by James Argent
‘And the winner of the YouTube Audience Award is . . . The Only Way Is Essex!’
Yes!
We were ecstatic. A giant roar that sounded a bit like a football crowd erupted from the tables where the TOWIE crowd were all sitting together. It was a huge upset when the award was announced and I got the impression that nobody else in the banquet hall had wanted us to win. I jumped to my feet and hugged several of the producers. We were beside ourselves with joy and we could hardly believe it. Unlike the other BAFTA categories, the YouTube Award is decided via a public vote, so we knew that we owed our success to our fans. If it had been left to a stuffy committee to decide, then I doubt we’d have won against the likes of Downton Abbey. The fact that the public had chosen us made the feeling of victory all the more sweet. This was our moment and we wanted to savour it to the full. Together we all made our way up onto the stage to accept our BAFTA in front of the cream of British showbiz. The producers said their thanks on stage and Mark also made a short speech.
‘What does that say?’ he said, grabbing the trophy and pushing it towards Joey Essex. ‘A BAFTA!’
Mark then proceeded to tell the world just how much the award meant to us.
‘We are absolutely overwhelmed to even be invited tonight, even nominated, but to win it is . . . you know . . . incredible!’ he said.
We were all on cloud nine for the rest of the night and we celebrated the way we know best in Essex: with plenty of champagne. It was a huge achievement. Winning the BAFTA was good for all of us because from that moment onwards people in the media seemed to give the show a lot more respect. Until now, the public had loved us, but we’d not been embraced with quite the same warmth by the rest of the TV industry. I suspect that we’d been regarded in some quarters as upstarts, but that perception changed and people now acknowledged TOWIE for what it is: a great TV show. You can’t argue with a BAFTA! It raised the profile of TOWIE a great deal and the number of invitations we started to receive to appear on other shows rocketed. In the weeks and months that followed I was asked to make guest appearances on lots of top TV programmes such as Loose Women, This Morning and Daybreak. It was if we were welcomed into the heart of the TV establishment.
Lydia and I were slowly rebuilding our relationship as the summer of 2011 approached, but there was still one nasty shockwave in store. Prior to our getting back together, I’d been on my brief date with Ebru, the girl I had met in a nightclub in Romford. I saw her only briefly while I’d been split from Lydia and we’d done nothing more than share a kiss. The problem was that we’d been photographed backstage together at my singing gig – and a picture of us kissing was about to surface in the media. The trouble flared when I received a phone call from Now magazine.
‘Hello, Arg. We’ve got some photos of you kissing a girl and we want to know if you wish to make a comment,’ they told me.
‘What? Why the f*** are you printing this story? That was nearly two months ago,’ I protested.
‘We have to print it. It’s still relevant,’ they insisted.
I was furious, because the picture had been taken before Lydia and I had got back together, so I couldn’t see the point of dragging it up. The photographer was somebody I knew and I’d asked him not to publish it at the time, but now it was about to be made public several weeks later. After everything I’d been through with Lydia, I knew this would create yet another storm. Ironically, on this occasion I hadn’t actually cheated on Lydia – it had just been an innocent date at a time when we were single. I was terrified of what was going to happen next, so I thought it would be better if I were to warn Lydia, rather than have her just open up the magazine and get a nasty shock. At least that way I could explain the circumstances in advance before she saw the photo for herself.
The question was, how to tell her?
I decided to pick my moment by taking her for a nice meal and then on to the cinema. I planned to confess at the end of the evening while she was hopefully in a good mood. Call it a mad idea if you like, but it seemed to make sense at the time. To begin with it worked like a dream and we had a great time.
‘It’s been a wonderful night. I can’t believe how nice you’ve been,’ Lydia said to me as she drove me home at the end of the evening. I decided the time was right to own up just as her car was approaching my house.
‘Er . . . well. I have something to tell you, Lydia,’ I replied. ‘There’s going to be an article in Now magazine tomorrow. I kissed a girl a while ago when we weren’t together and they’re going to print a photo. I’m being completely honest with you when I say it was just a brief date, nothing more happened.’
Lydia erupted.
‘Get out!’ she screeched. ‘Get out of the f***ing car!’
‘Lydia! Lydia! I’m sorry, but there was nothing to it.’
‘Get out! Get out!’
And with that she went into a blind fury. I could see she was in no mood to be reasoned with, so I made a hasty retreat indoors. Later that night I texted her to try to explain things, but it made no difference. I was back in the doghouse. The next morning was extremely awkward because Lime Pictures had arranged for some of the cast of TOWIE to go up to Liverpool to visit the set of Hollyoaks. It meant that Lydia and I would have to be on the same coach together with the rest of the cast. She would have no time to cool off and I didn’t relish the thought of coming face to face with her in front of everybody else on the coach, but I had no choice. Feeling sick and sheepish, I crept onto the bus and took a seat near the front. Lydia was sitting towards the back. My heart sank when I saw that somebody had arranged for copies of all the magazines to be passed around the coach, including Now. I sat there scared and trembling while I wondered what Lydia’s reaction would be when she saw the photo. I felt like a fool because I’d only just won her back, and here we were in the middle of another crisis. I glanced over at Lydia, but she wouldn’t even look at me, let alone talk to me.
This is the last place on Earth I want to be at this point in time, I thought.
Our journey began and I tried to keep my head down. Then, all of a sudden, Lydia stood up at the back of the coach and started to scream. She was waving a copy of the magazine and shouting at the top of her voice, while the rest of the cast looked on in stunned silence.
‘You idiot!’ she screamed. ‘You fat prick. Look what you’ve done.’
She then started to rip the magazine to shreds. I had never seen her so angry – but the firestorm was only just beginning. Even though the coach was moving by now, Lydia sprinted down the aisle to where I was sitting at the front, and she proceeded to slap me around the head with the remaining bits of the magazine. I curled up in a ball to try to protect myself from the onslaught. There were bits of paper and torn pages everywhere. It was a total shambles, but I couldn’t really blame her. I’d been just as jealous at the pool party when I’d nicked her shoes; now it was her turn. That was the thing with Lydia and me: despite our troubles we felt we that owned each other, so nobody else could go near either of us without there being fireworks. I was still cowering beneath a flurry of blows from the shredded magazine when Jessica Wright and a couple of the producers came over to try to break it up. Eventually, Lydia went back to her seat and I spent the rest of journey up to Liverpool in stony silence.
When we arrived at the Hollyoaks set I felt as if I was in the middle of the worst day ever; the tension within our group was terrible. I spent most of the time in a bit of a daze while we were given a tour of the studios. Mark had arranged to meet us up there and it was good to see him, but nothing could lift my spirits. We were introduced to Jorgie Porter and Jennifer Metcalfe from Hollyoaks, who both looked very beautiful and were very charming.
I tried to break the ice with Lydia on a couple of occasions but she ignored me. That night, we all went to dinner together in Liverpool, after which Mark and a few of the other boys decided to stay on and have a party. I wasn’t in the mood, so I trudged back to the coach on my own. I curled up in a ball be
hind a seat and went to sleep, feeling miserable. While we were on the way home I awoke to hear Lydia talking. She must have failed to spot me when she got onto the coach, because she was talking about me as if I weren’t there.
‘Where’s Arg?’ I heard her ask. ‘Has he stayed behind with Mark?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ somebody replied.
‘The idiot!’ rasped Lydia.
Hearing that, I sat up in my seat to protest.
‘No, Lydia, I didn’t stay. I’m here,’ I said.
Lydia glared at me and didn’t say a word, so I curled up and went back to sleep. After we got back to Essex it took a bit of time for Lydia to get over the shock of the magazine article, but after a few days she began to cool down. It was just another example of one of our huge bust-ups, from which we quickly made up.
My family and I were about to receive a nasty shock that came in the middle of the summer. My sister Natasha suffered a terrifying problem with her health that took us all by surprise and could so easily have killed her.
It happened just at the time when interest in TOWIE was going through the roof. We were riding high after the BAFTAs and I was swamped with requests to appear on TV chat shows or to make personal appearances. What happened to my sister put everything into perspective. It made me realise that, no matter how successful you are, life can still throw you a curveball at any time.
Natasha and I (or Tash, as I call her) are very close siblings. We were born less than two years apart and, as I’ve said before, we were very happy playmates as kids. I have fond memories of going roller-skating with her close to where my Nanny Brighton lives on the south coast. As we grew up, our shared passion for tennis stayed with us and we still enjoy a good game today. Natasha is always so healthy and full of beans. She’s a positive person who never lets anything get in the way of what she wants to achieve in life. She had to work very hard to gain her credentials as a professional tennis coach and she has a heart of gold. In fact, Natasha is everything you could hope for in a little sister and she will do anything for me.
Natasha was the last person we expected to become seriously ill. It all began with a bowl of blackberries. We have a big garden at our home in South Woodford and on warm days my family would pick the juicy blackberries that grow there, and we’d eat them for our tea. One particular afternoon, Natasha had eaten her fair share and had gone to bed that evening as normal. I was due to fly to Marbella the next day with Lydia for a short break so I decided to get a good night’s sleep, too. During the night I was in my room when the noise of somebody crying awoke me. At first I thought maybe I was dreaming but, as I aroused from my deep sleep, I realised that someone was in our bathroom. It was Natasha and I could hear that she was in a lot of distress, so I went to investigate.
The sight that greeted me was very unpleasant. Poor Natasha was hunched over the toilet bowl in her nightdress and she was clearly feeling very sick.
‘Tash, are you OK?’ I asked.
‘Oh, James. I feel really ill,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t stop being sick and I’m in terrible pain. It hurts so much.’
Natasha looked deathly pale and was drenched in sweat. She told me she had been projectile-vomiting and that the whole of her abdomen was in agony. I stayed with her, gently rubbing her back to try to comfort her while she fought her way through waves of nausea. My mind wandered back to the blackberries that she’d eaten earlier in the day. I hadn’t liked the look of them very much, because they were the last of the crop and they didn’t seem very appealing.
‘You’ve probably picked up a stomach bug from the blackberries. You’ll be all right when it passes,’ I told Natasha.
‘No, you don’t understand,’ she replied. ‘This feels different to an upset stomach. I’ve never felt pain like it.’
I didn’t know what else to do so I went to wake up my parents and my mum took over looking after Natasha. At this point, I still assumed that it was nothing more than a stomach bug and after a while I went back to sleep. We all hoped she would be fine and the next day Lydia and I went ahead with our plans to fly to Marbella. My mum and dad reassured us that it was probably nothing to worry about, but as a precaution they decided to take Natasha to hospital. I was naturally worried, but at this stage, despite Natasha’s obvious discomfort, I had no reason to suspect that it was anything serious.
My theory about her having a tummy bug proved to be very wrong.
After Lydia and I arrived in Spain, we learned that my mum and dad had been frantically trying to reach us by telephone. My mobile was playing up and they hadn’t been able to connect with me, so it was Lydia who eventually took their call. My mum explained that the doctors had discovered serious internal complications in her bowel and that Natasha would need major surgery.
‘I don’t think you realised how ill your sister is, James,’ Lydia told me. ‘She needs a major operation and the doctors are very worried.’
Our first thought was to fly back to the UK immediately, but my mum and dad said everything possible was being done to help Natasha and that there was nothing else that we could do. Lydia and I were due to stay in Marbella for only a couple more nights, so we decided to keep in touch by phone and catch our original flight back. I was worried about Natasha, but part of me was still convinced that she would be fine. I think that when I receive bad news about a loved one it doesn’t always sink in. I’d refused to believe how ill Granddad Seamus was until the cancer finally beat him. It was the same with Tash. Even though I was worried I didn’t take in the full gravity of the situation until I saw her again for myself.
After Lydia and I returned to the UK we went straight to Whipps Cross Hospital, where Natasha was being cared for. The sight of her in her hospital bed was a complete shock. She had bloated up to enormous proportions and had tubes running in and out all over her body. She was very weak and looked spaced out from all the drugs that the doctors had given her. She was so groggy that it seemed as if the old Natasha wasn’t really there. It made me feel sick inside to see somebody I love in such a state. My parents said Natasha’s illness had nothing to do with the blackberries. She had suffered a twisted bowel that had become gangrenous inside her body. It had been a massive shock to her system and she needed six hours of surgery to correct it. It was extremely serious and the doctors had warned that, in the worst-case scenario, the condition could be fatal.
‘But surely Natasha isn’t going to die?’ I asked my mum when we were alone together.
‘She’s very ill, James. All we can do is pray for her.’
I took my mum’s advice and prayed for my sister. I was obviously desperately worried about her, but despite everybody’s fears I knew deep down in my heart that she would pull through. Natasha is too much of a battler to let an illness ruin her life, so I never stopped believing in her for one moment. It’s at times like this when religion is a great comfort to my family. As a child I regularly went to six o’clock Mass on a Saturday evening with Granddad Seamus and Nanny Colette. I also attended church on a Sunday morning quite often throughout my early teens. Nanny Colette is a Eucharistic minister, who gives out the bread and wine during Mass. As I’ve grown older I have never stopped believing, but as you get busier in life you tend to go to church less often, and nowadays it is mainly just Christmas and Easter that I attend.
During Natasha’s illness we all did a lot of praying for her. Her operation was just the start of a long and gruelling road back to recovery, and there were several nasty complications along the way. Natasha needed a second major operation and she also contracted the hospital bug MRSA, which in itself can be fatal. The doctors ended up cutting her stomach in half and removing a large section of her bowel, which had become infected. It was a huge trauma for her body to go through.
The whole situation was very disheartening. I was used to Natasha being the sporty athletic one who was always up in the morning, playing tennis all day and driving here, there and everywhere. She was always busy, so it was so sad seeing her there
in the hospital bed like that. She was in and out of hospital for about four and a half months, during which time I visited her whenever I could.
While Natasha was recovering I was invited to sing on Loose Women on ITV. It was the first time I had performed live on TV and I thought it would give me the perfect opportunity to wish Tash well.
‘I’d like to dedicate this song to my sister, Natasha, who’s currently in hospital,’ I announced on air.
I then sang a rendition of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ by Andy Williams. Natasha later told me that she’d been watching from her hospital bed. She’d been so weak that she could hardly open her eyes, but she told me it meant a lot to her.
Natasha dealt with her predicament with amazing bravery. Whenever I went to see her I tried to be as upbeat as possible and I’d cheer her up with all the latest gossip from the TOWIE set. I would cycle to the hospital and sometimes stop off at Lydia’s house on the way to collect her little brother, Freddie, sister, Roma, and some of her foster siblings, and they’d join me on their bikes.
Lydia, meanwhile, was fantastic. She went to visit Natasha loads of times on her own while I was out working, and she even took her beloved Sex in the City DVD collection into the hospital. Natasha watched them all on her bedside TV and she said it gave her a real lift.
As Natasha slowly got better she became strong enough to come downstairs to meet me at the W. H. Smith store within the hospital. We’d stock up on sweets and magazines while I made sure she had everything she needed. When the hospital served up her food I’d occasionally finish off her dessert when she couldn’t manage it – and I could tell from the big smile on her face that the old Tash was coming back!
Slowly but surely she began to get stronger every day.
