For years, Melanie Sykes was a regular face on TV, in shows such as Today with Des and Mel, The Big Breakfast and The Great Pottery Throw Down.
But having been diagnosed autistic and endured a breakdown, the former model has revealed in her autobiography that she has quit mainstream TV and the “horror story” she encountered as a woman in the industry.
The book charts Sykes’s experiences of sexism, abusive relationships and racism, while providing an insight into the often toxic culture that she claims pervaded the fashion and showbusiness industries during her career.
Sykes said she would no longer be, “tap-dancing for corporations who couldn’t give two hoots about my wellbeing”, telling the Guardian that mainstream TV “just doesn’t interest me … I’m out of that game”.
She said she hoped her book and two films she is making would “shine a light” on autism, especially as her son was diagnosed autistic as an infant, and issues affecting vulnerable women, such as coercive control. “I want to help protect children and women and anyone who’s vulnerable … I’m just a tool in order to facilitate it.”
Her book offers a fresh perspective on the woman from Greater Manchester who rose to fame in the 1990s as the face of Boddingtons beer.
Handwritten by Sykes, Illuminated: Autism & All The Things I’ve Left Unsaid describes incidents including how collecting a Royal Television Society award was “tainted” as she “kept being touched up by a TV personality, who would not leave me alone. He was grabbing my breasts and being a complete pest. I felt sick.”
Sykes also recounts being deceived as an 18-year-old by a much older photographer into staying overnight with him on a shoot in Africa. She claims in the book that the man pressed himself against her in bed but she had a stomach upset so he eventually left her alone and she “buried the experience until recently”.
In her TV career, Sykes struggled using the earpiece needed for producers to talk to her due to the heightened sensitivities from her undiagnosed autism and drank to try to cope. She recounts tales of press intrusion and coercive and abusive boyfriends, including one who allegedly choked her.
She alleges that she was often “thrown under the bus” by the TV industry, citing as an example a gameshow she and co-host Mark Wright had filmed that was cancelled as it fell foul of TV gambling rules. But in the press release issued about the show being cancelled, “the line was that Mark and I had ‘failed to understand the concept of the game’. I was fuming. Thrown under the bus yet again. This industry was a horror story.”
Another time, she was persuaded to take part in a New Year’s Eve special by an agent who said he would protect her. However, while she was filming, a colleague lay on the floor and stared up her skirt, “which he thought was funny. I was horrified and screamed. He got up and I threw a drink all over him. It was all caught on camera.”
She said she was horrified to discover when the show aired that it had been “edited it in such a way that they did not use the footage of him, only footage of me losing it … I just looked crazy”.
Sykes also recounts how during the pandemic she was interviewed for a documentary she had helped set up about her friend Des O’Connor. The producer ITN had emailed her to allay her concerns that, despite recently returning from Italy, it was within social distancing guidelines for her to be filmed.
However, the Sun ran a story accusing her of breaking lockdown rules. Distraught, she asked ITN to back her up in a statement but she claimed the company’s comments “shoved me further under the bus”.
She was “seriously fed up” and so published her email exchanges with the ITN production team on her Instagram account, taking care to redact their names and email addresses.
Sykes recalls: “All the trolling I had suffered over the last 48 hours stopped and the news story disappeared. It was quashed immediately. I was sick and tired of having my reputation wiped across the floor.”
She finally decided to quit TV after taking part in Celebrity MasterChef. She was critical of the co-host Gregg Wallace, who she said told her the show would “do a lot for you”, but actually it made her “decide to end my television career once and for all. I was done.”
Despite giving up alcohol, Sykes’ life in the spotlight affected her mental health and, after she was diagnosed autistic during research for her magazine Frank, she had a breakdown. She recovered from it through therapy and exercise and decided to speak out.
She said: “Women that ask for certain boundaries can be misconstrued as difficult. Many men ask for what they want, which is great, but we should be allowed the same courtesy. It is our right to equality. But if you challenge their status quo, you are considered a problem.
“Men do not talk to other men the way they speak to women because they would be in deep danger of getting punched on the nose if they did. Not all men, but quite a few, save up all their anger and anxiety and unleash it on women.”
She said women are often not diagnosed autistic as “for too long women who don’t fit a notion of normal have been deemed ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’”.
She said she only wanted to use her profile now to help people, including by highlighting campaigns against domestic abuse and harassment on platforms such as Cheer Up Luv. Writing her story had helped her “heal”, and Sykes hopes it helps women recognise if they are in coercive relationships.
Illuminated by Melanie Sykes (HarperCollins Publishers, £22). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
