Abi Titmuss
'I want to be liked'
by Hannah Stephenson When ex-nurse-turned-lads-mag-babe Abi Titmuss heard of last week’s terrorist attack in London, her first instinct was to go to the hospital where she used to work to help with the casualties.
 “A lot of patients from the bombing were taken to the emergency ward that I used to be on at University College Hospital. I felt I should be there.
“I rang one of my friends from the ward who was looking after people from the blast and asked if she wanted me to come in. “Looking back, I don’t think I could have gone in really. It would have been a bit problematic but I felt such a strong calling and secretly hoped she’d say, ‘Yes Abs, we need you’.” It was not to be.
In fact, the 29-year-old has long given up the nurse’s uniform for skimpier, sexier outfits as a scantily-clad pin-up, calendar girl and reality show regular, having recently appeared in Celebrity Love Island and Hell’s Kitchen.
The well-spoken, well-educated middle class girl from Lincolnshire has become fodder for not only the tabloids but the broadsheets too, first as the loyal and demure figure at the side of TV presenter John Leslie as he was tried and cleared of charges of indecent assault and later in her astonishing transformation to sex siren.
She’s busty, blonde, sexy and talks quickly, almost breathlessly. Cynics say she’s manipulative, snapping up any lucrative TV job that comes her way to keep her in the public eye and taking her clothes off for the testosterone-fuelled fans of such magazines as FHM and Nuts at every photo opportunity.
 Fans argue that she shouldn’t be berated for being honest about her sexuality and good luck to her if she’s seen the opportunity, grabbed it and made a mint out of it.
Indeed, no sooner has she returned from Fiji than she is promoting her book of erotica, Ten Fantasies, featuring Abi looking seductive in black lingerie on the cover. The book, needless to say, is co-written. Abi says she’s not yet a millionaire but has been able to buy a car and her own house in north London out of her newfound celebrity earnings.
However, she is well aware of the fickle world of fame and how quickly it can fade. “The bubble has burst for me a couple of times already,” she says. First she lost her job as a roving reporter for Richard and Judy after a former basketball player sold a story to a tabloid in which he claimed he and his girlfriend took part in an orgy with John and Abi. “I was told I was finished. But after that I got the FHM cover, I did Hell’s Kitchen and I picked myself up. I thought, I’m not finished.”
Then there was the infamous stolen three-in-a-bed home video, which soon made it on to the internet. “I was told I was finished again but I thought no, I’m not going curl up and die. I thought, I’ll turn it around somehow. “I’m well aware of the transient nature of fame and that it won’t last forever, but while it does I’d like to make the best of it.”
 Her parents, both teachers, are now very proud of her, she says. “We’ve been through a lot over the last few years, with the whole thing with John, and they are proud that I’ve managed to turn it around.” Abi, who has since been romantically linked with Matt Goss and David Walliams, is now dating former Manchester United footballer and fellow Love Island contestant Lee Sharpe. She is coy about the relationship.
“He’s a very special person but I don’t want to go into too much detail,” she giggles. “He’s a wonderful, genuine person. “I was asked if my affections were genuine, which I was quite cross about. I thought it was obvious. As soon as I realised I had feelings for him, I didn’t want to express them on national TV. All of a sudden I was very aware that all these cameras were on me.” Surely the whole point of Celebrity Love Island was that celebrities would end up in bed together on screen and raise their profile in the process?
“I know it sounds daft on our so-called Love Island, but I didn’t go into the show actually thinking I’d find love. “I haven’t had a private life for the last couple of years and when you do find someone you genuinely like, you want it to be private.”
There are many young women with good figures and a pretty face who have tried to go down the modelling route without success. So, what’s Abi’s secret? “I don’t know. I’m not the skinniest or the prettiest girl. I’ve been told it’s because I’m a real girl. I’ve got real curves and I’m not a natural model. Maybe I look like the girl next door.”
 Some women, she admits, are extremely wary of her. This was evident from her spat with fellow Love Island contestant Jayne Middlemiss. The story goes, Jayne told Lee she fancied him, Lee wasn’t interested, then Abi and Lee got together. At one point Jayne told viewers Abi was a “big fat slag and I want to crunch her face in”. Abi’s seen Jayne once since their return, when she bumped into her in a bar and congratulated her on her win. “She feels a bit bad about some of the things she said,” says Abi now. “I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”
But more women have warmed to her since she piled on the pounds in Celebrity Love Island and was dubbed ‘Flabby Abi’, she says. “I put on about half a stone. I wasn’t happy about it at the time and I didn’t want to put on a bikini by the end of it. “I’ve lost a few pounds since I’ve been back. But women come up say, ‘So what? You’re a normal girl’. “My normal weight fluctuates between eight-and-a-half and nine-and-a-half stone. I think that putting on a few pounds endeared me to women more.”
Contact with John Leslie since they split up has been scant, although they exchange occasional text messages. “He’s always wished me all the best. I felt guilty for a long time about the fact that I was working and he wasn’t. But he said at the time, if anyone can get anything positive from this awful situation then that can only be a good thing.” Her ambition remains but she says it’s in the sense that she wants to feel she’s achieved something. “I work very hard but my ultimate goal is to be liked. I’ve had to harden up. I still get upset about things that are written about me but I have learned to deal with it and not to take it to heart. I’ve learned to survive.”
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