The daugter of racing legend Carl Fogarty and winter Love Island 2023 contestant Claudia Fogarty, has opened up to a former star of the ITV2 reality star, Scott Thomas, on her struggles with confidence and weight loss ahead of the show, which reached it final at the beginning of March.
Claudia entered the south African Villa as a bombshell during the pulse racer challenge and immediately sparked a connection with Casey O'Gorman. This romance, however, was shortlived when, after two weeks, his head was turned by Rosie Seabrook. Now out, the 28-year-old notherner, who didn't find love, has appeared on Scott's Learning As I Go podcast and explained how despite everyone's view of her being "this funny, happy, bubbly ball of energy", she struggled with body image and insecurity.
Recalling the moment she walked in to the Villa, clad in a skimpy red lingerie-type outfit with red wings for accesories, she told Scott: "The one thing I didn't want to do was walk in on that challenge."
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She added: "Ask me a few years ago and I would, never in a million years, have done something like that. And even in that moment, I was like 'I can't do it'. I had to do it four times because the wings fell off!"
Reflecting on those years before appearing on the hit reality tv show, Claudia told Scott, who she'd met a few years earlier at her sister Danielle's wedding, how she's blossomed as a person and said: "I feel like I've never ever been a confident person. Everyone sees me as this funny, happy, bubbly ball of energy. I'll always show that and I'll never show how I'm actually feeling and how sometimes I'm feeling very insecure, I've never been confident.
"I've grown up with a stunning sister, my friends are all tiny, they're beautiful. And it's something I've always... even now, today, I am obviosuly a lot more confident but I don't think I'll ever be 100% in myself. It's a weird thing you always battle with."
During the interview, the co-owner of fashion brand Sister Stories spoke about her issues with weight and recalled how, after a previous breakup she reached her heaviest. Telling the season 2 hearthrob, she explained: "I broke up with someone a few years ago and at that point, I remember looking in the mirror and thought, 'What are you doing?'
"I was a lot heavier and I didn't feel good in myself. I just let myself go. So I just knew something had to happen." She added: "Confidence builds and builds and builds and I think when you lose weight, you feel better in yourself... I completely blossomed and grew as a person that I always wanted to be."
She revealed how she used to hide in pictures to mask her own body and, once she'd lost weight, recalled people saying 'I never knew you were bigger'.
"In pictures you don't," she said, "But I would always hide, I'd stand in the middle and had a way of being in a picture and editing pictures - that became a thing. I didn't want people to see how big I actually was. It wasn't until I took a picture with no clothes on and literally saw the raw picture of me, that I was like, 'Oh my God'."
She added how people would always dub her as the 'funny one' with the 'personality', rather than the looks, which she says her sister had with ease. Claudia said: "It isn't all about how you look, I know that, but it was hard. And because I was the tomboy as well, I was always with my dad. Looks were never a thing with me."
Claudia told the podcaster how she lost three stone in the months and years after she decided to turn her lifestyle around. "I said my life needs to change now. It was after Christmas and I said 'I'm sick of feeling bloated and fat'. I'm not saying I was fat, because people will look at the pictures and see that I'm not. I was just very curvy.
"It was more for my health," she reflected. "I got on the scales with my PT and I was actually like 'Is that actually what I weigh?' and I started crying, she started crying [her PT] and even my mum started crying and we were all in tears. I thought I can't do this anymore. That day I thought I've got to just start my own journey and try and lose weight. From that day, it's been a battle. It's been three years now."
Claudia overhauled her lifestyle choices - which included cutting down on chocolate and sweets - and hired a personal trainer as well as limiting her alcohol intake.
While she her outlook and confidence is much brighter than it had been previous;y. she admitted how her struggles with her weight is a constant "battle" and is something she'll "never come to terms with".
She said: "It's hard for me just to be one weight. It's constant but youve got to change the way you live. And that was a big thing for me. It's a lifestyle change. It's a hard thing and I don't think I'll ever come to terms with it and I think it'll always be a battle. And I'm happy to say now I am very happy with the way I am."
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