Emily Atack has hit out at critics who say blondes with big boobs can’t be taken seriously and insists she is not going to change.
The star, who shot to fame as Charlotte Hinchcliffe in the comedy series The Inbetweeners said she’s proud of her body – and even ignores her fellow actress mum Kate Robbins when she suggests she avoid flaunting it.
The 33-year-old is presenting BBC Two documentary Emily Atack: Asking For It? on Tuesday, which explores why men sexually harass her and others online.
READ MORE: Emily Atack feels like she is ‘sexually assaulted hundreds of times a day’ with sick DMs
The actress will also attempt to uncover why much of the blame for unwanted sexual attention is placed on the victim, something she has experienced herself.
Emily said: “Even with doing the things like the lads’ mags shoots, old managers in my career have gone, ‘We want to take you a bit more seriously now, so we’re going to step you out of that sort of thing, dye your hair brown and do a play.’
“People were just constantly panicking and going, ‘You need to change this, you need to change that’. I’m not trying to be a sexy pin-up going, ‘Hey boys, here I am.’
“But I’m single as well, I’m on the dating scene – so that’s up to me.
“Feeling sexy to me has become something I’ve relied on – it’s my little support blanket.
“I grew boobs before everybody else, I got my period before everybody else, and I used that to my advantage in terms of owning who I was a bit more.
“I was kind of like, ‘OK, well this is who I am, I’m the girl with the boobs and the long hair.’ There was a sense that I was quite proud of that.
“If you take the sexual violence away from it all, what’s there is just a girl who’s trying to make it in the business, trying things out, celebrating her youth, celebrating her body, because it doesn’t last very long. That’s all I was doing.
“People find that quite hard to understand and hear. It wasn’t a sexual thing.
“Why is it that if you want to feel powerful as a woman, you want to feel sexy? It doesn’t mean we’re asking to be raped or sexually harassed.”
“The older generations are stuck in this mindset. Even my mum’s still trying to cover me up to protect me. So the conversations with her are now educating her on how the world is very different now to what it was in the 60s and 70s.
“Whistling at people in the street, things like that, that’s not seen as a compliment any more.”
Emily Atack: Asking For It? airs on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on Tuesday at 9pm.
READ MORE:
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
