Mark Wright has revealed that he almost quit TOWIE after just one episode.
The 35-year-old joined the cast of the ITV reality show when it first began in 2010, seeing it as a way to boost his club promoting business.
And he says that although he knew he'd need a "thick skin" to deal with the trolls, it was the negative comments from people he knew that almost pushed him to quit after just one episode had aired.
Speaking on the No Boundaries Podcast with Aaron Mclean, Mark said he was handing out flyers outside train stations and leaving them on people's cars to boost his business before joining the show.
And he said that being famous was never his main priority.
He said: "Fame was never my goal. I'm never going to sit here and say 'I never wanted to be famous', because I hate people who do that, because if you do that, why you doing the job?
"But that weren't my main drive, my main drive was money - happiness obviously is my first goal, but in terms of work.
"And the way TOWIE started, they followed me around for five weeks."
After spending time filming the show and away from his normal life, Mark said he had no idea what was about to happen.
He said: "I woke up the next day after the first episode, my Facebook blew up first, I think you was allowed 5,000 friends, it was a cap.
"My Facebook friends went up but also I saw a lot of trolls.
"You can take the fame and the money but be prepared what else is going to come, you've got to have thick skin, really thick skin."
But he said it wasn't the trolling from strangers that hurt him.
He went on: "And what done me weren't the randoms, it was the people I knew from Essex, 'cause that's all I knew, I didn't know anyone from any other city, I was just quite popular in this area.
"And I'd just see people I knew going 'what is this show, what a load of s**t', you know, sorry for my language, 'look at these mugs thinking they're this, thinking they're that'."
Mark said he blew up during filming for the second episode and threatened to quit on the spot.
He explained: "And I remember just exploding. And they was filming, TOWIE filmed us watching the first episode and it actually went into episode two, you can see it.
"And I told them, 'Get out, I'm done, I'll never come on this show again' because I listened to the trolls."
Mark said his 'fame' really hit him when he did a public appearance in a nightclub just a few days after the show first aired.
"I still didn't realise I was famous or it had blown up overnight, but I did a PA on the Friday after that, I went to Windsor and I've gone in the club and after I've walked in I just didn't know what was happening, it was so instant," he said.
"People were looking at me and asking for pictures and I remember I took myself off to the toilet and I text my mum.
"It actually gets me a bit choked up thinking about it, I went 'Mum I'm famous'.
"Like I say my goal weren't to be famous but I noticed it happening and I thought that's it now, my life was never going to be the same."
Mark, who is married to actress Michelle Keegan, quit TOWIE after three series in 2011, briefly returning a few times for cameo appearances.
* Watch the full interview with Mark here
