She's a former reality TV star with 1.5million followers on Instagram and a high-profile entrepreneur husband, so Georgia Kousoulou is no stranger to her life playing out in front of people.
You could, then, be forgiven for thinking we'd seen and heard it all where the 32-year-old is concerned.
Especially as, after seven years in Towie, she's now an influencer and podcaster, and stars in the ITVbe reality show (with her husband Tommy Mallet) Tommy & Georgia: Baby Steps.
Yet, her new book is searing honest. She writes about her pregnancy, giving birth, the struggles of being a mother, mum guilt, baby loss – she miscarried her second child last year – trying for another baby, and how she is moving forward.
'I think being honest and open isn’t something that I struggle with because it is just second nature to me, I just do it,' she giggles as we chat over the phone, both in our Essex homes, both with our sons playing nearby. 'But it's nice to have in sequence in the book, you know, have it altogether.'
Part memoir, part journal, part life lessons, perhaps unsurprisingly the toughest part for her to write was around her miscarriage at 12 weeks. It happened while filming series four of their Baby Steps show.
'The baby loss chapter was hard,' she says. 'Probably because it was still really raw. It is still hard, but although it was hard to write at the same time it was definitely like therapy.
'In the society we live in we don’t tell anyone we’re pregnant until you’re twelve weeks ,which I do get, but at the same time I am glad that I did tell people because obviously with what happened to me I needed the support.'
Georgia, whose son with Tommy, Brody, has just turned three-years-old, says she knew instantly when she was pregnant the second time. But a rare condition, triploidy, where the baby's cells have 69 choromosomes instead of the usual 46, saw her lose her second child at 12 weeks pregnant.
It was a tough time. One that she's still processing.
'Trying for a baby is one of the worst things I’ve ever done. I didn’t have to try with Brody. With the second baby, which I lost, I got pregnant very quickly. I was very blessed to be pregnant twice so quickly.
'That’s affected me because I’m thinking, why hasn’t it happened a third time? But we’ve both had fertility checks and there’s nothing wrong with us, which is great to know.
'I feel like my body has gone into fight mode from a trauma. My body won’t allow me to get pregnant because I’m in trauma mode. I think the best thing for me to do is heal, get positive and just let it be.'
Grief can be hard on couples. Something else Georgia is open about - where many others may stay quiet.
'There were times where I think we were both on different pages,' she recalls. 'But I think that’s what grief does, doesn’t it?
'You both grieve differently and it is very hard when you are a couple and you're both grieving. Just because you are together, doesn’t mean you’re going to do it the same way . But then after it has made us come together. You have just got to stay strong, you know?'
And being a new parent is hard enough, without the added grief Georgia and Tommy were navigating.
'Listen, I think we don’t give ourselves enough credit as women,' she says with conviction. 'We have hormonal changes that completely change everything and you are looking after an actual human and we don’t even know our name most of the time. Baby brain. It is a massive change isn’t it? So yeah, the fact that you can even survive as a couple after a baby is a massive thing in itself!'
And Georgia wasn't afraid to reach out as a new mum, confessing she dreaded nights and the prospect of 2am feeds, struggled to connect with her baby, and felt incredibly lonely.
'When I became a mum I lost my identity a bit,' she says.
'I’d never changed a nappy before Brody. I used Instagram to ask for tips and it’s become a community. I say how I feel and maybe I’m a bit too honest, but then other mums have done the same and it’s become a lovely space.'
Happy snapshots of her life are played out on social media – cute pictures of Brody, most recently on his birthday, her marriage to Mallet in December, out with friends and family – but in the book she also charts the tougher times, her parents’ divorce, the panic attacks she suffered when she was on Towie, and the pressure her appearances on the show put on her body image, leading her to take up the gym obsessively.
'I was 22 when I started TOWIE and I was very skinny back then, then I got obsessed with the gym, then it became like a competition in my head about who had the best body and who wanted to get the Daily Mail headline. You think you’ll get more work if you’re in the headlines.
'I did any diet I could find. Every diet. I did diet pills, every one you could imagine… I would’ve done anything just to be skinny,' she writes in the book.
Cosmetic surgery followed. Georgia had breast enhancements and a nose job – although she says she wanted her nose done before she appeared on the show.
'I grew up in a Greek and Irish household where a lot of people around me had their nose done. I knew as a young girl I didn’t like my nose, then when I went on TV I knew I definitely didn’t like it because I had to watch myself back. I didn’t like my angle. I couldn’t stand it.'
When she finally had the surgery, she was trolled relentlessly, she recalls.
'I got so much slap for it. People called me Michael Jackson for about two years, so you can’t win with the trolls, can you?'
Now, having stepped back from Towie in 2021 she says she's happier than she's ever been, and to help maintain good mental health she has a therapist.
'I think it’s very important when you’re going through things that you have to talk. If I don’t talk I’ll go downhill.'
The daughter of a millionaire property developer, Georgia says she’s grateful to Towie for giving her the life she has now, but recognises the harm reality TV can inflict on some.
'Back then I was a bit more naïve, Towie was very new, there weren’t a lot of reality shows and now it’s just full of them. Now, young kids have grown up to say they want to do reality TV when they get older. To me that’s really sad.
'I love reality TV, but would I want Brody to do it? No, I wouldn’t, because it comes with a lot of pressure, and if it doesn’t work out for you, you then find yourself in a position of, what are you going to do now? And that can be hard on people’s mental health.
'I’ve been blessed and I’m very lucky that I’m still working. I’ve been in the industry for 10 years and that is rare now. People are going on these shows so quickly and then they are dropping. It can be damaging because one minute you’re high and then you’re low. And what do you do after that? It’s very hard.'
So where does she and Tommy and Brody go to getaway from it all I wonder? Surprisingly it's a town not too far from home.
'We love going Clacton,' she confesses. 'That is our getaway, when things get on top of us. We’ve got a little caravan there and we just love going there.'
And with the book becoming an instant Sunday Times bestseller what does she hope her readers take from it?
'I just hope they take like their current self and accept themselves a little bit more,' she says with a smile in her voice.
'Because, at the end of the day, as long as you’re being your true self that is good enough.'
