Jamie Laing was initially "too embarrassed" to appear on 'Made in Chelsea'.
Jamie Laing was initially too 'embarrassed' to appear on Made in Chelsea
The 35-year-old TV star was part of the Channel 4 reality series from 2011 to 2021, and has now revealed he originally rejected the network's offer to work on the programme because he "didn't want to tell anyone that [he] was doing it".
During an appearance on the 'High Performance' podcast, he said: "I was too embarrassed about doing it, because I had been asked to do the first series, and I said, 'I'm not doing that.'
"And then I saw my friends who were on the show, and I was like, 'Oh, that looks really fun.'
"But I didn't want to tell anyone that I was doing it."
After leaving the show, Jamie focused on his other business ventures, like his gourmet sweets company Candy Kittens, though found he initially "struggled to be taken seriously" because he worked on 'Made In Chelsea'.
In an article for i News, he wrote: "It truly was a gift, but a gift with consequences.
"The biggest consequence was that afterwards, I struggled to be taken seriously. I became that 'blonde lothario' who was always asked, 'Hey what are you going to do when this all ends?'
"When I spoke about going into business, people rolled their eyes and laughed."
The reality star admitted he felt his "TV past was holding [him] back".
He continued: "The real problem came when I took the brand to grocers.
"They thought that my career on TV was going to be a flash in the pan and therefore couldn’t see why the business had any longevity.
"The number of closed doors and 'no’s' we had when setting up the company would have made anyone want to give up.
"There were times when I even questioned whether my reality TV past was holding us back as a business."