Joey Essex

Joey Essex: ‘I don’t want to make the same mistake my mum did. I know how much people hurt’

Joey Essex was ten when his mother took her own life. He tells Charlotte Edwardes why he’s finally confronting his trauma

Joey Essex: “Realistically, if my mum is looking down on me now, I know she would regret what she did.”

Sunday May 30 2021, 12.01am, The Times

Joey Essex was not ready when I arrived at his flash Essex mansion, with its power gates and Range Rovers, windscreens glinting in the sun. He had nipped out for a haircut up the road in Buckhurst Hill, which is unremarkable until he says it was his third in five days. As he walked into the salon, he says, his hairdresser Yuri turned to give him a look: “Mate, you’re driving me mad.” But he knew that Joey was preparing for this interview so he let him sit down, spun a gown around his shoulders and started to comb his already perfect hair. And then Yuri said something he’d never said before. “Look, Joey, I think you’re anxious, mate.” Joey lifted his eyes to look at him in the mirror and said: “I think I am a little bit.” “You definitely are,” Yuri said. “Your hair looks fine.” And Joey looked back at himself and knew that if it wasn’t his hair, it would be his outfit — grey track pants and a Supreme T-shirt with a photo of Kate Moss smoking — and if it wasn’t his outfit, it would be something else. “It’s what I do when I’m anxious,” he tells me. “And, I’m not going to lie, I’ve been depressed recently. I’ve not been happy at all.”…read the full article on the The Sunday Times Magazine