Inside Nikki Grahame’s final days – Big Brother stint to heartbreaking last words

From the moment she burst onto our screens, it was clear that Nikki Grahame was made to be a star.

Dressed up to the nines as a sexy Playboy bunny in a pink satin corset, fishnet tights and rabbit ears, the blonde bombshell entered the famous Big Brother house with a bang. It didn’t take long before she became one of the most memorable contestants in the history of the reality show.

Known for her explosive tantrums and cheeky routines, she soon coined the iconic phrase, “Who is she?” after another unexpected outburst. The reality star’s unpredictability saw her become an instant hit with viewers.

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Despite finishing in fifth place on the show, the star won over the hearts of the nation and was catapulted into the limelight. Unfortunately, Nikki’s newfound fame was quickly overshadowed by her battle with anorexia.

Her lifelong battle eventually led to her death on April 9, 2021, at the age of just 38. As fans mark the third anniversary of her death, Daily Star has taken a deep dive inside her final days.

The reality star was known for her explosive outbursts on TV and her candid discussions surrounding mental health and eating disorders after her brush with fame on Big Brother. Since her time on the show, she made many friends with stars also in the public eye including her former flame Pete Bennet and Jade Goody’s ex Jack Tweed.

Towards the end of her life, the star’s lifelong battle with anorexia continued to worsen which ultimately led to her death. The TV personality was always incredibly open about her battle with the condition.

After first being admitted to an eating disorder unit at the age of eight, Nikki was force-fed through a tube which caused long-term damage to her oesophagus following years of purging. The star was admitted to an eating disorder unit several times throughout her life.

But in the lead up to her death, Nikki would get through the year by looking forward to visiting her friends abroad. When Covid-19 brought the world to a standstill, the star struggled to cope.

During an interview on This Morning, her mum Susan revealed the Big Brother icon struggled with the periods of isolation and gym closures brought about by the national lockdowns. She admitted: “Covid-19 really put the cap on it.

“It sounds crazy but even stuff like the gyms closing, which is quite important to Nikki as she needs to know she can exercise. The isolation, she couldn’t see anyone.

“I offered to stay with her, but she said, ‘I need to stay in my own home’. It’s been really hard for her, really hard. With Nikki, she would get through the year knowing she had friends abroad and would visit them, and she spent a lot of time last year cancelling all her holidays.”

In January 2020, just months before international borders closed to contain the respiratory virus, the star posted a photo of herself sitting on a branch overlooking a beach in Cairns, in northern Queensland.

She was joined by Australian Big Brother winner Tim Dorner, who won the show in 2013 and had become a dear friend of Nikki’s, and his now ex-partner Ash Toweel. But in December 2020, her health took a turn for the worse as her weight became dangerously low.

Nikki fell and cracked her pelvis in two places and broke her wrist. Her mother moved in to care for her, but by that point, the TV personality had become seriously ill. In the weeks before her death, Nikki’s former boyfriend Pete Bennet, 42, visited the star during her tough anorexia battle.

This was just weeks after a friend set up a GoFundMe page to help with her specialised anorexia treatment. Her pals managed to raise more than £69,000 since its launch on March 10.

Organisers claimed they had “exhausted every avenue possible” for Nikki to receive help at a specialised clinic. A wave of celebrities donated to the fund including Vanessa Feltz and Nikki’s friend, TV presenter Rylan Clark, who also appealed to his followers to help.

At the time, the NHS came under fire following Nikki’s “entirely avoidable” death after the details of her “desperate struggle” to get treatment over the final six months of her life came to light. Nikki was discharged from hospital twice while severely unwell, on one occasion weighing just three and a half stone – the average weight of a seven-year-old child.

The last time she was discharged on Thursday April 8, she weighed less than five stone, with the star passing away just 12 hours later. During an appearance on BBC Breakfast, Susan shared her final conversation with her daughter before her death.

At the time, she remembered the star telling her she felt “so tired” after she was discharged from a local hospital after a two-week stay. She told viewers: “Nikki managed to convince them [clinic staff] – ‘I’ll be fine when I go home, I’m going back to the clinic on Monday’.

“But they’d already said we can’t have you because you can’t make stairs and so they let her home, and she died that night. But she rang me at half-three in the morning and she said, ‘Hi mum’.

“She was quite normal, she normally did it when she was drunk. She said, ‘I managed to get to the loo’, she’d ordered herself a walking frame, so she managed to get into the loo.

“I said, ‘Well done, darling. That’s the way, every day just write down one thing that’s been positive today. You’ll get there, there is no hurry’.

“She said, ‘Mum, I’m so tired’, so I said, ‘Go to sleep, darling. I’ll call you in the morning’, and she died.” Reflecting on her life, the doting mum informed viewers that appearing on Big Brother played a role in saving her life.

She went on: “I know that her going on Big Brother was her dream and I’m really glad she did, because I felt she deserved it. Because she’s lost her childhood, and I thought, ‘This is what you should have. This is yours’.

“I think Big Brother played quite a role in saving Nikki’s life. I really do.”

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If you’re worried about your health or the health of somebody else, you can contact SEED eating disorder support service on 01482 718130 or on their website, https://seedeatingdisorders.org.uk.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk