Vick Hope has opened up about being bullied at school and called a “gorilla” for having hairy legs as a teenager.
The BBC Radio 1 presenter also revealed that her mother would not allow her to shave her legs and told her to “embrace” her curly hair, which led to “shouting matches” between them.
“I used to get a bit bullied at school. They boys would make fun of me for having hairy legs,” she said in a new interview.
“I used to get called ‘gorilla’. I was so upset and angry.”
The 32-year-old, who is now reportedly engaged to DJ Calvin Harris, reflected on how her unhappiness about her looks strained her relationship with her mother.
In an interview with The Sun, she said: “I was like, ‘Shut up, Mum! You don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t know what I am going through’.
“The truth is, she knew fully. I hated my curls because they were different. I didn’t know anyone else who looked like this growing up. I really wanted straight hair, I hated how I looked so much.”
However, the former Strictly Come Dancing contestant said she has since learned “to be myself a bit more”.
“Realise the things that make you different and special and unique are interesting and beautiful,” Hope said.
“I was always quite geeky. I thought when I was coming into this industry I would change the way I look. I straightened my hair, I wore a lot of makeup. All these things were not me.”
According to the publication, Hope and Harris became engaged in May after the DJ proposed to her on his farm in Ibiza.
Neither Hope nor Harris have publicly confirmed thier engagement.
However, Hope opened up about her relationship with the award-winning record producer and admitted she used to be “shallow” about the way he looked.
She revealed that she turned Harris down when she was 19 years old, and “went off with either Scouting for Girls or The Wombats, I don’t know which”.
“I thought they were going to be bigger but no, it turns out Calvin Harris was going to turn into an Adonis,” she added.
