It feels like girls losing their rag have always been given a bad time for it. Danni put her finger on it in Marbella. She said, ‘Blokes treat us like this, then they blame us when we go psycho.’ I thought, ‘She’s absolutely nailed it,’ and I do always wonder what that’s all about. It’s just one more reason why us girls have to stick together.
What’s the most annoying thing in this world? Being lied to and told you’re just paranoid when you ask if something’s wrong. Okay, so what’s the second most annoying? I’d say it’s when somebody finally confesses, but then refuses to explain themselves. And that’s what happened between me and Pete after our return to Essex.
For one of my first scenes back home, I was sitting in my flat with my sister when he appeared. It was the first time we’d spoken in ages, but there was no way of mending it because he wouldn’t explain why he’d done what he did. He just said, ‘I can’t give you a reason, because I don’t have one. If I could answer, it’d be easier.’
He did look pretty sad, but I can’t begin to explain how frustrating it is being told, ‘I can’t give you a reason,’ after someone’s treated you that badly. Eventually, he said, ‘I fucked up because I never thought I deserved you in the first place.’ Hmm. What a load of bollocks.
I told him, ‘The worst thing is, you know I’ve been through this all before. You’ve embarrassed me.’
And that was a massive part of it, to be honest. On the one hand, it was hard being lied to, definitely. But I reckon I actually could have coped with that, if we’d been able to sit down and work it out. After all, like he said, ‘I never cheated on you.’
No, the real problem for me was the public humiliation of it – all them people watching TOWIE, all our followers on social media, everyone reading the papers – I just couldn’t bear it. I know people would say that’s the price of having a public profile, but at that point, it felt like the cost was far too high.
Meanwhile, Pete was still grovelling, telling me on screen, ‘I don’t expect you to get back with me now, but you need to know I love you, and I won’t give up, because I know you still love me.’
I have to say he worked hard, that boy. He went and said sorry to my sister, my mum and my dad. He even got a tattoo on his hand with my initial. We went on a spa date – obviously the cameras were there – where there was wine and flowers. He told me, ‘I’m not going to give up. This is going to affect the rest of my life.’
Pete really did pull out all the stops. He knew my favourite soppy tune was ‘Endless Love’ by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, so guess what was playing on the PA system when we sat down to dinner at the hotel? He’d arranged the whole thing. It was pretty cute. But what’s annoying now is, he’s ruined that fucking song for me. Then, for his birthday, I gave him a Louis Vuitton luggage set and a memory book which took me days to make, all about us. He read the card, and had a little cry. And we had our first proper kiss since the whole nightmare began.
Love’s young dream, back on track? Well, yes and no. Yes, it was all great again between us – he’d swept me off my feet. But, despite all my pleading with him to explain, Pete had never been able to come up with any actual reason for his behaviour. He could never tell me why it all happened, which is why I don’t think we ever properly resolved it. And I stayed pretty uneasy about the whole thing.
On the surface, it was a case of new era, new rules, but he kept slipping up. I knew he had a contract with Ann Summers, and I always said, ‘Do what you got to do, it’s work,’ but of course I was still a bit paranoid. Then, off he went for a shoot one day, and he said, ‘Nothing too explicit. Just promoting underwear.’ Later on, he showed me some of the shots, and he was right, there was nothing too bad going on. He looked nice. Proud girlfriend.
Which was all fine until… We were due to film Celebrity Juice together one evening, but in the morning I woke up to a tweet from one of the magazines, saying, ‘Sure Megan won’t be happy with this.’ So of course, I clicked on the link. It was the same shoot he’d told me about, but – what a surprise – the pictures weren’t the ones I’d already seen. In one of them, one of the girls in lingerie even has a whip placed on Pete’s bare chest! So I lost my shit all over again. And then – with our usual shit timing – we had to go and film a scene for TOWIE together.
It was in a really nice restaurant, and my parents had put on a birthday lunch for him, but he turned up all shame-faced, telling them, ‘We’ve had a barney again.’
That scene was so bad. If you watch it now, you can see that I had hardly any makeup on, because I’d been in my flat having a complete breakdown just before filming. I had the producers calling me, and I was beside myself, hysterical, not knowing what to do. The texting thing was out in the press, and I was back with him, but it was all a massive struggle and I felt really insecure, really fragile. All I wanted was honesty and respect, but it felt like he just couldn’t give that to me.
And now here is, Pirate Pete, at his most polite and charming. ‘I knew you’d laid this on, so I didn’t want to let you down,’ he told my parents. ‘I didn’t want to ruin your lunch. Thank you for this.’ His little humble act made me sick. I was fuming, and even my dad – never the one to speak out, always prefers to keep his opinions to himself – he actually said something this time. ‘It’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?’ Coming from my dad, that meant a lot.
I definitely did over-react on this occasion. I screamed at Pete, ‘You’re a fucking liar, you lie to me all the time.’ He stormed off, and my parents just sat there, saying nothing. Eventually, my mum said that I either had to forgive him and move on, or forget him. Fair point, I suppose. Pete said the same thing, saying he was always worried about pissing me off, even while I was asking him to be more open with me. It was becoming harder and harder to respect each other, though, particularly when other people kept putting their oar in, some innocently, some not so much.
That very same night, the pair of us had to paste our best smiles back on and go and film Celebrity Juice. We sat in complete silence in the car on the way there, but it was so bad once we got there, we had to have separate dressing rooms. This should have been a real high point in both our careers – one of the best TV shows you can get in the reality game. Instead, it just became more and more awkward as Keith Lemon asked us stuff like, ‘Who would you have in a threesome?’ You have to be professional, and somehow I managed to keep the smile on my face even when Pete made a few digs at me – at one point he called me his ‘ex-girlfriend’ – and Keith made some digs about the texting. On the recording, you can see me laughing away. Honestly, I should have got an Oscar that night! Inside I was fuming.
It seemed as if all the trust and respect that had been there at the beginning of our relationship had disappeared. I started getting abuse on social media – people were asking me, ‘Where is your self-respect? I wonder if you gave your other exes a third chance,’ or telling me, ‘If Pete truly loved you he wouldn’t be messaging other girls… simple.’ Someone asked me, ‘Silly girl, he will only do the same thing again and again! Why would you give that cheat a third time?’
Good question! What can I tell you to explain it? I can only say that, at the time, after all the drama we’d been through together, being without him would have felt a bit… weird. On a personal level, it was like we’d become used to that level of agg in our relationship. I know that sounds really bad, but I have to be honest! And, don’t forget, he did keep telling me he really did love me. Besides, that person on social media was right – I HAD given my other exes third chances and more, so I clearly needed to work on my self-esteem a bit.