DO you think you’re beautiful? It’s a question many women would recoil at answering but it’s one that changed Samantha Brick’s life.
The 53-year-old television producer and writer answered it with searing, unapologetic honesty – and the world was NOT happy with her response.
Now, Samantha has spoken about the effect the backlash took on her – and why, despite the vile abuse and death threats, she stands by her words.
Speaking exclusively to Fabulous for Shamed, a new YouTube series which explores the effects of trolling on six women, Samantha says: “How the article was received astounded me.
“To me, it’s insane that it caught the public imagination in that way. The trolling was insane, too.
“But, you know, the truth hurts doesn’t it? A lot of people got very angry with me for having the bare cheek to say a lot of home truths. It didn’t go down very well.”
In a now infamous 2012 newspaper article, Samantha claimed that “other women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks”.
How the article was received astounded me… it’s insane that it caught the public imagination in that way
Samantha Brick
She also confessed that she’d been “dropped by countless friends” who feared she’d steal their other halves. And, that “insecure female bosses” barred her from promotions at work.
The confessional piece – which Samantha now describes as an “absolute fireball” – sparked a global furore.
Samantha was inspired to write the piece – where she admitted male admirers sent her bottles of champagne in restaurants, paid for her train fare and gifted her flowers in the street because of her “pleasing appearance and pretty smile” – after an incident with a school mum.
She explains: “I’d dropped my stepson at the school bus stop and then I drove past a woman in the car. I waved and said hello – I live in the countryside in France where community spirit is really important.
“And she just blanked me. Female intuition kicked in straight away. I got home and banged out the article.
“I just catalogued all the times women haven’t been very nice to me. It was an explanation of the darker side of sisterhood and femininity. It was one of those taboos you can’t really talk about.”
In the 1,800-word piece Samantha claimed “women find nothing more annoying than someone else being the most attractive girl in the room”.
The article went viral and millions of people including celebrities – Sue Perkins, Derren Brown and Jeremy Vine – tweeted about it.
By the end of 2012, Samantha’s name had been Googled more times that year than Kate Middleton.
It became a talking point on shows around the world including Australia and the US.
Long before “internet trolling” was common parlance, Samantha was inundated with online hate mail.
Accusations of “being a fool” and “arrogant” were some of the lighter comments, while darker threats stated she should be “bricked to death”.
It was brutal shaming, and something Samantha admits she wasn’t quite prepared for.
“The comments went through the roof. I had photographers outside my home,” she says.
“I had people calling nonstop from Japan, Australia, the States, the UK… to interview me and talk about what I’d written. It was pretty phenomenal actually.”
She added: “I knew it was provocative. Did I have any idea that it would go global and that people would be so incandescent with rage about what I’d written? No, I didn’t have any idea that would be the result of it.
“Any society that reacts or responds that way, from an individual perspective or a collective, they really want to have a word to themselves and take a good look at themselves because their personal attacks and the pile ons that I received were totally unjustified.”
She adds: “I was really surprised that so many people put so much hate into it.”
Samantha reflects on some of the trolling comments, which included: “She looks like a haunted Cabbage Patch doll”, “f***ing minging and old”, “dead behind the eyes”, “Samantha Brick should be bricked to death” and “RT if u want to help me kill samantha brick”.
She says: “People were hysterical. They’re comments about me, a human being. I’ve taken actions and steps to make sure I don’t look at the comments and trolling.
“Thanks for the mute button. I know human curiosity means you might want to look, but I just don’t look.”
Samantha recalls one comment, sent in by a man, that made her “really upset”.
I think I rock and this is what I want to infect that feeling on every other woman on the planet
Samantha Brick
She says: “It just pinged into my email inbox one morning. It said, ‘I hope you stay barren’. That really upset me.
“That person would never know that I was going through IVF at that time, which didn’t work.
“That was probably the most callous, cruel thing you could ever say to a woman. That was really horrible. Tears sprung to my eyes when I read that.”
Samantha believes the public was “whipped into a frenzy” at the time and that the reaction would be less dramatic today if she were to pen something similar.
“You could write an article like that today and it wouldn’t cause so much as a ripple,” she says.
“Also, if a man wrote a ‘I’m so handsome’ article he wouldn’t receive that kind of backlash at all.”
Samantha credits her husband Pascal for “keeping me very grounded”.
She says: “I’ll tell him people are saying horrible things about me online and he’ll just say don’t look.
If a man wrote a ‘I’m so handsome’ article he wouldn’t receive that kind of backlash at all
Samantha Brick
“It’s not to say it didn’t hurt because of course it did. And I would be doing myself an injustice as a human being to say when people say awful things about you doesn’t hurt. Of course it does.
“Now, of course I did read some things and go, ‘wow’. And I did read some things university friends wrote and I thought, ‘cheers love, you really put in the boot’.”
She adds: “What’s the point in looking at trolls? What other people’s opinion of me is none of my business. It might make me sound cold, hard, I don’t care.”
When asked if she thinks she’s beautiful, Samantha says: “Of course I do. We all are. We all sparkle.”
She adds: “I still think I’m great. I mean, you know, I’m still that woman who gets up every morning and I know my body isn’t perfect nor my hair or my skin but I make the best of what I’ve got every single day and I love myself.
“I think I rock and this is what I want to infect that feeling on every other woman on the planet. “Once you feel like that it radiates out to everyone else. I just don’t do negative.
“That’s not to say I don’t have down days. I have done and course I do but it’s you know, we’ve got one chance at this life on the planet. It’s really important to make the most of it.”
