Fearne Cotton has shared a candid post about self acceptance two weeks after the death of her paedophile ex-boyfriend Ian Watkins.
Podcaster Fearne, 44, and Watkins, 48, dated briefly in the early 2000s before his horrific crimes were revealed. She has never publicly commented on her involvement with him.
Watkins was killed at HMP Wakefield this month while serving 29 years for a string of child sex offences. Prisoners Rashid Gedel, 25, whose name was given in court as Rico Gedel, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, have since been charged with murder.
A few days after his death Fearne took to Instagram with a reflective video where she spoke about shame and other topics.
On Monday, the TV presenter shared another candid post in which she revealed she had been working on ‘caring less’ about other people’s opinions after been trolled by a follower who had ‘made assumptions about me and my life and left a s****y comment’.
Alongside a selfie wearing a T-shirt stating ‘hunky dory’, she penned: ‘Today I sit somewhere between caring less and not giving a f**k.’
Fearne Cotton has shared a candid post about self acceptance two weeks after the death of her paedophile ex-boyfriend Ian Watkins
Fearne, 44, and Watkins, 48, dated briefly in the 2000s before his crimes were revealed. She has never publicly commented on her involvement with him (pictured together in 2004)
Fearne continued: ‘Its very much what I’ve spent the last year writing about. Each time I open my laptop to finish this book I’m one step closer to shedding the layers of people pleasing and concentrating on other people’s opinions of me.
‘Age is a big player in this process. Women of my age are often bombarded with the rhetoric that decline, ageing and fluctuating hormones must dictate the majority of our experience.
‘But…..what if that’s only a tiny part of the story. What if with this period of change we find our fire? What if we understand who we are better than ever which gives us a robustness we’ve not felt previously.
‘What if that robustness allows us to set better boundaries, take less s**t, live alongside the knowledge that some people might not like us without falling apart? I’m starting to feel all of it without too much effort.’
Fearne went on to reveal she had been trolled lately, and while she did not specify why, she explained that she was dealing with it differently than she had in the past.
‘Last week a man made assumptions about me and my life and left a s****y comment on my feed. Obviously something I’ve been through countless times before but this time it was different.
‘I blocked him and moved on without feeling shame or concern that a man I’ve never met and likely never will, doesn’t like me.
‘I actually mentally sent him a little (very little because I couldn’t be a***d to put that much effort into it) prayer because he is someone in pain.’
Fearne continued: ‘Are you wanting to care less? Give less f***s? Move through life in YOUR way regardless of what others think? Is that not entirely exciting, liberating, f***ing beautiful…?
‘If you’ve already nailed it, or are on the path to it, I salute you. This is all new to me and something I’m loving writing about and feel excited about.
‘Also read the new book by Malala Yousafzai as its full of all the encouragement and inspiration needed to do life your way, courageously.’
It’s the latest in a string of candid posts by Fearne this month.
Shortly after her ex Watkins was killed behind bars, she shared a post about shame.
Fearne penned: ‘Here are four things that I learned this week. The first one was from the Happy Place podcast where I spoke to Charlie Mackesy who talked a lot about shame which I greatly appreciated.
‘And the one reminder that I had from that episode was that so many of us feel shame but we assume it’s just us because that is what shame does. It wants you to believe that it’s just you but it’s not…’
She added in the caption: ‘Four life lessons from this week. I’m not sleeping well. My brain is a bit wobbly at the moment but I’m grasping the lessons life is chucking my way.
‘Which of these interests you the most or rings true?’
It’s the latest in a string of candid posts by Fearne this month. Shortly after her ex Watkins was killed behind bars, she shared a post about shame
Days prior, Watkins reportedly had his throat cut as inmates left their cells at the high-security Category A prison in West Yorkshire.
He had been sentenced to nearly three decades behind bars for a series of child sex offences, which included the attempted rape of a fan’s baby daughter.
The former rock singer is one of the highest-profile prisoners to be killed in a British prison.
Watkins is said to have died from blood loss after being slashed to the jugular, as justice sources say the musician’s attacker has been identified.
In 2013, Watkins was given 14- and 15-year consecutive prison terms for engaging in sexual activity with a child and the attempted rape of an 11-month-old baby.
He was also convicted of 11 other offences at Cardiff Crown Court – with those sentences running alongside his 29-year term.
The depraved singer attempted to rape a fan’s baby girl, while he also encouraged another to abuse her own child in a webcam chat.
It is also understood the jailed sex offender was so ‘tech savvy’ his collection of child abuse footage and photos amounted to 27 terabytes of data.
The scale of the collection dwarfed South Wales Police’s own data storage – and was five times bigger than the force’s which had 2,862 officers and 1,631 support staff at the time.
One terabyte could hold as much as 472 hours of broadcast quality footage or around 150 hours of HD video.
Watkins was killed at HMP Wakefield this month while serving 29 years for a string of child sex offences. He is said to have died from blood loss after being slashed to the jugular
Eventually, experts from the UK government’s intelligence headquarters, the GCHQ were brought in to crack the password on the encrypted files on his computer.
The paedophile vehemently denied the claims lodged against him before switching his plea to guilty at the last second.
In mitigation, his defence argued his use of crack cocaine and crystal meth meant he could not remember his ‘prolific abuse’.
The paedophile co-founded the Lostprophets in Pontypridd, Wales in 1997, with whom he released five albums.
The Welsh band announced it would be parting ways a month before Watkins’s sentencing. They said they were not aware of Watkins’ offending.
After the sex offender’s heinous crimes emerged, the band’s music was withdrawn from HMV shelves and Rhondda Cynon Taf council removed paving stones engraved with the band’s lyrics.
In 2019, Watkins was handed an extra 10 months on his prison sentence after he was found to have a mobile phone.
Watkins claimed two inmates forced him to hold on to the phone so they could contact women who sent him fan mail in order to use them as a ‘revenue stream’.
