“For me, shopping is a way to unwind.”
“Most evenings I’ll light a few candles, get snuggled on the sofa, and read a magazine.”
“I’m such a wimp.”
“I’ve earned my stripes; I don’t need to prove myself to anyone.”
“When critics talk about Three, they talk about ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’ and ‘Snog Marry Avoid?,’ but we’re also making important documentaries. We take hard-hitting issues and make them accessible.”
“’Strictly’ has taught me that activity outside work is good for my mental health.”
“I’m delighted to be involved with ‘Glow Up.’ The make-up artists are so impressive and talented.”
“Sometimes, it’s healthy to take a step back.”
“Winter is 100% my favourite time of year. I’m not a summer baby.”
“Life is life, and you’ve got to be mindful of that.”
“Making a documentary about my hometown was always going to be the most difficult topic I had ever covered! No question.”
“When I first arrived in Cambodia, I found it very buzzy and very happening. It seemed like quite a cool place, and everyone, tourists and locals, seemed to be in good spirits!”
“My father had his demons; our relationship was difficult and fractured. But I don’t ever think, ‘Poor me,’ I just feel blessed that I had my mother. She was such a great mum.”
“In Cambodia, education is really a luxury, and many kids are thrown into work as early as possible. This means they can help support their parents, as often the parents don’t even earn a living wage.”
“Now I’m 30; I’m starting to think I’d love a family. I think it will happen one day.”
“I’m still hesitant to call myself a journalist. I see myself as a documentary maker who is trusted with hard-hitting current affairs issues.”
“I’m not toeing the line when I say BBC3 is an incredible channel – it has evolved and found itself.”
“You have to be brave and ask the questions on the tip of your tongue.”
“Hate won’t solve anything.”
“When I was given my first gig, and I had no real appetite for a career, I just worked to get money so I could live!”
“Whether you’re a man or a woman – whatever your gender – if you’re doing a job, and you’re doing it well, you should be paid accordingly.”
“I love Orla Guerin – she’s my queen… when I watch her on the news, I just can’t believe how brave she is.”
“I love being in people’s houses.”
“As a journalist, I think it’s OK to feel – I think there’s space for it. It’s how you react to those feelings that’s important.”
“I try to be semi-healthy, but I’ve got into a really bad routine of never food shopping. My fridge is always bare!”
“I can nod off anywhere. Once, when I was little, I even slept through a car crash.”
“I’m such a homebody. It’s actually quite tragic because, if I’m out for drinks, I’ll constantly be thinking about when it’s acceptable for me to leave.”
“I deserve to be paid the same as men.”
“I try to be more mindful and less greedy.”
“I work hard. That’s probably one of my only strengths.”
“I often think, if I hadn’t have done ‘Blood, Sweat and T-shirts,’ where would I be? What would I be doing?”
“Drugs have always scared me.”
“I believe, ultimately, there are more goodies than baddies in the world, and you have to remind yourself of that.”
“I left school at 15, didn’t pick up my GCSEs, didn’t do A-levels, didn’t go to uni.”
“I like eating everything in sight.”
“It’s daunting doing something you haven’t done before – you feel silly; you feel like a bit of an idiot.”
“The few pounds we spend for an item of clothing isn’t the true cost – the real cost is the millions of gallons of clean water that was used to grow the fabric, or the millions of gallons of fresh water that was polluted with toxic chemicals to dye the clothes.”
“2018 has been such a fantastic year for me: working on some hard-hitting documentaries, as well as ‘Strictly,’ has been a real treat.”
“I love making documentaries. But I do like other factual entertainment as well, and I like doing the lighter stuff.”
“The thing about my dancing is, I actually think I’m magnificent.”
“You have to put the extra hours in if you’re not up to scratch with everyone else.”
“I was born in Luton, I grew up in Luton, and all my family and friends are still there. Luton is home for me.”
“I knew that extremism in Luton was a really important issue to try and cover, even though it could be very awkward for me at times!”
“I never really had an opinion about the Al Muhajiroun; I didn’t really know enough about them.”
“Feeling the pressure to find a job or make the wage we earn go as far as we need it to? That’s totally relatable. Nearly all my pals, and definitely myself, have been in that situation. It’s no fun.”
“One night I will never ever forget is when I was in the thick of a protest. There were nearly one million people outside Parliament. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
“There are people who dismiss any ideas you have about helping, but anything has got to be better than doing absolutely nothing… hasn’t it?”
“The Democratic Republic of Congo was the most unbelievable place I have ever seen. Now, I’m not normally a massive fan of landscapes, but the country was just so so stunning!”
“When I was 18, I was working at Luton airport and spending all my money on going out and buying tops. I had no fears, no responsibilities.”
“One of the reasons I said yes to doing ‘Strictly’ was because it is so far removed from what I do for a living ordinarily.”
“I love my job, but it’s intense, and it’s serious, and it’s straight, and it can be really harrowing.”
“One of the things that slaps you in the face when you arrive in Japan is their obsession with everything cute.”
“It’s hard being homeless at any age, but at 16 years old? I can’t even imagine. When you’re a homeless teen, how do you build a future or have any sort of life?”
“We can’t forget that there are so many young people who are homeless – and unbelievably vulnerable.”
“I feel like no-one likes a sob story. No-one likes to hear Moanie Margaret.”
“My mum went above and beyond to make up for the fact I didn’t have two parents. I was very lucky.”
“I’d been to Mosul and back and forth to Iraq and Latin America, and it was all quite harrowing… and I felt like I wanted a month or two of total escapism.”
“I know some people believe impartiality is key, and it’s necessary in some situations, but in others – if something is so fundamentally wrong, why do we have to make out we’re impartial?”
“I think BBC3 gave me my first commissions because I wasn’t a middle-class, highbrow journalist. I was able to speak to the contributors on a level that perhaps some journalists don’t.”
“If I had tried to adopt the tone and vibe of other serious journalists, that would have come across as insincere, forced, and false.”
“You have to keep time aside for life, which I haven’t done enough over the past couple years.”
“There were times when I didn’t have enough money, I didn’t have enough work, and I would panic.”
“I have never met anyone who has worked harder than me.”
“Generally, I’m quite chilled about my looks, but I’m gutted if my skin’s bad.”
“There are always people who are desperate to put you in your one camp and never let you leave. The idea that you could be interested in the Yazidi community and also in lipstick blows people’s minds. It’s a really short-sighted, Stone Age attitude; it’s boring, actually.”
“We should celebrate make-up. It’s a lucrative industry; a massive employer.”
“It’s daunting; it’s daunting doing something that you are not brilliant at in front of millions of people. But you can’t sit back and say no to opportunity. You have to throw yourself in.”
“I’m a real advocate for ‘Live your best life.’ The cha-cha is not my best life.”
“The cha-cha, right from the start… I knew it wasn’t my kinda thing.”
“I’m just so made up that I said yes to ‘Strictly.’ It has been one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done.”
“I didn’t collect my GCSEs. I didn’t even do most of them.”
“Traditional news feels quite sanitised, quite statisticky. We’re bombarded with images, but often, you don’t see the human stories, or if you do, it’s only for 60 seconds, max.”
“You can be aware and educated and informed, but you’ve got to place emphasis on being compassionate, having empathy and understanding.”
“I don’t really care anymore: I’m fiercely proud of the fact I’ve been able to make a career despite the fact I wasn’t born into privately educated schools.”
“I had no desire to go to Iraq. I never wanted to go to Mosul. I’m not a war correspondent. No part of me thrives on the adrenaline or anything like that.”
“I make mistakes all the time!”
“There have been scenes and sequences I’ve done that I watch back now and cringe and think I dealt with that in completely the wrong way. Sometimes I’m too emotional – too invested, in that sense – but you learn, and then you don’t do it again.”
“I love revisiting, actually. I went back to the Philippines. I’ve done three films in the Philippines.”
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