Vicky Pattison weeps that people 'will never like me' ahead of Strictly debut

Vicky Pattison has told how the stress of appearing on BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing is overwhelming her. The reality TV star wept as she confessed her fear that certain members of the audience weren’t ever going to take to her.

“I am still just trying to change the opinions of people who will never like me, who are convinced I'm nothing but that girl from Geordie Shore, that I'm never gonna be any better.," she wept. "I'm wasting my time trying to pander to these people.”

Speaking to her co-host Angela Scanlon on their podcast Get a Grip, Vicky cried: “All this can’t go on. I feel like I’ve just been walking around in this haze for so long pretending to be happy and all the rest of it and I’m not. I wanna prove to people that I can do it.”

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With just three weeks until the first live instalment of the BBC ballroom show, Vicky said she’d been having therapy sessions with This Morning’s resident counsellors the Speakmans, to help her come to terms with the challenge ahead.

She explained: “I pretty much cried for three hours straight. It started off ‘why I'm so stressed about Strictly?’ I was like, I want to prove to people I can do it, that I'm more than just a reality TV star, and I want to be a TV presenter eventually.

“I want to make my family proud, they love it. I want to have a nice home, financial security, I want to go on nice holidays. I think this could be a step to that.” When Angela pointed out that she already has these things, Vicky, 37, cried: “It's all about how you see yourself, isn't it?”

Her frustration is that she’s remembered for shows like Ex on the Beach or Celebrity Coach Trip. “What I want to be is Vicky the Television Presenter. Vicky the Respected Author. Vicky the Valued Broadcaster. Eventually, I want people to be more interested in the quality of my work than the details of my life. It’s a difficult jump to make.”

Interiors presenter Angela, who took part in Strictly two years ago, has hosted the podcast with Vicky since May. The aim is to explore pop culture and the “ridiculous expectations placed on women” in unfiltered chats every Thursday.

Vicky, 37, was crowned Queen of the Jungle on I'm A Celebrity …Get Me Out of Here! in 2015. After being unveiled as one of this year’s Strictly contestants she admitted she’d been secretly plotting her stint on the dance series for years, using a vision board.

Her long-term aim is to follow in the footsteps of documentary maker Stacey Dooley. “I want to film hard-hitting documentaries and talk about issues that I'm passionate about, like women's reproductive health, women's safety, and so many other issues that affect us."

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