just two months ago, she suffered another heartbreak when she had to have Baby, Nikki's chihuahua who she had cared for since before her death, put to sleep aged 19. 'Until the day I take my last breath I won't get over Nikki's loss," she said. 'Nothing in this world scares me anymore because the worst possible thing has happened. "Life is tough, but since I came down here I'm trying extremely hard. I've made a couple of really good friends. 'But I have to say I have never been loved as much as Nikki loved me. And it wasn't because I was a pushover, it was because from day one of her illness I was fighting for her. 'I try and be philosophical because at the end of the day, she was mine for 38 years. How lucky was I? And people still write lovely things about her. They still love her. 'She wasn't everybody's cup of tea but for me she was very special. And even if I died tomorrow, I know I was truly loved in my life, and that's something not everybody can say."
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Imogen Thomas set for third boob job as she makes candid surgery confession
Big Brother star Imogen Thomas opens up on how she's changed since her time on the show, her mystery boyfriend and her third boob operation - and makes a shock confession Welsh model Imogen Thomas won an army of fans on Big Brother in 2006 alongside her friend, the late Nikki Grahame, and there's been no stopping the 42-year-old since. Here, the winner of Miss Wales 2003 – who shares daughters Ariana, 12, and Siera, 10, with her ex Adam Horsley – opens up exclusively to new about life with her banker boyfriend, why they have no plans to live together right now and her shock plans for a third boob job... Hi, Imogen! How are you? I'm just busy buying flats – I have five in total now. I buy them and rent. I bought my first one when I came out of Big Brother 20 years ago. Did you watch Celebrity Big Brother? I didn't, actually. I've been in Turkey and just got back – so I haven't seen any of it. I took my kids on holiday and it was so nice to get away. The weather was amazing. Do you have regrets about your own time on the show? Never, because it's what gave me the money to buy a place of my own at the very beginning. I loved it, and if they asked me to go on it now, I would. You're not doing much on there, and I think I've changed so much since my series, so I'd love to. We'll see – maybe one day. How do you think you'd be different this time round? I've grown up and I definitely speak my mind a lot more now. I say what I want. Personalities change over the years, and it was 20 years since I did the show. Crazy. Are you still dating your mysterious banker? Yes, we're still together. We've been together two years now. It's good because he's busy and I'm busy, and I think that's what makes the relationship work. I can't deal with a needy man – I really don't like needy men. Do you have any plans to move in together? No. I think we're both enjoying our own space, and that's fine. I think it's important when you're dating someone that you've still got your own life as well, although everyone is different. Some people really want to move in, move forward with things, but because I have my kids, I'm more laid-back. We see each other every other weekend. He lives in Mayfair and I'm in Wandsworth, and I'm always busy with the kids. Have you introduced him to your girls yet? Oh, yes! They have lunches together when he's not majorly busy, especially with everything that's going on with [Donald] Trump – he's crazy busy right now. Does he want kids? I think he would like one. He definitely said he would like one, but he's not in a rush. He's pretty laid-back too – he's a bit like me. We enjoy our life right now, and why not? Would you like to try for another one? I just don't know. I wouldn't rule it out, but I'm not like, 'Yes, we'll have one!' I feel like I'm done with my two, and we've got a good thing going on. So I don't know, we'll see. Have you frozen your eggs? I'm not doing that – if it's meant to happen, it will happen. You've been very open about your surgery in the past – will you have anything else done soon? Yes, I'm going to have a boob reduction, but I'm going to wait a while. I'm doing a lot of reformer Pilates, and when I do that I feel top heavy, and I've had a lot of lower back pain. They are quite big, so I would like to have a reduction. I'm hoping to go down to a size C cup, but my surgeon said, because I look curvaceous, it's not going to look even so I'm going to think about it for a bit. This will be my third boob job to date. Does it ever bother you how much you've spent on surgery? I don't pay for it! I do collaborations. A lot of women are having their boobs reduced, including Jess Wright… You have to remember, back in the day, it was very fashionable to have big boobs, and now it's not. I think that's the reason mainly. But also, we grow up, and we have kids, and suddenly you think, 'I don't know about that.' We're still working on our bodies as we get older. Would you let your girls go under the knife when they're older? No, I really don't want them to. I'd do everything to avoid it, because I know they would regret it. Your mum Janette was sadly diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2023. How is she doing? She's OK right now, but it's very difficult. Her right side has gone now, so it's dead. I go home a lot, now. I'm home once a month to Wales, for four days at a time. We're going on holiday soon. I bid for a holiday at a MND charity event, so she and I could go to Italy in June, but now I'm dreading it because the circumstances and how she feels have changed. But we are trying to stay positive.
