Katie Piper almost missed out on getting her OBE

27 January 2022

Katie Piper almost missed out on getting her OBE.

Katie Piper almost missed out on getting her OBE

The 38-year-old television presenter was awarded the honour in January for her charity work with The Katie Piper Foundation - which she set up in 2011 after suffering a life-changing acid attack in 2008 - but she nearly missed the deadline for accepting the honour, because the letter got lost in the post.

She said: "We set the charity up 11 years ago and we used to have an office which was kindly donated to us for a year for free, and that address is still online somewhere and the OBE letter went to that old address.

"But they kindly forwarded it to me 11 months later!"

Katie then went on to say that it was "incredible" to receive recognition over a decade after she founded the charity and paid tribute to her trustees, staff and fellow burns survivors.

Speaking on 'Lorraine', she said: "But it’s incredible, 11 years on to have that recognition now. It’s not just me, it’s been a real group effort of trustees, staff, volunteers, and also the survivors that trusted us to help them ."

When host Lorraine Kelly told her that she is the "eternal optimist", Katie admitted that while she may be optimistic, she is "definitely not happy every day."

She added: "I think that’s really important to invite [positivity] into your life.

"If you want something to happen you do have to go out there and be a bit of a seeker rather than waiting for it to come to you, and I think personal responsibility is a big part of that as well. I’m an optimist, but I’m definitely not happy every day or positive every day, and I think that’s OK."

The 'Loose Women' star - who joined the lunchtime panel back in July 2021 - also revealed she routinely deletes social media at the weekends after being "called out" by her children for spending too much time on her phone.

She said: "Your kids will call you out, ‘Mum, you’re always on your phone!’ or they’ll start playing mums and dads impersonating you on the phone so I’ve been quite strict about it.

"What I’ve started doing at the weekends is deleting all the social apps, your Instagrams, your Twitter, and then I’ll put it back on the Monday because do I really need to be on it looking at everyone’s outfits and food, is it just a bit of envy and jealousy? Monday’s my work day so I’ll go back on it then."