Nikki with her mother Sue
(Picture: PA)Nikki Grahame’s mother Sue has tearfully recalled the tragic moment she saw her daughter being carried away in a body bag.
On Thursday, during the Channel 4 documentary, Nikki Graheme: Who is She? the late star’s emotional mother said she stroked her head from the outside of a body bag as she was being taken away by medics.
She said: “My God, watching them put my little girl in a bag and taking her down in the lift, and I said to them, ‘Can you tell me which end her head is?’, and they said, ‘Yes, up here.’
“And I just stroked it from the outside. They took her away and I didn’t see her again. Part of me has died. I miss her more than I can say”.
Sue revealed how the star had struggled with her mental health during the Covid lockdown in 2020, with her daughter telling her: “Mum, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.”
She recalled the late star’s long battle with the eating disorder, which began when she was aged eight. It led to Ms Grahame spending most of her childhood in medical institutions.
“Nikki became solemn,” her mum told viewers. “She just wouldn’t eat what I put on the table. The doctor said ‘oh it’s just a phase’.”
Eventually, Ms Grahame had difficulty climbing stairs and her mother picked her up and took her to hospital.
“She was so poorly, I had phone calls saying I had to come, that she was drifting in and out and they didn’t think she was going to make it,” Sue recalled.
Fans paid tribute to Ms Grahame as the documentary aired, with one writing: “Just utterly heartbreaking what a beautiful but tortured soul RIP Nikki.”
Another added: “Just watched Nikki Grahame , who is she? What a tragic story. So young and beautiful. Anorexia is a cruel illness. So so sad.”
Ms Grahame appeared on the seventh series of Big Brother in 2006, and became one of its most well-known contestants.
Speaking earlier this week, Sue said: “She said in interviews before that Big Brother saved her life, because I think that was the healthiest and happiest that she had been for those years.
“I think when she got voted out, she thought that everybody hated her, she always had this low self-esteem.
“So when the doors opened and she heard the cheering, it was genuine, her tears.”
Resources and support for those affected by eating disorders can be found on the charity Beat’s website, https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/.
