Jeremy Clarkson's daughter opens up about weight battle

Jeremy Clarkson's daughter opens up about weight battle

Emily Clarkson, daughter of Jeremy, posing on a boat

As the daughter of one of TV’s biggest names, she enjoyed all the comforts of a privileged upbringing.

But that did not guarantee a happy adolescence for Jeremy Clarkson’s daughter Emily.

Miss Clarkson, now 23, has revealed that at one stage she was so unhappy with her weight that she would eat â€" and then cry to the point where she was physically sick.

The episode happened around the time she started at £34,000-a-year Rugby School but believes it was ‘just unhappiness’ and was not bulimia.

Miss Clarkson says her father is partly to blame as she inherited the former Top Gear presenter’s solid frame.

‘I have an enormous father and some of his genes,’ she writes in her book Can I Spea k To Someone In Charge?, which is published today.

She writes candidly about her struggle with weight, saying her desire to be thin was so strong that she would compare her body with those of her classmates who had not started puberty, and curse hers for not looking like theirs.

 She says: ‘I used to squeeze my eyes shut, cross my fingers and wish that when I woke up in the morning I would be thin. I did this every single night. 

'Every day I would look at my reflection and grimace. Sometimes I would look at it and cry.

‘I would grab fat rolls on my stomach and squeeze them together so tightly there were finger marks. 

‘There were times when I was so unhappy that after eating I would cry to the point where I was sick.’

Emily Clarkson wishing her father Jeremy a happy birthday on Instagram in a post telling him to 'carry on being great'

Jeremy Clarkson behind the wheel of a Mercedes supercar during the filming of one of his shows

Emily Clarkson, 22, in a bikini on a boat off the coast of Majorca in a picture she uploaded to Instagram 

In the book, a series of open letters addressing the absurdities of modern life â€" some written to her 13-year-old self â€" she adds: ‘I wouldn’t call what I had bulimia… it wasn’t bulimia, it was just unhappiness, which thankfully didn’t last long and stopped before I had time to even tell anyone, let alone develop a problem.

‘It can’t have happened more than a handful of times but the constant unhappiness, the insecurities, the stomach-grabbing and fat-hating? 

'That seemed to go on for years, to the point where I can’t remember when it stopped.’

rJeremy Clarkson and his daughter, Emily Clarkson are pictured during the 2002 Goodwood Festival Of Speed at Goodwood House, in West Sussex

Although now a size 10, she says: ‘I also know I will never be thin. I wasn’t built that way. I have bosoms, rather large ones.

‘I would look at my classmates, all of them so much thinner than me, and wish that I had their bodies. 

'Did it occur to me that the reason so many of them were so thin was because they hadn’t hit puberty and grown boobs or hips yet? No… all I saw was ironing board upon ironing board.’

Miss Clarkson also reveals that she was diagnosed with gluten allergy in 2014. She bemoans the problems of being on a restrictive diet, adding that her pet hate is anyone who says they wish they were gluten and dairy intolerant.

‘Shut up. This is the single most insulting thing that anyone will ever say to you, short of slagging off your mum or making reference to your muffin top,’ she writes. Miss Clarkson, who lives with her musician boyfriend Alex Andrew in London, appears to have inherited her 57-year-old father’s outspokenness.

On her website, Pretty Normal Me, which she started three years ago, she has ranted about shallow stars flaunting unrealistic photographs of their bodies.

Jane Kenyon, founder of Girls Out Loud, a social enterprise aimed at empowering teenage girls, praised Miss Clarkson for revealing her body image issues. ‘Body shaming has no place in the classroom and being honest and open helps girls realise they are not alone,’ she said.

‘This is one issue where secrecy is dangerous. When girls recognise perfection is an illusion, their world improves tenfold.’

More than 1.6million people in the UK are said to suffer with an eating disorder. Recent studies suggest that 8 per cent of women have bulimia â€" in which sufferers binge eat then make themselves sick â€" at some stage in their life.

Bullied by trolls for having a famous father

Emily Clarkson has opened up on her ordeal

Miss Clarkson has become a target for online bullies because she has a celebrity father, she reveals in her book.

A chapter, Dear Online Trolls, says the online abuse started when she was 17, with people ‘having a go at me simply because I had a famous dad, and you reckoned because of this I was fair game’.

Insults included ‘another brainless vapid celebrity spawn spending Daddy’s money’, ‘bloated mess’ and ‘lump of lard’, Miss Clarkson recalls.

Other comments included ‘Has Clarkson’s daughter eaten Richard Hammond?’ and ‘Looks like Vicky Pollard’. She writes: ‘There’s only so many of these you can read before you want to lock yourself in a room and cry until you can’t any more.

‘Surely you have to see th is isn’t right? That really, no one deserves this. That seventeen-year-old, insecure little me â€" who at this point had literally done no more to warrant this abuse than be alive â€" didn’t deserve this. I should have been allowed to carry my puppy fat in peace, and my grown-up fat for that matter, without the fear that one of you low-lifes was going to try and tear me down. We’ve somehow got to the point where no one is safe online.’

Miss Clarkson also reveals: ‘Other than my weight, one of the biggest topics of conversation regarding my appearance that seem to pop up often is the size of my forehead. Apparently it’s enormous. 

'Apparently I look like an alien. I did always suspect this to be the case, if I’m honest. 

'I don’t remember a whole lot from my prep school but one thing I do remember quite clearly was a guy in my class telling me I had a face that looked like a plate because my forehead was “ginormous”.’

She adds: ‘To anyone currently being bullied at school and feeling that it will never end because the perpetrators will always be more powerful and more successful and more good-looking than you, you need to remember that people like this never grow up to be the people that you, or they, thought they would. Trust me.’

 

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