Even before I went into the Big Brother house, my schedule changed overnight. I went from sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring, to jumping out of bed, dashing to photo shoots and having constant meetings with my manager, Jade. Plus, a new thing had cropped up in my life – travelling to personal appearances all over the country.
On paper, being a reality TV star sounds very glam and like an easy life. You’re getting invited to clubs for their opening nights. If there’s a red carpet, you walk along it – you’re shaking hands with everyone, posing for photographs and networking constantly. You can never switch off.
But if you do want to make it for yourself in the reality TV world, and you start doing well, all this stuff comes with a full-on schedule. I can remember travelling around the UK for three months, sleeping in the back of the car, getting ready in service stations and eating McDonald’s every single day, as we never had enough time to go to restaurants and there was nowhere else to change. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every single minute of this lifestyle, and I couldn’t be more grateful that I’ve had these chances, but what bugs me is when people say, ‘What work? You’re just being filmed for a living.’ No, I’m also working my arse off.
On one of these occasions before I went on CBB, I was booked to make a personal appearance at a club over in Northern Ireland. Everyone seemed a bit rowdy when we got there, and I went through all the usual of saying hi to as many people as possible, shaking hands and posing for pictures. There was a queue of people waiting for selfies outside the VIP bit, and I was leaning over so no one was left out. As I turned around and started to party, I suddenly felt a massive bang on my head. Turned out, someone had thrown a bottle at me. I was so shocked, I couldn’t even tell if I was in pain or not until my head started throbbing and a lump started forming on the back of my head. It was really traumatic – I was in tears, saying, ‘Get me out of here.’ My manager Jade got me back to the hotel.
The next morning, we went straight to the airport, and I was still in pain with a big bump on my head. I was sitting in the departure lounge, feeling sorry for myself, when a guy with long hair and very blue eyes came up to me with a cup of tea in his hand, saying, ‘I thought you could do with this.’ I recognised him straight away. That’ll be Mr Pete Wicks.
I already knew Pete a tiny bit by then. We used to follow each other on Twitter, and like each other’s tweets and pictures and stuff. He just seemed to be like a nice Essex boy, on a similar road to me. He told me that I used to serve him in Nu Bar, but I don’t remember that. He said I was a right moody fucker, ha ha.
He’d joined the cast of TOWIE the previous summer, but even without the show making his face familiar, he’d have stood out a mile with his big blue eyes, long hair and tattoos. I liked that he was a bit different from the average Essex boy. He was edgy and had an aura, a confidence about him, and he was a few years older than me, so he seemed quite wise. Away from the show, he seemed to be successful and hard-working, something I found interesting as a contrast to his pirate looks. In a nutshell, on that freezing cold morning in Northern Ireland, I was happy to see him. Plus, with a cup of tea in his hand, he clearly knew the way to my heart from the start.
We started texting and making vague arrangements to go out somewhere, but then I got the big call from CBB and had to delay things. I remember telling him, ‘I’ve gone and got this job.’ He sent nice tweets, all supportive, the whole time I was in the house, which made me like him more.
Afterwards, we texted again, and one afternoon, it turned out we were both in the same part of London, so we arranged to go for ‘a quick drink’. Famous last words. We ended up going to a club, got really drunk, stopped off for a Maccy D’s and then he dropped me home. Pretty much the perfect first date.
We hadn’t realised, but someone had taken a photo of us and put it on social media. Pete was relatively new to TOWIE – he’d only just been introduced to the show as a friend of James Lock – but a million people watch the show religiously. As we both realised at the time and then soon forgot, once you’re on TOWIE, you can’t get away with anything.
I’d actually already been in a meeting with the show’s producers. There’d been a few discussions about me coming on the show – properly this time, not like with Lola – but then I’d been offered CBB so I’d gone for that instead.
By now, my best friend Chloe Meadows had joined the show, so when news of my date with Pete reached the TOWIE producers, it was only a matter of time before I ended up on the show as well. It was a bit of a surprise, as they’ve never had someone from another TV show going on there. They wanted to test me out to see how I fitted in with the rest of the TOWIE gang, so I was Pete’s surprise date to the party for the hundredth episode. I was also there to back up Chloe. I went straight to the defence of Chloe and Courtney when they argued with the other girls, and all the fireworks went off exactly as the producers had wanted them to.
As soon as the episode aired, it was agreed that I would become a full-time cast member.
So that was how my TOWIE life began. I was on the show for eighteen months, but it felt like years, because I had so much drama. One thing after another kept happening, and I couldn’t seem to get away from it. I just kept trying to remember what my granddad always said: ‘Everything happens for a reason, Megan.’
Chloe Meadows and I had been mates for as long as I can remember – we’d been friends really since we were tiny. We went to the same primary school, where she was in the year above me, and we also both went to Woodbridge. She wasn’t bullied like I was, but she disliked the place as much as I did, and she did exactly the same as me – left as soon as she could, and went to Ravenscourt. She was still in the year above me, but we used to travel together to and from Essex every day, so we got really close. There were five of us, but I got really close to Chloe. Then I went off to ArtsEd while she went to another theatre school, but we stayed best friends throughout that time. She was at my house a lot. She was there for my split with Mr First, and she was there during all my heartbreak over Mr Venezuela. It was Chloe sitting on my bed while I was in a state in my room, hanging off the curtains. She didn’t know what to do with me, but she stayed put, which meant a lot. She saw me at my lowest, and I saw her go through some stuff, too. We were each other’s shoulder to cry on.
Then she went off to Australia for a few years, which meant she missed the official low in my life – the time when I started working at Nu Bar and going out with The Dip. By the time she got back, she was seeing a very different Megan – fighting, drinking, generally being a mess – and she was one of the voices in my ear, begging me to pull myself together. I’m not sure she necessarily always made things better when I got in them fights – we’d both been to theatre school so between us we could make a drama out of pretty much anything – but we both stuck around. She was back and forth to Australia for a bit, and then I got her a job at Nu Bar as well, so she could make a few more friends around Essex.
Then I left my job, finally split up with The Dip and went off to film the first lot of Ex on the Beach. I was a lairy, loud Essex girl, perfect for TOWIE, but I was already on TV by then, under contract to MTV, with the CBB producers looking in my direction too, so TOWIE had to wait. In the meantime, they grabbed Chloe and a few of my other friends, and put them on screen. Chloe had done quite a few acting jobs herself – that was how she’d saved up to go to Australia. In fact, she was the girl on screen before TOWIE aired, doing all the bingo stuff. When she got on the show, I bigged it up on my social media, and then the whole time I was in the CBB house, she sent loads of tweets, asking people to support me. Back then, we definitely had each other’s back.
When I came out of the CBB house – went in to the sound of boos, came out to the sound of cheers, thankfully – it was my mum and Chloe who stood waiting to greet me. That’s how close we were before TOWIE, so I thought being on the show together would be really straightforward, just like an extension of our normal lives hanging out together. Looking back now, I realise that was a bit naïve.
A couple of months later, I was actually on TOWIE myself. I was Pete’s new girl, but I was also there to back up Chloe. Girl Band was in full force.