#oh lottie

The look of fear on Lottie’s face, the smug smile of Misty

I've read it and have more thoughts than I expected. For now I've divided them into three. First just sort of what she shared and what she didn't.

The things that interested me most say more about me than the book. Learning that Louis advocated for Lou T to be able to work with a baby was fascinating. And I was super curious what it meant that Lottie didn't get paid for working as Lou's assistant (like she'd need to have money and she was going on holiday - was she getting per diems? Was Louis providing everything?).

And in some ways Lottie revealed more than I expected. I was sorry to hear that Sam, her ex from Made in Chelsea, had been emotionally abusive. She was very open about her Dad's alcoholism - something that I think had previously been mostly guessed at. I enjoyed her descriptions of her Mum - and felt it depened my picture of Jay.

But obviously there was lots hidden. She had a falling out with Lou T in 2020, the relationship between her family and Dan Deakin was much messier than she allowed, and obviously lots about what was going on with Fizz was smoothed over. That's just stuff I know - and was all left out reasonably elegantly (I'm sure there's heaps of stuff I don't know about that is also elegantly hidden).

But I also thought it was funny how comfortable she was just not talking about in quite an unelegant way - particularly with her and Lewis getting together. She made a few oblique references to him also experiencing grief - and then at one point said something like "I guess most of you know about what happened" and didn't actually reference it at all.

I was also struck with some of the writing choices and they made me think about the ghostwriting process. There are whole chunks where the book is just 'this is what Sue Ryder says about grief' - they're not interesting or well integrated. There are also aren't a lot of stories and at times the stories there are don't seem well told (there's a story of almost being kidnapped by a taxi driver that really brought this out to me).

It made me think about the ghost writing process. I assume that different projects have different budgets for ghost writers - that basically amount to different amounts of time allocated to do the work. It seems likely to me that anyone who is working as a ghost writer could do a better job of what that section is trying to do (presumably promote Sue Ryder, convey information, and give a larger meaning to the book), but that it would probably take more time.

The third main thing I thought was the way she talked about her body. Which unsurprisingly made me really sad and infuriated, both for Lottie and that it was being put out there in the world. I hate everything about beauty and diet culture and the pressure it puts on women. And I hate even more where a veneer of body positivity and choice is laid on top of this radioactive culture.

The entire last chapter of her book was an advertisement for her new business - a subscription wellness platform, which is very explicitly weight loss equals health.

For me it brings up something I really struggle with - which is how to understand and talk about individual women's role in replicating these structures. My underlying politics are pretty profoundly influenced by what was called the pro-woman line in the 1970s (Carol Hanisch's essay is a good introduction). And while I still believe the underlying analysis that feminism needs to be about collective resistence - not blaming women for how they navigate our society. I've really struggled when thinking about how to understand beauty influencers. I can't quite get behind Jessica DeFino's line about individual disinvestment - even though I'm glad about her interventions.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to worry about Lottie.  I don’t think that’s really overstepping boundaries, certainly not Louis’.  I already wrote a post about how to make sure that worrying about her isn’t a form of aggression (which is this fandom’s speciality).

Everything about her relationship with Lewis Burton is a red flag (and that video! I don’t even have words for it).  But the thing is lots of women are in bad relationships with shit guys in the early 20s.  I wish the world wasn’t like that. I wish things were better for Lottie in so many ways. But I don’t think catastrophising is useful.  

My two other thoughts are: Who gave the tabloids that story? I don’t think it was Louis’ team (which is a huge relief, because that would be a sign that things were very bad).  It seemed like it came from Doncaster, but I can’t really see the twins or grandparents doing that. It’s always useful to think about sourcing.

Which leads to the fantasy scenario that I’ve been dreaming up these last couple of months.  I was so sad that things seemed to be bad between Lottie and Lou T, that I decided to make up a scenario where they weren’t: this is all a revenge plot. (For this you do have to believe that Caroline was the wronged party in their relationship.  I want to point out that this isn’t impossible.  The police can get things horrifically wrong in domestic abuse cases and they are not trustworthy.  Even from the reporting there were several things that made me wonder - particularly if neither party gave a full statement, which seemed to be the case) 

It started with me idly noticing that there was a lot of coverage of their relationship, and none of it made him look good (something that hasn’t changed).  And I was like - what if Lottie and Lou T were working together to try and avenge Caroline - and their lack of social media communication was to make all this convincing.

Anon 2:  It’s not my business but I can’t help but feel worrie+d for lottie

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I’m also really worried about Lottie anons.  As I said recently I worry a bit about everyone in this current environment.  But there are particular reasons to worry about young women who have experienced a lot of trauma.

Part of the reason that I haven’t expressed that response is that I feel fandom has developed worrying about women as a way of attacking them and denigrating them into a fine art.  Neither of your asks do that - you’re both very respectful and boundaried. But they made me think about the challenge of how to express concern for someone in a way that wasn’t a form of criticism, or reinforcing existing judgement stigma and power structures. 

So what I’m going to do in this ask is get slightly meta and ask - how can we express our worry for Lottie in a way that respects boundaries and isn’t actually a form of criticism?

And I think the first anon offers a really good starting point.  The British tabloids fucking suck - and they do real damage to the people they write about.  I think it’s appropriate to be worried about any person, and particularly any woman (although the list of other people who I’m particularly concerned about is super long) who is being written about by the British tabloids.  They’re super vicious and damaging.  

I think a great starting point in making sure that you’re not being misogynist towards a woman when worrying about how she’s doing is to acknowledge how shit and misogynist the world is. There is such a gulf of difference between: ‘look at how badly she’s doing a world that hates people like her’.  And ‘fuck the world is hard, I hope she’s OK.’  Once you make this distinction, it becomes easy to tell the difference, because you can see whether people are focusing on what an individual woman is doing, or the difficulties of the world.

Small side note - we’re all going to feel moments of ‘ha ha isn’t that person I don’t like doing a terrible job of navigating this world that hates them’.  But expressing them to a wide audience can only ever do harm.  It perpetuates the idea that it’s possible to navigate a world that hates you well and legitimises the world’s hate.  I feel very old fashioned whenever I advocate for this, but I do really believe that there are lots of responses that we have to the world that should not be broadcast on any platform that means they could be spread widely, and they should only be shared with a small number of people to help process them.

But there is an aspect of your ask that I want to push back on a bit first anon.  I think it’s really important to be careful with language like ‘prepared for this relationship’ - it seems to me quite related to ‘I hope she knows what she’s getting herself in to’.  Both these suggest that there’s a way women can avoid being hurt by a misogynist world, if they’re smart and aware enough.  And I don’t think that’s true.  

I have. It was pretty alarming in quite a few different ways.  I believe people have a right to tell their own stories (although it’s always difficult because stories interact).  But offering to do so in a salacious way for instagram follows is hugely yikes. It’s also pretty notable that he didn’t anticipate a backlash and that he set his goal at 500,000 followers when he currently had 100,000.  To me that suggests a disconnect with reality and makes me worry about his mental wellbeing.