Gemma Collin's turbulent life has been lived out on screen since she joined TOWIE five years ago and Gemma Collins suffered a highly publicised meltdown in 2014 when she left the I’m A Celeb jungle in a flood of tears after just three days.
And in new TV show Gemma Collins: In Therapy, the reality star reveals her secret horror when she miscarried a baby at four and a half months while at home with her mum, Joan, in 2012.
In a heartbreaking interview, Gemma reveals: “I woke up with excruciating pains, so my mum’s going, ‘Oh Gem, you’ve got a bad stomach – just sit on the toilet, you’re constipated.’ And I’m thinking, ‘no – like, something’s not right here. I rung an ambulance and went to my bedroom.
“My mum could hear how much pain I was in and ran upstairs. At that moment, I came out of my room, looked at her and then ‘bam’ – I ended up giving birth on my landing. I’d given birth to a four-and-a-half month old baby, but I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what world I’d been living in.
“My initial reaction was, Mum, Mum, Mum – pick it up. What is it? What is it? Pick it up.’ My mum just said, ‘Leave it’. The ambulance came shortly after and I was taken to Queeens Hospital in Romford. I can remember this woman saying to me: ‘Do you want to bury your baby? Do you want to sign it over for scientific research?’”
Adding to her trauma, Gemma – who was dating a long term friend at the time - explains how she then had to mask her grief and face the world at the National Television Awards just hours later.
Speaking to therapist Mandy Saligari, Gemma continues: “I really had to disassociate myself with that (the miscarriage). It’s only when I hear you (the therapist) saying it back I think, ‘Bloody hell, that did happen to me.’ But the show had to go on.”
To read the full interview, check out this week’s Closer Magazine.