I'm A Celebrity star Nicola McLean has admitted she lied about her weight so she could purchase dangerous weight loss injections online.
The 41-year-old star has struggled with Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa since she was just 11 years old, and was later diagnosed with body dysmorphia.
The former Celebrity Big Brother star has confessed that her battle to stay healthy has been a continuous struggle for the last 30 years.
And in 2021, the mum-of-two was looking for a “quick fix” to lose weight, despite already being a very slim size 10.
Nicola has told how she thought she’d found it after being advertised weight-loss injections on Instagram.
The reality telly star said the jabs were marketed to look like they were going to “perform miracles” and are thought to have been used by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Elon Musk – despite originally being created to treat type 2 diabetes.
The former glamour model told the Sun: “People like myself who are suffering from bulimia and anorexia will look at this and think, ‘This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, this is going to be life-changing for me’.
“I thought this was the answer to all my prayers, but it was a big mistake. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”
Nicola, who is mum to Rocky, 17, and Striker, 13, with professional footballer husband Tom Williams, told the publication how the jabs made her “so ill” and spoke out to warn others of their dangers.
The TV personality told how she messaged the person she’d seen having the injections on social media and was assured they were “brilliant”.
She was then directed to an Instagram account which promotes losing weight healthily and classes itself as an online nurse.
She told the publication: “They ask you your weight, your blood pressure and your BMI. The person advised me to say I was at least two stones heavier than I really was.
“So I lied about my weight, gave my normal height of 5ft 4in, my blood pressure, paid £250 for a month’s worth and within a couple of days it arrived. It was so simple and easy.
“I thought it was that quick fix I had always been looking for. I told myself it was no big deal. If celebrities were doing it, it would be safe for me too.”
Nicola reportedly bought a medication which works by suppressing appetite and can lead to significant weight loss – and started injecting herself with it every morning.
But after just a week, Nicola said she began feeling very unwell.
She was violently vomiting and experiencing headaches but brushed off the side effects and her husband Tom’s concerns while she was “in denial” and felt her weight was more important.
Despite the crippling side effects, Nicola said she bought another month’s worth of the medication and admitted she liked the feeling of her appetite being suppressed because it was giving her a break from her fixation on eating for the first time in a long time.
Nicola said she doesn’t use weighing scales but that she dropped a dress size while on the drug – but didn’t have the weight there to lose in the first place.
The turning point came when her husband Tom had had enough of her being so sick and threw the jabs away.
Nicola, who was recently diagnosed with ADHD, told the site she instantly felt better after she stopped injecting herself, following months of being in denial.
The former Page 3 star is campaigning for a change in UK law now that the weight loss jabs are more accessible than ever and pose such a threat to the millions of Brits who have an eating disorder.
She told how she’s not against the drugs for people who are morbidly obese, but that they need to be prescribed counselling or psychotherapy too.
Nicola told the publication: “I won’t lie, some of it is still so alluring. Sometimes I think, ‘Could I put up with the sickness again?’ and this is why it’s so dangerous.
“When you have an eating disorder, it’s not hard to slip back into ways of thinking, like, ‘God, wouldn’t it be so thrilling if I wasn’t thinking about food all the time?’”
- The Beat Eating Disorders helpline is open 365 days a year. Call 0808 801 0677 or see beateatingdisorders.org.uk.
