Big Brother star Lisa Appleton has opened up about the turmoil she's lived through over recent years, including how she got "addicted to sausages" and scammed by a fake reality TV producer.
After appearing on Big Brother in 2008, with her then-boyfriend Mario Marconi, Lisa's career has been a rollercoaster. The 56-year-old has had stints raking in £10,000 a shoot from modelling and appearing in reality TV shows, but has also had more ordinary jobs, as a sales advisor and Amazon delivery driver.
Lisa entered the Big Brother house as half of the Channel 4 reality show's first ever couple contestants, with her boyfriend Mario, real name Shaun Astbury. The Warrington natives got engaged during their time on Big Brother, before going on to get married on Channel 4 series The Wedding House. The pair called time on their marriage in 2013, and divorce.
Lisa became homelesss after being turned away by employers following her stunts in the public eye, and started to struggle with the 'life-changing' difficulties that come with fame. Going from being a single mum in jobs like "selling sandwiches" to being "chauffeured around" was a tricky transition to make.
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@mslisaappleton/Instagram)Image:
Manchester Evening News)When Lisa and Mario got married, they parodied Peter Andre and Katie Price's wedding and sold the photos to OK! Magazine as an exclusive, raking in £10,000 for the shoot. But after she shot to fame and spent their fortune, work 'dried up' and the pair were left struggling for income.
When the couple were offered a reality TV series by fantasist and fraudster Selva Carmichael, they couldn't turn it down. But after working relentlessly to film for it, they didn't receive a penny, with the TV production the conman set up turning out to be a ploy to entice celebrities and investors before taking their cash.
Lisa told the Mail in 2012: "Filming 18 hours a day, two to three hours sleep and all this pressure. He was pressuring us all the time."
When she and Mario left his agency, Lisa said: "He said 'you’re has beens and you’ll never work in the media again'. He was really horrible." The stress of the ordeal ended with the pair splitting, with Lisa saying: "Towards the end we just hated each other - Carmichael tore our lives apart and destroyed our relationship. Mario and I were unhappy for a while - our whole world fell apart around us when we got conned."
Speaking about the impact of the experience, she said: "I was having a midlife crisis and in the menopause. I had only been married a year and then I suffered from depression, insomnia at night, I had anxiety and panic attacks. The trolls were saying things like 'get a job, go and work in Tesco or something' but people didn't know I wasn't well and there's no way I could have gone out."
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© ITN)In 2015, Lisa appeared on Channel 5's Celebs on Benefits, before ending up living in a £5-per-night treehouse on a farm. It was then that she developed her addicted to sausages, as she comfort ate and binged on the meaty snacks.
She told the Mail she'd buy eight or 10 packs a day, putting them in casseroles, on toast and with mash. She said: "I would cook them on the grill, and I would just munch. I became addicted to sausages. It was comfort thing."
After a nude shoot on Blackpool beach "after a few wines", Lisa realised that modelling made her "hot property", saying she found the experience "liberating". She is now making an income from OnlyFans, adding that although it's "controversial" she's unbothered and happy.
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