Loose Women’s newest star Kacey Ainsworth discusses abuse and weight battles
The ex-EastEnder is a new panellist on the chat show.
Former EastEnders actress Kacey Ainsworth has made her Loose Women panellist debut, where she talked about the real-life issues she has faced with abuse and eating disorders.
Ainsworth played Little Mo from 2000 to 2006 who was at the centre of a famous domestic violence storyline alongside Alex Ferns who played her husband Trevor Morgan.
The star has been a guest on ITV chat show Loose Women before, but today joined Andrea McLean, Janet Street Porter and Gloria Hunniford as one of the regular hosts.
Viewers praised her honesty on the subject, with one person tweeting “you will help lots of people to speak out about this subject”.
Another viewer added that it was “always very brave to share like that”.
She also shared that she had suffered from an eating disorder earlier in life.
Ainsworth said: “My partner and best friend told me I was too thin.
“He threw my running trainers in a skip and my friend threw out all my tiny clothes … She said, ‘You’re 28 years old, you’re not 11.’
“In my eyes it was to be successful, I needed to be this certain size.”
Ainsworth added that the pressure of joining EastEnders had been a worry for her.
She said: “I was worried that I would tip back over again because I couldn’t control anything else, storylines or whatever.
“She always did, she’d come up and tug my trousers and say, ‘they’re a bit loose’.”
She said of playing Little Mo for six years: “I don’t know how I did it, it was relentless.
“Six days a week, 12 hours a day and being miserable all that time as well.”
Ainsworth added of researching her character: “I have books and books about how she walked, how she talked, even how she constructed her sentences.”
Singer Belinda Carlisle was a guest on the programme and talked about her past problems with drug addiction.
Carlisle added: “I battled addiction for 30 years.
“I think that you have to hit some sort of bottom and mine was a spiritual bottom.
“It was a choice between life and death at the time and that was only 13 years ago.
“I had been on a bender and I don’t know if it was a hallucination but it was a revelation that now was the time, life or death.
“I have lost so many friends to drugs.”
