Essex Boy: My Story (17 page)

But they obviously knew I would do that, so they took my phone off me.
‘Right, we’re filming this scene in Sugar Hut in ten minutes.
Let’s get down there now!’

And, ugh, it was the worst scene I’ve ever had to do on
TOWIE
.
Sugar Hut happened to be full of extras, all listening in.
If you watch it again you will see I am crying before
Lauren even turned up because I was so gutted at what I was about to have to do.
And when she came I couldn’t even get my words out.
I could see that she knew what was happening, and was so
angry and hurt.
I think I just about said, ‘I can’t do this no more,’ and she stormed out.
I split up with her in public in the club and on TV, and I never wanted to do that.
By
signing up for
TOWIE
I signed up to put my life out there, but looking back, I feel Lauren didn’t deserve that from someone who had said they loved her.

The cameras followed Lauren, not me, straight after our split and she was in the toilet crying.
I was crying back out in the club and was in a total state, a real bad way.
I was so upset at what
I’d done, but at the same time I couldn’t see any way out of it.
Then I walked out and found my dad in tears at the bottom of the stairs in the club.
It was the first time I had ever
seen him cry.

‘I never want to see you like that again,’ he told me.
‘I’ve tried my best to make sure you don’t get upset in life, so it was not nice to see you like that.
Just
make sure you do what’s right for you.’

Then, because I felt like I had broken up with Lauren before I was sure, and I missed her like crazy, after just a few days I got back together with her.
I had to apologize a lot, and promise
that things were going to be different.
I told her that this time we should do it properly and move in together, and she was up for that.
So she moved in to my house, and we found that we were
really good at living together.
It somehow made sense, and it was nice to have someone there to share things with, and curl up on the sofa with at night and watch a film.
I set up an office in the
house where she could do her work, and we’d go out for meals and just chill.

Lauren was really understanding about my life as well, and encouraged me in a lot of ways.
Like eating in front of someone – I have always hated it, but it was different with her.
Somehow
I felt relaxed, and like she wasn’t judging me, so after a while I was happy to eat with her and not worry.

There was only one thing we disagreed about – she still wanted to go out, up in the West End, and that is not my thing.
When I’m in a couple, I think, ‘It’s your company
I like, so I just want to stay in with you, not go and hang out with a load of people I’m not bothered about.’

Then around this time we both decided to get nose jobs – she didn’t like her nose, and I didn’t like mine, ever since it had been broken in the fight with Mark.
So we booked in
to get them done – kind of like a his-and-hers operation!

It was a horrible op, though – there was a lot more pain afterwards than I had expected, and we had to stay at home for two weeks after that, while our noses recovered.
And that is when
things started to go wrong.
We really got on top of each other.
We were arguing non-stop, and I started questioning whether we really were right for each other.
I was thinking, ‘Right, she
would make an amazing wife, and an amazing mum,’ and although I was only twenty-two, I was ready for kids – but she wasn’t, even though she was seven years older.
And I wondered
if there was any point in falling for her even harder, if we didn’t want the same thing

Even once we could leave the house, I still felt that way, so I knew I had to break up with her again.
I didn’t know how to do it, so I texted and asked her to make sure she was in that
night, as we needed to talk.
I think she knew what was coming because she looked upset when I got home.
I sat on the pool table in the games room and said, ‘Sorry, Lauren, but I don’t
think it’s working.
You really are a great girl, but we want different things, and I can’t see it ever matching up.
Stay here until you find a place and I’ll sleep on the sofa,
but I do think we need to end things.’

She wasn’t happy, and told me she thought I was wrong, but she left it at that.
Lauren is a proud girl and not the type to start hysterically screaming that we need to give it another go,
or whatever.

I really won’t have a bad word said about Lauren.
She is a total angel and such a nice girl, she never did anything wrong to me, and was never anything but amazing during our time
together.
It was me who wasn’t always fair in our relationship.
I was worried about losing her altogether, but luckily we have managed to become close friends now, which I’m so happy
about.
We even give each other advice on our love lives!

At the same time, during series two I was going through a different secret torment that I didn’t let viewers know about.
My beloved nan, mum’s mum, had been getting
really ill with senile dementia.
She and my granddad had been living in a little house of their own since retiring from their jobs as school caretakers, and I had always kept in close contact with
them.
I was forever going round for my cup of tea that Nan called a ‘Kirk Special’ – extra strong with six spoons of sugar!
We’d still bake cakes together as well – no
matter how old I got I loved doing that with her.
Going to see them really kept me grounded.
If she was alive today I would still be over there with her.
She was a star and I loved her.

At first she had started getting weird, just forgetting the time, but then she would forget who people were.
So she and my granddad had moved again, this time into sheltered housing –
where they were still in a private home of their own, but with support.
It was in a complex with a 24-hour nurse who would keep an eye on them and bring them food if they needed it.

Nan’s dementia eventually got so bad that she didn’t know if it was day or night, and would keep forgetting who Granddad was.
I’d go round and she would point at him and ask
me, ‘Who is this strange man in my house?
Why is he living with me?
Get him out!’

Mum was so upset by it, it really cut her up, so I tried to go and see her even more than usual to support her.
I would often get her food shopping for her anyway, but at this time I was trying
to do more than that, to make sure she had as little as possible to worry about.

It must have been so terrible for Granddad.
The woman he loved, who he had been with for 50 years, didn’t even know who he was.
She even tried to climb out of the window once to escape
when she saw him and got frightened.
Eventually they had to put her in a care home, and she was looked after there.
And although she was still alive, I think for Granddad in a way she had already
died.
Her spirit had kind of faded and disappeared.

He said to my mum, ‘Julie, I can’t really do this without Jean.
Life seems pretty pointless without her.’
And he stopped eating.
It was like my other grandparents.
Their
marriage had been proper old school, where they were each other’s worlds.
It is the kind of marriage I want to have.
They were still making each other laugh after years and years together,
and they would still be holding hands as they walked down the street.
I want to fall in love on that level, where I look at someone and think, ‘I want to grow old with you.
I want to marry
you not to prove to other people how in love we are, but to prove it to ourselves.’

No one today seems to fall in love like that, where they physically die without the other person, but that is what happened to Granddad.
He just faded away; he weighed only four and a half stone
when he died in hospital in March 2011.

I couldn’t go into the hospital towards the end because he looked so ill and tiny, and I couldn’t bear to see it.
He was a great, happy guy, and that is the memory I hold on to.

Sadly, shortly after this my Uncle Dennis, my mum’s sister Terry’s husband, became ill with cancer.
He was a great guy who loved me and Daniel and always looked out for us growing
up.
But he was in hospital for months and it was very upsetting, but I couldn’t face seeing him.
I had had enough of hospitals and sickness.
Instead I would pray for him.
The religious
beliefs that had been instilled in me at my Catholic school, and during weekly trips to church, were and still are strong in me, and I thought praying for my uncle was the right thing to do.
I’m not sure if things like that do work, but thinking positive thoughts about someone and praying that they will get better can only be a good thing.

Besides, I like to think Jesus was a pretty good dude, and that he might help me out if he can!
So I would still happily go to church now, even if it meant going on my own.
I have no problem
doing that.
I still question the walking on water thing, though.
My theory is he was just an early ice skater .
.
.

Anyway, I was the only one in the family who hadn’t been to see my uncle in hospital, and in the end Aunty Terry said to me, ‘Please go and see him.
He wants to see you!’

‘What do I say?’

‘Talk about anything, he just wants to hear your voice.’

So in the end I did go to the hospital, and it was horrible to see my uncle lying there.
I just about managed to say, ‘Hi, Uncle Del, it’s Kirk here, I hope you are OK.’
But I
wasn’t sure if he could hear me.

I went to Sugar Hut later that night with my cousin Scott, and at one point he got a call to tell him that Uncle Del had died.
His mum – my aunt Tina – told Scott he had been holding
out to see me, and then he relaxed afterwards and died happy.
But it just added to my hatred of hospitals.
I felt like I must have jinxed him by going in, and so I vowed that I would never go in a
hospital again.

Over that summer I did a lot of PAs – public appearances – and interviews.
I had taken on management outside of the show to organize this for me, as most of the
cast now did.
The show didn’t pay that well so this is how we earned the real money.

My interviews were mainly with the weekly celebrity magazines, like
Star
,
New!
,
Now
and
Reveal
.
I would talk openly about the latest happenings on the show
and my thoughts on whatever relationship I was in at the time.
Mostly there would be a photoshoot to go alongside it.
I think my favourite shoot was for
Star
magazine, where they had me
stripped to my boxers in the middle of a laundrette in Wapping, like something out of the old Levi’s jeans advert starring Nick Kamen.
There were dozens of local kids crowded at the window
looking in, and I didn’t know whether to be chuffed to bits or mortified!
It was good fun, though, and the pictures were great.

I also did a few interviews with the gay media, like
Attitude
magazine and
Gay Times
, as well as some shoots, including one where I was completely naked while a load of guys
threw buckets of water over me.
Surreal!
I always take it as a massive compliment to be asked as a straight guy to be on the cover of a gay mag.

I do have this mad big gay following, and I love it!
I have always been popular with gay lads, even growing up.
I think it is because I’m quite pretty, if you know what I mean – I
have quite feminine features, but at the same time I’m a bit of a rugged-looking boy.
Gay fans are really loyal, and tweet me loads – it is great to have them.
I love lesbian fans too,
though – and I have plenty of their merchandise as well, ha!

Doing PAs basically means being paid to appear at a venue, so they mainly involve going to nightclubs, but also bars, shopping centres, wherever.
They are easy money on one level –
generally about £3,000 per appearance – and mostly I would be expected to go on stage or into the DJ booth and say a few words for a couple of minutes, just to get the crowd a bit hyped
up.
Then maybe I would do a signing and some photos, and then just chill at a table and enjoy free drinks for the rest of the night.
In a good weekend I could be earning £12k.
Not bad!