Roxanne Pallett says she considered suicide and her 'hair fell out' due to stress of 'Punchgate' row
Roxanne Pallett has said that she considered suicide in the wake of the Celebrity Big Brother ‘Punchgate’ row.
The Ex-Emmerdale star also revealed that her hair started to fall out due to the stress of the situation.
Pallett his headlines when she accused fellow Celebrity Big Brother housemate Ryan Thomas, of Coronation Street fame, of assaulting her.
She then made a tearful appearance in the Diary Room, saying that she felt threatened by him, despite the incident being filmed and broadcast, and the ‘assault’ clearly being a play fight that lasted a fraction of a second.
Thomas was given an official warning by CBB bosses over the incident.
But viewers overwhelmingly sided with Thomas, and Pallett was pilloried by the press and by viewers on social media.
“Yes I’ve lost everything, and I lost myself,” she told The Sun Online. “I’ve lost my career, my radio jobs, my life as I knew it, everything. I’ve only got my mum, my auntie and two friends now who I trust implicitly.
“Sometimes it takes losing everything to see who stays around for you during your worst days and not just the best days. I’m grateful for those people but I did hit rock bottom.
“But I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me, because it’s my fault, 100%. I take full responsibility. But like everyone who makes a mistake I just want to be allowed to learn from it and move forward because nobody can punish me more than me.”
Pallett lost her job on local radio in Yorkshire in the fallout, and also a job in panto.
“I’ve been scared to leave the house, and strangers have shouted and spat at me in the street. I’ve been called evil and toxic from people who don’t know me.” she says.
“I’ve changed my email address and phone number and I’ve recently moved house. I was getting messages from people saying they wished I was dead, or that I should kill myself. After a while you begin to believe the things you hear, I’d had enough.
“After I left Big Brother, I was advised to leave the country and get away for my own safety, because the hate was so much. I got threats and everyone I used to have around me had disappeared.
“I felt constantly sick. It’s bad enough when one person berates you but I had thousands. I was put on anti depressants and anti anxiety meds immediately which numbed me but I still felt trapped in confusion and fear.
“My mum noticed I was losing weight and saw I was losing my hair. And my two friends, the only friends I had left, mentioned how erratic my texts were becoming. They all stepped in.
“I sent a message to my mum, my auntie and my two friends. I was saying sorry and goodbye. They all panicked, called each other and my mum left work to rush and get to me. That was when they all realised I needed urgent help. I went to Scotland the next morning and began EMDR and CBT therapy for PTDS panic disorder.”
However, she goes on to say that because of past trauma in her life, including an abusive boyfriend, she reacted badly to Thomas playfighting.
“But that’s not an excuse, because Ryan didn’t create those traumas in my life – he didn’t deserve to be destroyed mentally and emotionally, in that moment it was just playful to him,” she went on.
“Because of my history with Ryan and knowing that he disliked me because of trivial matters in the past, I let that affect my judgment and it felt malicious to me, because that’s all I’ve never known, for things to be bad.”
“How I felt in that moment in the Big Brother house was a build-up of fear and defensiveness and upset that I have carried for a long time. I felt things that weren’t happening.
“It was such a blur, I can’t even comprehend it why I felt the way I did, but I didn’t maliciously make it up and I didn’t try to hurt Ryan deliberately. I can promise you that. I had been breaking down in the Diary Room for days before, I wish I’d left then.”
The Sun confirmed that she was not paid for the interview, but asked the newspaper to make donation to the mental health charity Back Onside.
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