A former Big Brother star has opened up about the “devastating effect” the TV show had on her mental health.
Laura Carter has told fans she dropped to six stone and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder following the show.
The actress appeared on Big Brother in 2016 where the theme was ‘Paranoia’ – which saw two houses try and compete to stay in the main Big Brother house through challenges.
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In a YouTube video filmed in her kitchen, Laura went on to blame the series 17 theme for her outrageous on-screen behaviour, which ended in her having sex with fellow housemate Marco Pierre White Jr.
She said: “We didn’t know that was the theme. It was a real mind f***. I had no idea and neither did anyone else. It was like being in a living nightmare.”
One task saw the housemates dress up as scarecrows who were to be attacked by human ‘crows’ throwing custard and mud.
However, Laura was the only housemate who was attacked, which lead her to believe the public were behind it because they “hated” her.
“It was really degrading, horrible things and it was always me,” she explained.
“I went into the toilet after and was wiping everything off me and I thought, ‘The public hate me, they want to humiliate me’. And I did feel humiliated.
“It’s like this switch went inside of me and it was like self-destruct mode. I’d been pushed into this corner, I felt like there was no hope for me. I was made to feel everyone hated me. That’s when my behaviour with Marco ensued.”
(Image: Getty Images)
Laura continued: “After having therapy and talking about what I did, I’ve come to realise it was almost like a mask I’d put up to protect myself and my feelings. I lost all self-worth. I forgot that my family were watching, my friends were watching.”
Laura was ultimately evicted on Day 46 and was the eighth housemate to leave.
Since then, she claimed she left the show with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I just remember lying on the kitchen floor with my head in my hands not knowing what to do with myself,” Laura said.
“I’d sit in silence – I had nothing left to give. It was the darkest, loneliest time of my life. I realised my life was not going to go back to how it was.
“My life changed but it literally ruined my life. It ruined it,” she added.
In 2018, Laura welcomed her first child, son Jaxon but the backlash from her Big Brother stint was not fully behind her.
She admitted: “When Jax was about 18 months old, I started suffering from insomnia. I started having nightmares when I could actually fall asleep, I was having nightmares of being watched.
“I was racked with anxiety, I had anger issues. Even the tiniest thing someone would say to me, I’d blow up. It’s like I was a pressure cooker about to blow at any point.”
Laura also admitted that the anxiety of being watched resulted in her becoming “horrendously thin”.
“I didn’t realise that I was so thin until my mum said, ‘I’m really worried about you now’.”
Laura’s weight had plummeted to 6.7 stone, something she says was “real physical effect of what had happened to me mentally.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
