Ex-Emmerdale star Gemma Oaten broke down in tears during an emotional appearance on BBC Breakfast on Friday.
The former Rachel Breckle star was overwhelmed with emotion as she chatted to hosts Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty as she spoke about her late friend Nikki Graham. The actress, who has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of eating disorders, was on the show to discuss her charity SEED, in which she has set up in order to support people struggling with eating disorders.
Gemma was joined on the sofa by Nikki Grahame's close friend. It comes after the Big Brother star tragically lost her life due to complications of anorexia nervosa at the age of 38.
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The 38-year-old spoke about her own experience of living with an eating disorder, she said: "My eating disorder developed around the age of nine. My mum and dad set up SEED 22 years ago, and I genuinely believe that through doing that they helped bring me back and saved my life too.
"My dream would be to grow the service enough so that there isn't just set hours for people to come by, to have a team of people on hand who are always there - that would be phenomenal.
"But also for other eating disorder charities around the UK, maybe take hope and strength that if we can do it and we thought we were staring down the barrel of a gun - they can. It might be that we can start, hopefully, helping other charities around the UK to take on our model."
When asked if she had a message for anyone out there suffering from an eating disorder, a visibly emotional Gemma said: "Early intervention is absolutely key. The sooner they come forward and speak to us - the sooner we can get that help in place.
"But also, don't be ashamed, an eating disorder is very clever at making you feel alone and the stigma around it is filled with shame and sadness, and devastation. But actually, there's hope, and if you reach out to us we understand because we've been there, we've lived with it.
"Nothing surprises us, nothing shocks us - if anything we love those people who are always authentic and honest because that takes a lot of courage to do."
As ever, we'll continue to bring you the big Emmerdale news about what is happening in the village. You can visit our Emmerdale homepage to find the latest gossip about the soap and its stars.
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