Billie and Sam might live a lavish lifestyle but they’ve worked damned hard for it, says TOWIE mum Suzie Wells
AS mum to two daughters in the public eye, Suzie Wells is well aware that being famous is not always a bed of roses.
While there are plenty of perks to being a celebrity, social media trolling is a part of life for her girls, Sam Faiers, 32, and Billie Shepherd, 33.
And Suzie, 54, struggles to hold back when they come under attack.
She says: “It’s hard not to react when you have people saying, ‘They get given this and given that and look at their lifestyle’.
“Well, my girls have worked damned hard for what they’ve got. I see them both run ragged — they haven’t got nannies looking after the children.
“Everyone’s got their opinion, but when people get nasty, there’s no need. But it’s better to ignore it.”
However, sometimes Suzie has not been able to bite her tongue.
Last year she posted about her upset after recordings were leaked of Billie’s former best friend Ferne McCann apparently making cruel comments about Sam.
Suzie said she could “no longer sit back and say nothing”, and said the leaks had come as a “complete shock”.
She won’t talk about that directly today and the case is subject to a police investigation, but she admits there are times when she can’t help but defend her girls.
Violent relationship
She says: “A while ago someone commented on Instagram about Samantha, something along the lines of, ‘Ugh, it’s all right for you in your ivory tower’, and I replied, ‘You do not have a clue about my daughter. How can you be so unkind?’
“I think they must be really sad people to be so negative.”
Suzie laughs as she reveals that she too has been a troll target. She says: “I’ve seen a few saying I look like a horse. To be fair, I have got big teeth! But I just let it go over my head.”
Suzie couldn’t be closer to her daughters, who have three children each.
They call themselves the Three Musketeers because of the bond forged through a series of shared traumatic experiences which meant that for many years, Suzie raised the girls alone.
She escaped a violent relationship with their heavy-drinking and drug-using father, Lee Faiers, when the girls were just toddlers, later moving on with Dave Chatwood, who Sam and Billie consider their real dad.
But in 2002, when the girls were 11 and 12, he was jailed for 12 years for drugs and firearms offences. He and Suzie eventually split after his second spell in jail, but remain on good terms.
“There were difficult times,” admits Suzie, who was 20 when Billie was born.
“I had Billie on January 15, shortly before my 21st birthday, and then I had Samantha on New Year’s Eve of the same year.
“So I was 21 with two babies, while all my friends were out partying. I had no choice except to get on with it.
“People ask how I managed, but when you’re young you have so much energy, so I didn’t find it too difficult.
“I did the best I could as a mum and they have been great daughters.”
After surviving the worst of times, the course of all their lives changed in 2010, when Sam signed up to appear in the first series of The Only Way Is Essex on ITV2.
She became an overnight celebrity, then Billie was made a permanent cast member from the second series.
Together the sisters started building a brand which would turn them into multi-millionaires.
Their popular reality TV series The Family Diaries (formerly The Mummy Diaries) is still going strong after six years and while Suzie always knew her girls would be successful, no one could have predicted where Towie would take them.
She says: “It rocketed out of nowhere and we’ve been on this incredible journey ever since.”
Glamorous Suzie, who regularly pops up on the show, is often told she could pass for Sam and Billie’s sister.
A picture she posted of herself in April wearing a bikini in the Maldives showed exactly why.
She says: “I think it’s moderation with everything. I drink water and eat loads of berries, but I still love a glass of wine and a takeaway.
“I’m not so strict that I only eat lettuce leaves and fruit.
“A lot of it is down to genetics — my mum looks good as well, so it’s in the genes.”
Suzie has been single for six years and Sam and Billie have both said they would like to see her with a partner.
But as a hands-on grandma to Billie and husband Greg’s kids, Nelly, eight, Arthur, six, and Margot, six months, and Sam’s children with partner Paul Knightley — Paul, seven, Rosie, five, and one-year-old Edward — there’s not a lot of time left for romance.
Suzie says: “I don’t want to be on my own for ever, but I’ve got a lot going on. If someone did come along, it would be lovely, but I don’t even know where you meet people these days.”
She doesn’t have a long list of must-haves in a man, but there are a few non-negotiables.
She says: “I’m quite tall and I wouldn’t like anyone smaller than me, but I don’t mind a dad bod or even a grandad bod.
“They haven’t got to be ripped, as long as they’re funny and willing to enjoy family life.”
The last few years have been hard for Suzie, who has struggled with a debilitating menopause that began in her mid-40s. She is still adjusting to her latest HRT treatment and says: “I still haven’t quite got it right.
“I’ve tried gels, patches, sprays, you name it, but I’ve not had that feeling of, ‘Oh my God, I feel back to normal’.
“One of the tablets I was taking made me pile on weight round the middle, so it’s a vicious circle sometimes.”
Despite those setbacks, Suzie feels she’s in the prime of life and doesn’t worry about ageing.
“Some days I get up and think, ‘I look terrible!’, but I soon snap myself out of it,” she says. “There’s nothing we can do about ageing.
“Get your slap on, do your hair and stop worrying.”