Living it Arg

by James Argent

  Bang!

  It was the sound of the bedroom door slamming with great force. I rushed back to see what had happened and I discovered Lydia had locked the door. I could tell that something was very wrong.

  ‘Lydia, what’s up? Why have you locked the door?’ I asked anxiously.

  I could hear Lydia crying and screaming and it sounded as if she was throwing things around the bedroom.

  ‘Lydia, Lydia – what are you doing? What’s the matter? Open the f***ing door!’ I yelled.

  Lydia sounded hysterical. All I could hear was sobbing and what sounded like my clothes being ripped from their hangers in the wardrobe.

  ‘Open the door, Lydia!’ I insisted.

  Suddenly, the door flew open and Lydia came rushing at me with my suitcase in her hand. She threw it at me full force and then slapped me around the face.

  ‘Out, get out! F***ing get out!’ she screamed.

  I was shocked. Clearly, something had made her see red, big time. And then the penny dropped.

  ‘I f***ing know. I know. I know,’ she sobbed.

  While I was in the kitchen making breakfast one of Lydia’s friends had called her to explain that I had been spotted kissing the brunette girl at the Ocean Club. I was speechless and didn’t know what to say. It had only been a silly mistake that had lasted a few seconds but I could see that Lydia was in bits about it. I tried to explain that it had meant nothing. I’d gone to the Ocean Club after Lydia had led me to believe that it was all over, and I had just got caught up in the moment. But the more I tried to talk my way out of it, the angrier Lydia became. I felt a complete idiot. It was obvious that I had made a big mistake, even though the kiss itself meant nothing to me and I had genuinely forgotten about it. But in Lydia’s mind I had cheated on her and I could see that the thought was destroying her. She was absolutely heartbroken and she threw me out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me.

  As I sat downstairs, my mind was in pieces. I’d gone from the crest of a wave to the depths of despair. Just when I thought I had managed to get back with Lydia it had all come crashing down, all because of my own stupid behaviour for a few seconds at a pool party. I felt like a prize donut. I was full of regret and remorse. I sat there wondering what to do. I couldn’t envisage Lydia letting me back into the apartment, yet I had no air ticket to get home and very little spare cash on me. I was sitting in the street with a suitcase when Danielle, Fabian, Danny and JB came down to talk to me.

  ‘It was just a stupid kiss; it meant nothing,’ I explained.

  I cursed JB for being the one who had pushed me towards the girl, but I knew really that the blame lay with me. I wanted to go and make my peace with Lydia but the others advised me against it. They said she was feeling destroyed. It would only make things worse if I went back up to the apartment.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ I asked. I was at my wits’ end.

  Amid all the fuss and confusion, Danielle had phoned her uncle, Jamie, to tell him about what had happened. I suppose she knew that he and I were friends and she hoped that he might be able to help calm me down. He was living in a huge villa with plenty of room just up the coast at Estepona, but I knew him well from back in England, where he had been part of the Essex crowd. My phone rang and it was Jamie, who said I could go and stay with him while Lydia calmed down. It was a kind gesture and I didn’t have any other options open, so I decided to catch the bus to Estepona. I felt so lonely that I cried on the journey.

  Jamie was a good host and I spent the next few weeks staying with him. It felt as if my heart was broken, but I did my best to try to get through it. I spent long hours working out in the gym, doing skipping and pounding on the running machine. I managed to lose a little bit of weight. Jamie was very much into self-help books that were all about the power of positive thinking. I read a few of those, which helped me a little bit; but, try as I might, I couldn’t get Lydia out of my mind. The only slight bright spot was that I was contacted by a venue that invited me to sing at Buddha Beach. It was a big concert with the Drifters at the top of the bill and I supported them. It was a great gig but I was very sad that Lydia wasn’t there to see me. We’d had no contact since our blazing bust-up at the apartment and I was desperate to see her again. Unfortunately, things were about to go from bad to worse.

  After a few weeks, Mark and Jack came out to visit me and we arranged to go for a night out together at a club called TIBU. It was great to see the boys, and their usual banter gave me a lift, but I was about to walk into another firestorm with Lydia. When we got to TIBU I was drinking quite heavily when I saw Lydia walking into the club with a man. He was much older than her and had a bald head, and, as they arrived, they seemed to be holding hands.

  What the hell’s going on here? I thought.

  He looked far too old to be in a relationship with her but my head just went to pieces. I later learned that he was just a friend from work, but at the time I was fixated by the fact that they were together. I saw red and my heart started pounding. I was so angry and hurt. It felt as if there was a wild fury inside me. What I did next was stupid, horrible and immature and I will always regret it.

  While I was drinking with Mark and Jack there was a girl in the bar who was all over me. She was paying me lots of attention and making it clear that she was interested in me. Cruelly, I made sure that Lydia could see everything while I flirted with her. Then, slowly and deliberately, I kissed the girl in full view of Lydia. While we snogged I could see Lydia out of the corner of my eye and her face just dropped. She was shocked and hurt and I could see her getting teary-eyed. To this day I don’t know what possessed me to do it, it was as if I had a devil inside me.

  As soon as the kiss was over I regretted it. It was a harsh thing to do and something that was not normally in my nature, but all the weeks of upset over Lydia had turned to anger and welled up inside me with brutal force. I felt ashamed.

  F***! I’ve got to get out of here, I said to myself, still not quite believing what I had done.

  As I went to leave, Lydia came right up in front of me.

  ‘Oh, all right, are you, James? Having a good night, are you?’ she asked sarcastically.

  And with that she picked up a whole pint of water and poured it over my head. I was soaked and I left the club dripping wet, while Lydia stayed inside with a broken heart.

  After that I went back to Jamie’s villa for a few days. I was inconsolable because I felt that the damage I had done was irreparable, but there was one last terrible incident that seemed to put a final nail into the coffin of my relationship with Lydia. I had arranged to stay with Jamie for another week because I had one last gig to play at a private party in Puerto Banús for one of his friends. After that, I planned to go back to the UK alone.

  By now everybody had warned me to give Lydia a wide berth, but I wouldn’t listen. I sang at the party and had a good time, but afterwards I got paralytically drunk. In my boozed-up state I decided to go and visit Lydia at the apartment. It was another stupid thing to do but in my drunken mind I still wanted to make up with her. I was due to fly home a few days later but all that I kept thinking in my head was, Lydia, Lydia, Lydia! So I slipped away from the party determined to go and find her.

  When I turned up at the apartment, Lydia was there. She was shocked to see me.

  ‘Lydia, I’m so, so sorry,’ I pleaded. ‘I can’t believe I kissed that girl in front of you. I was evil. I won’t be surprised if you can never forgive me.’

  I could tell that she was still very hurt and angry, but what she said next upset me even more.

  ‘Well, don’t worry about it because I’ve met somebody else,’ she said.

  My heart sank. The thought of anyone else being with Lydia made me feel sick. I used to think that when people said they had a broken heart it was just a saying, but now I knew for real what it felt like. It was as if somebody had punched me. I felt a physical ache in my body as Lydia explained that she had met a boy whom she got on with. Thank
fully, she said that they hadn’t slept together, but I was still devastated. The next thing that erupted within me was boiling fury. I saw red and I kicked the table and started to throw things around the apartment. Thankfully, Danielle came in at this point with a friend called Tommy, who was a nightclub promoter. Tommy and I were mates and he grabbed hold of me and calmed me down. I was still in pieces. It had been a mistake to go to the apartment.

  I knew now that there was no way I’d be able to get back with Lydia while she was in Spain. A few days later I packed my bags and flew back to Essex. I was lonely and full of despair.

  9

  JOINING TOWIE: LIFE ON THE ROLLER COASTER

  Sometimes, you get your biggest breaks when you are feeling at your lowest, and that was what happened to me when I joined The Only Way Is Essex. When I came back from Spain after splitting up with Lydia I was distraught. I had no job, no girlfriend and no prospects. My friends could see how down I was and they tried to rally around me. Josh was now playing for Scunthorpe in the Championship and he invited me to go and stay with him at Burton Waters in Lincoln. He was living in a beautiful house on a lake with a David Lloyd gym located in the same complex. At first I couldn’t even bring myself to eat properly and I spent most of the time crying about Lydia while he was out training, but Josh was a real rock and he helped me through it.

  He said to me, ‘Look, Arg, you have no commitments, so use this time. Get down the gym and get yourself in shape.’

  I took Josh’s advice and I worked out for hours on end and lost a lot of weight. I got down to below 15 stone and I started to feel much slimmer. I had an idea that if I could shed enough bulk and look good it might help me to win back Lydia. I couldn’t stay with Josh the whole time, so I would occasionally make trips back home. It was during one of these that I linked up with Mark and we discussed TOWIE. I’d first heard about The Only Way Is Essex earlier in the summer when I’d come back from Spain to sing at the Duke of Essex polo event. There was a camera crew filming everybody and Mark explained that they were interested in making a new TV show all about Essex. A production company called Lime Pictures was planning to film a pilot. The idea was that it would feature real-life characters to capture the bling of Essex, which was already famous for its spray-on tans and party lifestyle. In the States there was a show called The Hills, which followed the fortunes of the in-crowd in affluent areas of Los Angeles. It had already been a bit of a hit there. During the polo event, Mark introduced me to TOWIE’s producer, Sarah Dillistone. We had a quick chat but she didn’t film me because I said I was living in Marbella. While I was in Spain, Lydia and I saw Mark appear on some early trailers for TOWIE on ITV2, but I never thought in a million years that I would be on the show. When I arrived back in England TOWIE wasn’t on my radar, apart from the fact that I was happy for Mark.

  ‘This new TV series is going to be crazy, it’ll be a big hit,’ he said.

  Then, out of the blue, I received a phone call from a woman called Liz at Lime Pictures.

  ‘We realise that you’ve only just come back from Spain,’ she told me. ‘We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you properly but we know that you’re one of Mark’s best friends and it would be nice for you to come up to the office and just have a chat.’

  I was flattered to receive the call, but at this stage I still didn’t think much of it. I assumed that, at best, they might just want to offer me the chance to appear in the odd tiny scene. I had no idea that it would lead to a major role.

  And then something crossed my mind.

  Maybe if I’m on TV it’ll help me to win Lydia back, I thought.

  I arranged to go the offices of Lime Pictures in London and I was shown into a room with a camera.

  ‘We’d just like to film you while we ask you a few questions,’ they explained.

  The producers were mainly interested in asking me about my friendship with Mark, but I spent the whole time telling them about Lydia. It seemed as if every question they asked somehow ended up with me talking about her. I think it made a bit of an impression on them, because afterwards they commented on how much I obviously still loved her.

  Although I didn’t know it at the time, it had been a bit of an audition and I’d obviously passed the first test. I think they were looking for somebody to be Mark’s friend in the show, somebody who could be a bit of a sidekick. They wanted him to have someone he could go shopping with, talk to about his problems and have a bit of banter with. They weren’t looking for a main character at all, just a bit of a lapdog for Mark to talk to. I was approached because I was Mark’s best mate. They loved the fact that he and I were complete opposites. Mark was this successful ladies’ man and really good-looking, whereas I was quieter and a bit chubby. But, despite our differences, we had this natural genuine friendship. They liked the fact that Mark would confide in me about his feelings. He had recently split from Lauren Goodger after dating her for nine years. In public, Mark would make out he didn’t care much about the split, whereas with me he would get deep and tell me how he truly felt.

  I was invited to shoot a pilot, but when it came to filming it I was completely wooden. The crew filmed me talking to Mark in his car while he drove along, but I was completely distracted by the cameras. I felt I came across very stilted and awkward. Mark was then also asked to film a set of title sequences with the other main characters, who included Kirk Norcross, Amy Childs, Mark’s sister Jess, plus Sam Faiers and one or two others. I wasn’t invited to take part in the titles, and neither was I asked to attend a big press launch for the show at the Embassy Club in London. I assumed that I’d been left out because I was destined to have only a tiny role, if anything at all.

  It was while I was in discussions with TOWIE that I got a shock when I discovered Lydia was back in Essex. I’d heard rumours that she had returned and I was singing in Nu Bar one evening when she walked in with some of her friends. My heart started banging as soon as I saw her, but my mates later told me to play it cool and not go rushing over. I felt a mixture of emotions because my first reaction was that I wanted to speak to her, but by now I had learned my lessons from Spain and I realised that going charging in head first isn’t always the best thing to do. I resisted the urge to go over and say hello, but we both clocked each other. Soon afterwards I deliberately left the bar.

  Later that evening I received a text from Lydia: ‘Where are you, I need to speak to you.’

  I didn’t reply, even though it nearly broke my heart to ignore her. A while later, I bumped into a friend of Lydia’s, who told me that she’d been frantically asking after me that night.

  Perhaps there was hope for us yet.

  I was delighted when I received a phone call from the producers to confirm that they wanted me to appear in the first ever episode of The Only Way Is Essex. I couldn’t believe my luck – I was going to be on TV! The first thing that Mark said to me was that we needed to up our tans for the cameras.

  ‘Arg, you’re looking too pale, you’ve got to get under the sunbed,’ he told me with his usual blunt honesty. ‘This could make us rich if we get everything right.’

  We both spent the next few days going to tanning salons and frantically shopping for new clothes to wear on air. The money I was being offered to appear wasn’t huge, but I didn’t care, because I hoped it would lead to greater things. The format of the show was very interesting. The producers explained that they would speak to us about our daily lives and ask what we had coming up. They’d then ask us to be filmed in various situations discussing certain topics. The conversations are all genuine – nothing is scripted – so what the viewers see on air is what really happens.

  Around this time Lauren had a birthday party coming up and all the local gossip was about whether or not Mark would go along, having just split from her. The opening scene of the first episode showed Mark and me discussing the party while we were in his car. While we were filming I was still very much a bag of nerves. I had no idea whether the show would be a hit, so
I didn’t tell anybody about it in advance, apart from my own family. My mum and dad were very excited but I asked them not to tell anyone. To be honest, I was worried that I would be so wooden that the whole of Essex would take the piss out of me.

  In fact, the producers loved the chemistry between Mark and me from the beginning. We were like a bromance double act who were rarely seen apart. They liked the way Mark would crack jokes at my expense but I would just laugh it off. I didn’t mind being the butt of his humour, because he always did it with warmth.

  When it came to film Lauren’s birthday party I was shocked by how explosive it turned out to be. Lauren went into a jealous fury when she spotted Mark talking to Sam.

  ‘You bunch of *****!’ Lauren screamed, using a very rude word.

  I’d seen Lauren react like that in the past when she was angry, but I was still amazed at how blunt she was in front of the cameras. I thought it was quite funny and it set the tone for the future. I knew we were in for a crazy ride. It made me realise that Lauren was exactly what the producers wanted. She was fiery, opinionated and prepared to let rip after a few drinks. It was a toe-curling moment, but it was TV gold. TOWIE had arrived with a bang.

  Watching yourself on television for the first time is a bit of a shock. I wasn’t used to seeing myself on camera and I felt that I looked a bit awkward in those early scenes. The producers were keen to film Mark, Jess and me as we sat together watching the first episode, so that they could capture our first reactions to seeing ourselves on TV. We all had mixed emotions. We sat on the sofa and at times I cringed behind a pillow. It was like being on a roller-coaster. One minute we were up and I thought we looked great, the next we were blushing and wishing the ground would open up to swallow us.