How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Olivia Attwood - ‘It’s either vodka and a gay club until 5am, or hyperbaric oxygen’

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Olivia Attwood first appeared on our TV screens in 2017 as a contestant in the third series of Love Island, and instantly became a star due to her dry humour and gobby relatability. You might also know her as a regular panellist on Loose Women or from her hit documentaries for ITV. Last year, she launched her podcast, Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right, which promptly went to Number 1 in the UK charts. On today’s episode, we talk about everything from reality tv to her diagnosis with ADHD; from her love of gay clubs and medi-spas to failed relationships, the lessons friendship has taught her, the fact she hasn’t always loved being the centre of attention (no, honestly) and why she’s never watched herself back on Love Island. An absolute gem of an episode with a true woman’s woman. Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Studio and Mix Engineer: Gulliver Lawrence-Tickell Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile Head of Marketing: Kieran Lancini How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Now, if you're an entrepreneur like me or living the creative freelance life, then Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or nurturing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a stunning website and engage with your audience. My website was designed on Squarespace and I found it so user-friendly and easy. And trust me, I am not techy at all. Squarespace supports a design-orientated ethos, so the options are chic and there's plenty of templates to choose from. I felt

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cool coming your way. I cannot wait for this. I sat down with none other than Ty Burrell, also known as my brother-in-law, on Modern Family for 11 seasons. And let me tell you, when we get together, it's impossible to stop laughing. You're gonna love this episode. And of course you're gonna love Ty because honestly he's the best and who doesn't love him. And thanks to Airbnb, we got to record

in the coziest little Opry ski cabin in Utah, complete with takeout from one of Ty's own restaurants, Beer Bar. So picture this, two old friends, a crackling fire, some seriously good food, and a whole lot of tea spilling. Yes, I mean, meaning that we also we gossiped, but also we spilled our tea. Anyway, I can't wait for you to listen. Welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that treats all failure as data acquisition. Before we

get to our guest, I wanted to mention our subscriber podcast, Failing with Friends, where my guest and I answer your questions and we offer advice on some of your failures too. Here's some advice from Olivia Atwood. Talking of great successful people, you know, through history, how many of their stories start with that just taking that leap, you know, like leaving that job or just, you know, taking writing that play and submitting it. Does it mean it's everyone you can almost pretty much think of? Do join in by following the link in the podcast notes where you can send me an email or look

out for my monthly call-outs on Instagram for quickfire questions. Thank you so much for watching. Of all the many achievements my guest today can lay claim to, perhaps one of the most culturally significant is that she gave us the term the Ick. When Olivia Atwood burst onto our TV screens in 2017 as a contestant in the third series of Love Island, she instantly became a breakout star thanks to her dry humour, gobbly relatability, and for introducing us all to the concept of getting the ick, that sudden feeling of revulsion towards a potential romantic partner. Since Love Island, Atwood has not just been adding words to the Oxford English Dictionary.

In fact, she's become a media force to be reckoned with. A regular panellist on Loose Women, she also fronts hit documentaries for ITV, including an investigation into cosmetic procedures called The Price of Perfection, which has been streamed almost seven million times. Her award-winning documentary, Getting Filthy Rich, which looks into the online adult industry, has just returned for its third series. Last year, she launched her podcast, Olivia Atwood's So Wrong It's Right,

which promptly went straight to number one. According to her TV bosses, she is a great talent and the face of the future. And yet, as a child growing up in Surrey, Atwood was, as she recalls, shy and anxious, always pondering. My parents are staggered by the shift that's happened in me over the last decade because as a kid, the idea of being the center of attention was horrifying. Olivia Atwood, welcome to How to Fail.

Thank you so much. What an introduction. I'm so happy you're here even though you are now the center of attention. Yes. Sorry if that's making you feel uncomfortable. Well, as we learn, I have become quite accustomed to it somehow. When do you think that switch flipped? When can you remember feeling more comfortable with attention?

I think when it was on my terms, when I was kind of commanding attention rather than being thrust into it in a way that felt that I wasn't ready for, for example, being singled out like in the choir or singled out in a classroom. Somewhere I felt like I was out of my depth and then everyone was going to look at me. Was horrifying. I see there's a trend on TikTok at the moment talking about, did you used to do this at school? You know, everyone would read a paragraph. Yes. And that if you were someone who was dyslexic or weren't a confident reader, that fear of knowing that there's two more people before you,

those kind of situations just filled me with dread. Whereas now I don't have that because I feel comfortable in what I'm doing basically. So you have dyslexia and you were diagnosed with that at school. Yeah, really early on. But you also had ADHD and that was a much later diagnosis. It was, yeah. It was an interesting one. As we know with ADD and ADHD, there's so many facets to it and it doesn't actually just fit this one textbook mold that we all previously believed. I fit the characteristics as I was impulsive and I was sometimes hyperactive, but I was also meticulously neat and organized. Like you said in the intro, quite anxious at times and thoughtful.

So, it was conflict. That's I think what child psychologists and whoever else were having a look at me at different times where they couldn't pin it down. I think now I am the classic high overachieving female with ADHD, who overcompensates. Women, we naturally try to find ways to be socially acceptable because society is less kind to us when we are annoying and breaking things and falling out of trees than they are to men

and boys. So boys don't need to learn to mask as much. What did that feel like when you were younger? And did you feel that you were being misunderstood? I guess looking back on it, I did, but I don't think that was something I registered at the time. I remember feeling quite a lot of frustration towards myself, of just the way that I navigated things and why did I find certain things difficult that other people found easy. There was quite a lot of that going on, I think. It's hard, isn't it, to look back,

to access those memories I I think, from when you were a kid or a teenager, truthfully, is quite hard because I think we also rewrite our own memories a lot. I also think with me, I sometimes think I have a memory, but actually I've just seen a photo. And I wonder if that's especially surreal for you because you were on TV in your 20s being followed around the Love Island Villa, falling in and out of relationships and crushes.

Do you have you ever watched yourself back? So that's really interesting because I purposefully have never watched long form versions of the show, like for example, a whole episode, because I actually made the decision really early on after leaving the villa that I didn't want to edit my memories. Because I lived it and I remember how it was in my mind. Of course, there's 45 minutes to go on telly, give or take, of 24 hours. And they're going to compress it and certain things will make it, certain things won't. And that is the nature of television, something that I've obviously come to love and appreciate, the art form

of editing and making good TV. But that isn't my full memory. So we watched Bits and Bobs but I remember, yeah, quite early on seeing maybe half an episode and I felt kind of instant like, you know, you could get yourself really wound up, which people do. And I think the best thing to do if you're going to do a show like that is just submit yourself to the process. You are not going to be able to tell the entire 200-minute story because there just isn't time. I want to talk about your TV career post Love Island in a second. But because we've just touched on your anxieties as a child, to go from that to Love Island is quite a big leap. What was it that gave you the ability to do that? Was it being a grid girl?

Oh, like it's so wild to talk about the grid girl stuff. And I worked for energy drink companies and different brands, I did promo modeling and that really got me kind of traveling and seeing the world in such a positive way, because there's so much negativity around, obviously, that kind of work, especially when a lot in the media about grid girls and the sexualization of women and all of that. There's an argument for that that I completely get on board with. But for me, it was a really pivotal moment into finding independence and just getting outside of my comfort zone, really. It got me away from really shitty, horrible boyfriend, like physically gave me distance when I'm like physically traveling the world and meeting new people.

And I was like, oh my God, the way I've been living is not normal. Because sometimes your own bubble, well, they just are used to what you're used to. So how can they shine a light on anything, particularly, you know, groundbreaking, because they're just used to what you're used to. But yeah, getting space, like emotionally and physically, it helped me find my confidence. Yeah. Let's go on to your failures. The first, they're really, really good. There's so many to choose from. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, because I really, I could tell that you'd really engaged with You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good.

You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good.

You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good.

You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. You were so good. alone, specifically with boyfriends. That is such an interesting one. I think a lot of women will relate to it. And I think it's probably intimately connected with people pleasing. I don't know how you feel about that. But tell me about this. And when you first started feeling like you couldn't be on your own or you needed to be with someone else.

So my mom would say that I was like a clingy child. Like I was that kind of out of the three of my siblings, I was the one who would be like, I don't want to go to the toilet on my own or, can you come with me here? Can you come with that crying on the first day of school? That was kind of very embedded in who I was as a person. And my parents, my mum did a really good job to be fair of trying to help kind of push me to speak with my own voice and stand on my own two feet.

I went to boarding school and things like that kind of forced me into situations that you know, that otherwise wouldn't necessarily happened. And I think that what I did was I just replaced that kind of crutching on a parent or a guardian who was nearby to then friendships and then boyfriends. And I always had, even from a young age, a best friend. And it would be like a really intense, kind of overly suffocating, where we're best friends and no one is as close as us.

And that then moved on to the way I felt with boyfriends. overly suffocating, where we're best friends and no one is as close as us. And that then moved on to the way I felt with boyfriends. I used to kind of become really focused on this one person. Everything else on the outside was like white noise. And I would tell myself the narrative that I had separation anxiety, which to an extent I really did. And with those early relationships, I was very emotionally dependent on whoever was, I would call it like an emotional crutch of

my life. At that time in my life, that's how I treated relationships. How much do you think ADHD might have played into that? Quite a bit. I think when I was working out who I was and what my value to life was. And for a large part of my teens, my twenties, I really thought I don't add any value to anything. That was, I know this sounds really dramatic, but that's genuinely how I felt. And I then put everything into a friendship or a boyfriend,

because that gave me like a sense of purpose. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I wanted it to be suffocating and then therefore I attracted really, I was like prime kind of right for the picking for people that don't have terribly nice personalities. You know, if you're like a narcissist or you've got a bit of borderline personality disorder and you've got this girl who's like, I want to move in next week and we should get matching tattoos. You're like, fucking yes, let's go. Like she's going to be the easiest one ever to manipulate.

Even if they didn't know they were doing it, I made it too easy, you know? I relate to that so completely. My 20s, I was in a series of long-term monogamous relationships from the age of 19 to 36. And I got married then to my last one and then divorced. So it didn't work out. Spoiler alert. And I think I outsourced my sense of self to other people. And I just didn't know who I was. I was too scared to find out. And all I wanted to do was please the other person or meet the other person's needs or what I thought their needs were. And I remember vividly an ex-boyfriend who was lovely asking, he was one of the good ones, asking me where do you want to go for lunch? And I was like, I don't know, I don't know, you go, where do you want

to go for lunch? And I genuinely could not work out where I wanted to go for lunch. You'd actually disconnected that much from your own needs. Yes. One of my best childhood friends who has stood the test of time and I also think your interest in friendships is fascinating. I love it because people don't talk about friendships enough. Right. We just gloss over it. But anyway, one of my best friends who's been since a child, so she really knows me and she was like, she's calling the chameleon because I was like that if I dated a guy that was a rock rocker, I'm wearing

skinny jeans, the hair's going dark, everything, then I'm dating a guy that's like, you know, I don't know, really sporty, I'm sporty. And I just would constantly like shape shift to whoever had come in and kind of wooed me. I would go into fit them, never to fit me. I'd always go to fit them. And let's talk about friendships. So how did that impact your friendships? Well, I speak there of my best friend Charlotte, who I've been best friends since primary school. And she, I mean, I don't know what she did in her past life deserve me because she used

to fill a test of time with me and we and she's, you know, she's had to, she's always given me her honest opinion. But she's never abandoned me in the choice of my bad decisions. So she is a true friend. And you know what it is to have a true friend is like someone that genuinely wants you to win. There's no conditions or things. They genuinely want to see you do great and have the kind of love that you deserve. And I think with female friendships especially, jealousy is such an issue,

which it kind of weaves its way in. I think that women are like, society makes us be so competitive with each other. So when you find a true female friend who is not in competition with you, also having quite different tastes, I think actually works for like yin and yang. Like sometimes I think if you put us together, people will be like, how have you two been best friends

for like, you know, over 15 years? Because you're quite different, but I think that also does work. I think I've had friends where I've met, you know, in different points in my life, or where like, I think we're like kindred souls. I'm like, oh my God, you're just like me, and that kind of implodes on itself, I think,

after a while, if you're too similar to someone. I'm just laughing because I'm relating so hard and it's taken me longer than it's taken you to understand and unpack all of that because I think that what we're talking about is codependency in relationships and actually the best, most functional relationships are interdependent. And I'd love to talk to you a bit about your husband, Brad, because when I met my now husband, I remember him saying this thing to me once where we had the chat, where I was like, where's this going?

Yeah. And he said, well, I'm enjoying the time I spend with you. And I'd like to, I like the fact that we're walking along parallel lines. And we're, we're separate but together. And he's like, and if that continues for a few weeks, a few months or a lifetime, then that would be a great experience. And I was

like, God, that was so unromantic. This is like date three, Olivia. I'm looking for matching tattoos. Yes, exactly. I was like, why are we not running away to read it? Because I was so used to being loved bombed by narcissists and just having my own agency stripped away from me. Whereas Justin gave me the chance to state what I wanted, not only the chance, but like made me actually really, really evaluate that. And now I feel so supported and safe in that relationship and we are independent and interdependent

and it's the best way of being. What's Brad like? What made him different? It's to be honest, it mirrors that quite a lot. Brad, you know, people know the story of our getting together and untogether and everything like that. If I hadn't gone on Love Island, I don't think we would be together. I think that we had to kind of pull away for us both to get some perspective. Now with Brad, he is the first male relationship, like dating relationship I've had, where like you just said with your relationship, he has his own thing, like he has his own job, he has his own goals, and I have mine, and he wants me to have them. Like Brad is, you know, the best decision I think anyone can ever make is like their life partner because when it's

wrong it can be so terrible. But I think more so like for women because society is not, it's still harder for us to win, right? So if your literal co-partner in life doesn't want you to win, what fucking chance do you have? Like if you're sitting there at home and you're going, oh, I didn't get that job, and your husband's going, well, that's all right, just do something else. Or they go, no, go back and kick that door down because you deserve that job. It makes a big difference.

And I think not many men truly want to see their female partner fly. And I know that's really controversial because I think to have success, and also when you have success, like in our industry, I call it loud success. My sister's like super successful. I'd argue more successful than me. What she does in a very corporate world, but it's not like our stuff's loud. It's like, you know, he can't turn on the telly or open a phone that's seeing my face and then he has to live with me.

That could become very jarring very quickly. I never had that before. Ever. So precious. And I think you'll bang on. I definitely had exes who might claim to be supportive, but they're actually supportive in a very superficial way. It's like they're supportive of you showing up and looking nice when they need you to. But when you actually, I've had this direct experience when I wanted to make a career change, there was no support there whatsoever. It was just like, no, you can't do that. You need to stay small,

essentially. And I think what you're identifying is generosity of spirit in both friendships and romantic partners. And it's so important. How did you get out of this pattern of outsourcing your sense of self to others, feeling like you needed someone else. Was it something that a bad relationship taught you? How did you work it out? I don't think it was an intentional thing. I think I, around the time of it, accepted to go on Love Island because I turned Love Island down twice, right, for boyfriends. So chic. Oh, less chic.

They were chasing me. I just honestly, I feel like such a knob every time I say that. I turned it down momentarily for Brad and then I realized that Brad and I weren't in quite the locked off monogamous situation I thought we were. Then I had a bit of a come to Jesus moment where I was like, what are you doing? You have to go and do something. Because I was in this area of doing things that scared me. So I was like, this is scary and I don't like it and I don't know what it's going to be. And the easier thing would be to stay here again and just argue with this guy I'm seeing

about why he's not treating me right. Or I can just like fully take control and go and do this thing and then whatever happens after it happens. And I know love violence is obviously quite an unusual example to make, but I think there's situations in everyone's lives where they could have that kind of uncomfortable decision axle, where that one decision is going to change their whole life. And in terms of the relationships and what I then decided I wanted from relationships, I feel like as humans, we're hardwired to feel important on some level and to feel like

we are good at something and people have value to us. I think up until that point, because I didn't feel like I had any importance, and I don't mean importance in the egotistical sense of, I'm important because I'm on Love Island. I meant like I didn't feel important to myself, like, you know, in that sense. So I was like, once I came out of Love Island and I started kind of organically like bleeding into this other TV work and I felt like I was good at it, it changed the way I felt about myself for the first time in the whole, like, 25 years I've been alive. And then I think in turn, it then changes what you expect from other people.

Yes. So I feel like if you can be a stay at home mom and you get genuine importance and validation from that, that's fucking amazing. And that means that that's what you're meant to do. But for other people, I think that's why it can be a bit of a road of misery because I think they feel they lack that feeling of what is my thing? What is my meaning? Yeah.

My purpose. And I feel like as I started to find that everything else just fell into place. Your authenticity shines through because actually if you're unsure about something, you will take the audience along with you. And I think that's the other thing is not pretending that you have all of the answers all the time. And I also think we're in such a set up to fail kind of world because, and I also make them think of always reminding everyone that I'm not perfect and I have rough edges and I will sometimes drink vodka and pass out face down in a gay club. I'm not ever going to say to everyone, like, I am this perfect pristine

who makes the right decisions all the time because then when you do put a foot out of line, they're coming for you with pitchforks. [♪ Music playing. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. Fuzz logo. F mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca.

This episode is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Ever captured a great night video only for it to be ruined by that one noisy talker? With audio erase on the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, you can reduce or remove unwanted noise and relive your favorite moments without the distractions. And that's not all. New Galaxy AI features like NowBrief will give you personalized insights

based on your day schedule so that you're prepared no matter what. Buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now at samsung.com. At Desjardins, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day

about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. Let's get on to your second failure because I'm aware that I could natter to you all day. And you probably got blazes to go to, documentaries to present. Your second failure, we've touched on it, is your failure to care for yourself. When I had low, I don't actually use it low self-esteem, my feelings towards myself weren't positive. And I think that was it. I was kind of

like bobbing around in bad relationships. I didn't have the ADHD diagnosis. I didn't know why I found things harder than other people. And then I think as a result of that, when you really don't love yourself, everything you do reflects that. So like the way you eat, the way you prioritize sleep, if you exercise, all of that. I mean, I just felt like prioritizing any form of wellness, which I know Gen Z are way better at than us, was not something I was actually worthy of, which that sounds so deep, doesn't it? It does sound deep, and I'm wondering where it comes from. Did it come from your upbringing

in the sense that those things, definitely in this country, there's a mentality of stiff upper lip and you get on with it, and there's a lot to be said for that sometimes. My mum always verbally would talk to me, me, especially like, you know, about taking care of myself and eating right and all those things. But I think, like you say, just the way in being a nineties kid, obviously you've got the stiff upper lip of like the Englishness and then my dad's German. So you put those two together and it's a real get on with it mentality. I mean, yeah, it's like lying in to my dad was put those two together and it's a real get on with it mentality. I mean, yeah, it was like lying in to my dad was like, my God, it's night. My dad has a

North American accent just for clarity. He's like, my God, it's 9am, this girl is like still asleep. So maybe there's a little bit of that kind of vibe. But I don't know. I think it was more me. I think it was more my relationship with myself really. Seeing as we're talking about the 90s and we can remember that very strange culture where much of it was really kind of liberating and great and it was ladettes and great music and all that and then the other side of that was this like media circle of shame, looking at women's bodies, analysing, criticising them. How do you think that affected you?

How did you feel about your appearance at this stage in your life? I think that probably influenced more than I realised that failure to self-care. Because like you say, I feel like the supermodel, staying out all night partying, Nicole Richie kind of era was really glamorized. They're kind of not taking care of yourself in that sense. If you flip it to now of what's like trendy, it's like everyone's obsessed with taking care of themselves. And yeah, I think I was influenced by that in the sense that I wanted to, yeah, I wanted to like be cool and I wanted to be thin and smoking and drinking was all just things that were social currency that we knew held value, which also had massive detrimental

effects on our wellbeing. How do you feel about your looks now? I hesitated then because again, it's such a female British thing. I'm not going to say I think I look good because everyone's going to think I love myself, God forbid. No, I'm happy with the way I look. I've always been pretty consistently happy with the way I look and my body despite my feelings about myself.

It was one thing that always stayed quite consistent. I never had any major hang-ups. I think I was maybe too into my looks at different points because I really felt that was the only thing that I had going. So any way that I could kind of in my eyes improve on that was really important. But I was lucky in the sense that I was, well, I say lucky, it was just a toxic mess, but I was tall and I was naturally really skinny. So in that era when everyone was just starving themselves, I remember lucky, it was just a toxic mess. But I was tall and I was naturally really skinny. So in that era when everyone was just starving themselves, I remember being at boarding school and I would be the one eating the pile of toast in bed and my dorm mates would be like, you fucking bitch. Because they'd all be, yeah, restricting what they ate, which was

something that was so normal around everyone my age and for those years. And it was something that I didn't have to worry about too much. But also, on the other hand of that, it's like, you know, when I did get too thin at times, it's like, you know, from again, just not looking after myself, it was something that was praised on rather than people going, Oh, don't know if it's healthy to be that thin. You know, it was something that is just interesting the way we approach things now, whereas now I strive to be strong. I'm in the gym lifting weights.

I love that you love weights. Can you imagine me doing that 15 years ago? I would have been like, oh my God, get out. Am I going to lift a weight? Well, the gym was really uncool. It was not cool. And if you were going, you're just going to run on a treadmill like a rat. That's something that I discovered in my 30s.

And latterly, I've got very into weights and that I know that you love your weights. And you're right that it's a kind of mental head space as well that's really important because I did years of fertility treatment and I felt like I lost control of my own body in a way. And being able to re-inhabit my body feels so powerful and weights and resistance training has given me that. The fact that we've undermined the fact that women need skeletal muscle for so long is actually crazy as well because it's like our survivability against anything is better when we're stronger. I really take stock of that now. I wouldn't have cared if I missed a meal 10 years ago. I'm like,

whatever. Now I'm like, I would feel really guilty if I didn't eat enough protein in a day. I prioritize it, but like you say, it's a mind shift. What else do you do for your care now? I do everything, honestly. It's so weird because I was actually on the phone with my agent this morning and she was like, I've always been quite an extreme person, but there's either like I say, vodka and gay club till 5am or there's like hypochlorite oxygen. There's literally, and I do the first one much less now, but I do a lot of supplements. I work out resistance training four to five times a week.

I try and sleep more. I'm on the NAD injections. Don't know. Yeah. Report back. But so far feels, yeah. I don't know if it's placebo. I did hyperbaric oxygen actually over Christmas. My husband was doing it for his knee to help with some recovery. So I was jumping in there with him.

Again, there's no exact way to measure these things. What I felt like I had more energy and I felt revitalized. And then everyone knows like I'm, you know, I love a Medispa. I love an injectable, a facial, anything that's kind of new, you know, on the market, I'll give it a go to an extent. Are you a workaholic, do you think? Yeah. What do you think of that term? Because I think I am too, but I sort of want to reclaim it because I love work. So work is also my hobby. I think you've just nailed it. I think it's a privilege thing.

Yes. Yeah. Of course we're workaholics. Look what we do for a job. It's fucking awesome. But then I think trying to shame people for not being in love with their job is also just really gross. It's really easy to go, yeah, I'm obsessed with what I do, of course, because to me, there isn't a real cutoff point between a working day and a non-working day,

because I'm actually always thinking of things. I'm always writing in my notes. Sometimes, even when it's like, I'm actually always thinking of things. Like I'm always writing in my notes. Like sometimes, you know, even when it's like I'm off over Christmas, that's when I got some best ideas or things that I want to research or think people I want to interview on the pod. Like, and you must be the same, you must always be. So that to me is, yeah, it's kind of obsessive, but I'm completely happy to be obsessed with this because I'm doing something that is, that I love it doesn't feel like a job but I don't think we should be thrusting that on

people you know because some people it's just a way to survive and you put food on the table and that's fucking it and that's also fine yeah you know. Are you competitive? With myself okay yeah because I would say yeah I give myself a hard time. I don't really look left or right. It's kind of internalized because sometimes if I set these kind of little goals or there's always a fear, isn't it, that things will kind of wean off. So you kind of, it's like the little legs like a duck below the boat.

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which is a direct challenge issue to me, which is your failure to cry. I love that this is like me and you, because you love to cry, don't you? I do, I love a good cry. I cry very easily. I'd never met anyone who cries more than me until I met my husband.

Oh my God, stop, are you serious? I'm not being totally serious. Like sometimes we go to the cinema and he'll be... No, don't. He cried. He was in floods at Wicked. And I was like, am I now a hard-hearted bitch? So my other failure should be failures just enjoy musicals. Oh my god, he loves a musical. I'm making him sound just like he's a gay man. I was going to say.

Which is actually ideal for me. I love that. To be fair, second to my husband, I would marry one of my gay friends. That would be my choice. They probably wouldn't marry me, but yeah, there you go. Yeah. It's something I don't think I really realized how I felt about it as much as I do in the last couple of years. Yeah, I have a really hard time with crying and I also have a really hard time with people crying. So please don't cry. I don't worry. I'm going to hold myself together. But did you not cry when you were a child? I mean, obviously as a baby too.

Maybe this is a like a knee-jerk reaction to having spent so many years being so tearful and kind of anxious and all the rest of it. And I cried a lot in those past relationships. Like, oh my God, like, I mean, cried myself until I could pass out cry. Like, as if someone had died, like over these breakups and these arguments. And I think maybe in this kind of era of my life, I mean, now, it does, maybe it touches on something

that I feel that I don't now, it does, maybe it touches on something that I feel that I don't want to go back to her. So I've kind of shut it. Like I'm like, I don't like the way, even though I cried a lot to be fair, having said that in those teenage 20 years, I still wasn't good at crying in front of people. Because it makes you feel too vulnerable. Vulnerable, like just very exposed. It's a feeling that it's really hard to fully put into words. If I cry at home and my husband's there, I always run and I go into the duvet like a child,

and he'll try and pick me out from the duvet. I'm happy for him to hug me and comfort me, but I couldn't just sit in front of him and kind of sob. He's not a crier, but I think he's more in touch of his emotions than me. Yeah. So, when you are really upset or sad about something, is there a physical manifestation of it or do you just internalize it?

I'm moody probably. Yeah, I get moody, kind of shut down. To be honest, I know that you're saying all of this, you think I will think that that's weird. I wish I was a bit more like that because I've definitely found myself in situations where I really want to make a point, sometimes in work situations. Oh, but then you break down. Yeah, and I feel really, like I can feel my chin wobble and my voice starts to wobble and I really don't like it. And I don't know how to stop it.

I've got a bit better at being aware of it now. And I think what happens for me is that I immediately go back into a child self. And I feel like I've lost my adult potency. And it sounds maybe like something similar is happening for you, but you're just dealing with it in a different way. Like you're going, you don't want to go back to that younger self. And so you've got the strength of mind just to be able to shut it off. Yeah, but I think that it's got it's hard isn't it to be a functioning human because I think there's a sweet spot isn't there?

Yeah. Because I almost fear that I've gone, I kind of I would like to find a point. Do you know what it is? Is I think about if and when I have children, which is something as I sit here right now, I think that I want and I I kind of, I would like to be able to show them a range of emotion that's more, that has more of a broad spectrum, you know, than, than kind of the one that I have right now, which I think is quite, quite stifled. Yes.

You know, my parents were not cryers. I can. I've never seen my dad cry and I could count on one hand the amount of times I've seen my mom cry. And I think it is not because, and they never spoke shame on people crying, but I just think that, like I said, that German English split in a family, it's a very, get on with it, you know, kind of thing. And I think maybe because I was a bit of a crybaby, you know, at school, and I probably had that kind of met with that kind of irritation from teachers of come on Olivia, you know, let's get on with it. And then I had boyfriends who didn't have a very

nurturing I probably felt I faced quite a lot of rejection when I did show emotion. So then as an adult, I think I'm self protecting. And then what I've done is I think I'm self-protecting. And then what I've done is I think I then deflect people who are highly emotional all the time. I end up going, oh, for God's sake. I'm like that kind of moody millennial person. Well, just because I'm emotionally constipated, you should be too. When people are really, I'm not saying that I'd do this if you cried, I'd comfort you, but I'd probably find it quite uncomfortable. Okay. I'd probably be like with one finger. But would you think I was pathetic?

Depends completely what it was. Okay. I'm not going to cry in this episode, so just to reassure you. I think one of my, I think I have a very astute, and I think I've always had this, read on people. And I think I all mathematically know that you're a genuine person. I've watched your work for years. I've listened to you. I know that you are, you're not performative or, you know, so I, if you cried, but then I think I have a very good read on people that are performing. Yes. And, and they cry as a, as a deflection tactic,

as a theatrical and that I have like so little tolerance for. Yes.. I think that's why sometimes I came off quite cold in Love Island. Oh, I loved you on Love Island. Because I was like, oh, shut up. Again, just like the kind of person I wanted to be but wasn't. It's like, no, no, honestly. Which I can't believe that about the ick that you basically introduced that. I always get, I mean, I think I take full credit for bringing it into like UK pop culture, resurfacing it.

I have been told by people that it did, it featured in a very early episode of Sex and the City. So the possibility that it was imprinted on my like early childhood memory while my mum was watching it in the background and I probably absorbed it. But yeah, me and my friends used to say it. I remember when I said it in the beat chart and the producer said, hold on, the what? I said, I just got the ick. Because we used to say that as a friendship group.

And she was like, what is that? And I was like, well, you don't know what the ick is? And then, yeah, I should have bloody trademarked that. That was the dumbest thing I've done ever. Legendary status. Can I ask you a really personal question? So this whole crying vulnerability thing, did you grow up in a family that named emotions? Did you tell each other that you loved each

other? No. Yeah, I have a very similar experience. Because my mum, she was here, she'd be like, oh, you little liar. Because when we were kids, as children, definitely. I don't know when it stopped, but as children, it was right, you did the at the door sort of, I only want water, and shout, all right, get your water, good night, love you. We did that. And then I don't know at what point we kind of stopped doing that. And it's so funny because me and Brad were driving back from Manchester the other day and we got into this conversation. And I guess I

only noticed that my family don't do it once I became part of Brad's family. And his family say love you all the time. So any little phone call that's like, oh, we're five minutes away, okay, love you. His mom is always like, his mom says to me a message, like, his mom will send me a message and be like, oh, I just saw you on loose swim, and I'm so proud of you, I love you. And the first couple of times, it really, I was like, what, like- It was confronting.

I don't know what to do, like, what do you mean that you love me? Like, I didn't know what to do with it. And I think that's what shone a light on the fact that my family don't do it as adults. And then I said to Brad, I want to say to my parents that I love them, right? But I have this kind of fear that if I was to call them and say, I love you, they would probably think something was wrong with me. I was dying and I'd almost ruin their evening because they'd probably be so, do you know what I mean? But then I have this thing and as life goes on and you

lose people and things happen and you think, oh, it'd be a real regret that if something happened and I hadn't told them how I feel, even though they probably know, because I think it's an unspoken thing. I know my parents love me. I don't have any doubt about that. We just don't verbalize it in that way as adults. And it's an uncomfortable thing for me. And I think when people tell me they love me, my reaction to it is, I think it's like, I'm like, oh, I'm like kind of disarmed by it. Yes.

Do you say it with your family? No. Do you know what you say? Yeah. It's more common than you think, isn't it? I think it is actually. And I think also there's so much cultural fetishization of the perfect quote unquote family and how they all are with each other.

And in the same way that there has been about romantic relationships. And because we're all, well, you and I anyway, although I know that you're younger than me, but we're like bread on this diet of American rom-com. But actually that wasn't the experience of a post-war generation in Britain. It's like a totally different thing. But I go to the opposite extreme and I tell everyone I love them all the time. Do you? It's not my family. Even though, again, like you, I know that we do, we just don't necessarily

express it all of the time. Yeah, but it's making me laugh because, you know, if I was on the phone with my sister and we're having a good old chat and then I went, okay, I love you, she'd probably go, all right, freak. Like, where does that come from? Because it's just, we don't do that. Yes. It's funny, isn't it? Yeah, it is. But like you say, this, like younger generations are like psycho dissecting everything. And I

also think there's a sweet spot with that because I think there's a really good thing to look at things that have happened in your childhood. And yeah, people make mistakes, your parents have made mistakes, you've made mistakes and hurt each other and vice versa. But also in most cases, unless your parent is like pure evil, your parents done the best they could of what they had. And this their first time living as being human beings as well. So I feel like we could cut each other a bit more slack. Now, if anyone else has said this failure, which is such a great one, by the way, I would ask them the last time they cried.

But I'm very aware, I don't want to upset you even though you wouldn't be upset because of everything we've spoken about, but that you came in and said that your nan had just died. And so I don't really want to bring that up, but that I'm assuming is the last time you cried. Yeah. That was, yeah. So she, it was not, isn't it weird when someone's elderly and they've not been well and we love using this expression like, oh, well, it wasn't out of the blue. It was kind of, we knew it was like approaching, but then when it happens, it wasn't out of the blue. It was kind of, we knew it was like approaching, but then when it happens, it still is a shock. And it was, I think I dealt with my emotions around,

you know, losing my grandmother quite a lot over the last few months. I think what it was, was thinking of my dad in pain, which I didn't like, it made me feel sad. So my mom told me on the phone, I hung up, and then I just like, I was sitting on the end of my bed actually, and then I just kind of laid back and I was like, oh, and she, so, but I was thinking about my dad being upset because like I say, I've never seen my dad cry and I didn't like the idea of knowing that he

was in pain and that made me sad. And then I cried and I laid back on the bed and I just cried. But I don't know, it must have been, I don't know why I'm laughing. See, this is how I deal with everything. I don't know, a few minutes and I was really, I felt really sad thinking about it. He was, I knew he was out there in Germany and he'd be with his brothers and just kind of what that would look like.

And then I just kind of, literally, I kind of rose from the bed like some avatar. I was like, right, I have stuff to do. I have stuff to do. I also think because I went through the years in my 20s, like I say, when I had these arguments of boyfriends and I'd cry to the point where I could like literally, I wouldn't be sick. You know, that kind of sobbing where you're like, I do, if I do cry now, I kind of pull the cord on myself. Like I don't, I don't let it, cause you can just go off a cliff edge, can't you? And I did have loads to do yesterday that stuff that I couldn't just, you know, I had to get on

with stuff. I was on like a time limit. You're a boundary to cryer. So I was just like, and I felt, I thought And I felt, I thought, do you know what? I thought, I've actually, I do feel like I've let it out, feel a little bit lighter and I felt sad for the rest of the day and I had the sadness and my husband was like very sweet to me because he knew I was sad and I was quieter. But that was like, yeah, I felt like I had to kind of, yeah, I dealt with it. I'm so sorry for you and your family's loss. Thank you very much.

And I've really, really adored chatting to you. Likewise. It has been such a privilege. I've loved it. I could have talked to you forever. And I once, I know we said it off camera, we met in the corridor, but I want to say thank you again for your support over the years because it hasn't gone unnoticed. Oh, I love you. And it's meant a huge amount to me, honestly. Do you mean that? Go on, cry. I'm a big fan

of you. That means so much to me. Thank you. And always and forever. And I think it's because you're smart, you get it. Thank you. And the people that don't get it is because they don't get it looking at human behaviors. It's fascinating. It's fascinating. What's fascinating. It's fascinating. Watching humans interact. Thank you. It's anthropology. It's like connections. All of that. Yeah. People are just so dismissive because I'm very often

I find the harshest critics have never watched a single minute of reality TV. Yeah. This is a whole other conversation. Yes, it is. Yeah. We'll put a pin in it for now. You're going to stay to do Failing with Friends. I will. Yeah. And I just want to say thank you so much again for being Olivia Atwood. Thank you for coming on How to Fail. Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.