Let’s get right into it, you wrote a book, Main Character Energy. Love the title. What was your reasoning for writing a book and how was the journey of becoming an author for you?

I think I’ve always wanted to write a book. It’s always been a passion of mine, it’s always been a dream of mine because I think sharing my life online, snippets of my life, isn’t the same as telling people your whole life story and telling people the things that have made you who you are today. People are just seeing the confidence, fun, loving Fats, but they’re not seeing the story behind how I got there. So that’s why it was really important for me to write a book so that I could share with my followers, with my fans, with people who look at me and think, do you know what, let me dive deeper into Fats and how she got there, and to inspire others as well.

So main character energy is all about taking ownership of your narrative in life. I think oftentimes we can feel like we’re side characters for other people, but we need to remember that we are the main characters in our own life and we need to take ownership sometimes, and I try to encourage people to not do it in a selfish way, but it’s in a way where it’s empowering to others and to yourself as well.

Writing a book was super incredible because I’m dyslexic and you know, a lot of people would think, okay, I’m dyslexic, I could never write a book, but for me, I couldn’t let that stop me and I couldn’t let that stop me from holding it from telling my story to so many others and the impact that is made is incredible. I’ve spoken at so many different places, I’ve spoken at Glamour as well, which was one of the biggest audiences that I’ve spoken at.

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Very inspiring! You’re so right. We should all be the main characters, we do forget that sometimes. What was your biggest main character moment that you think you’ve had?

Probably being in Vogue, I think that definitely has to be the one. Just getting that email that they want me to be a part of their campaign. It was for disability awareness, disability advocacy, and you know, I shared the campaign with other disabled models, and I’ve got to give thanks to Sinead Burke who actually put this together. It was such a main character moment because I remember when I first started modeling, and I’ll joke to myself, saying, oh, one day I’ll be in Vogue, and to actually be in Vogue was just insane. I felt so beautiful. Felt so proud.

You spoke it into existence, because you said one day and then it happened. You are a multi-talent, you are an author, you’re a presenter, you’re a comedian and a (Vogue!) model. How do you decide which creative avenue to pursue next? Or is it more like playing it by ear and whatever comes along, comes along?

I find that I’m the type of person who plays it by ear because I like the challenge. I like it if something comes my way and I haven’t done it before, it excites me that I haven’t done it before. So I tend to just go with the wind and see what happens. And then I realize that I’m good at it or I realize that I don’t like it. I’ve got so many different interests, and I get bored easily as well. I just jump into different things, and then you know, I’m like, okay, I’m gonna jump into this, I’m gonna focus on that, and then I’m gonna focus on this. So it’s never really the same. That’s why I just love what I d,o because it’s something different every single day. I can’t predict how the next month is gonna go. I can’t even predict the next week. Who knows what I’ll be next year?

Who knows, right? Is there a certain challenge that you’ve set yourself personally or anything you still want to do in your career?

I want to get into acting so badly. I really want to get into acting because I absolutely loved the craft when I grew up. Well, growing up, I enjoyed being in musical theatre, I enjoyed performing with people, and I think if I was to be in a TV show on Netflix one day, I’d love that. I’ve already been on Netflix on The Undateables, but I want to be on a show where I’m actually acting and maybe start a career in that one day. Because I’m enjoying it, I just love watching films, I love watching TV shows. And I just think to myself, I would love to see a little person kill a main role, especially a Black little woman. Because I see Peter Dinklage, he does absolutely incredible in films, and I love his films. He makes me smile so much because he doesn’t do roles that are demeaning or derogatory. He does roles that are empowering to other little people and so that other average height people can see that we are just like everyone else.

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We’ll speak it into existence right now. You heard it here first! Obviously, you are huge on TikTok and Instagram and comedy plays a big role in your content as well. How do you balance humor with more serious aspects of your advocacy work?

I think what I do is because I’m a serious person and a jokey person at the same time. So it kind of works. Best of both worlds, right? There are things that are serious that I need to talk about, and be like, yeah, guys, you need to learn about this. And then there are certain things that I just can’t take seriously, and love to create relatable content that people can laugh at because there are certain things in life that everyone goes through, but no one talks about, but we should just laugh about it all together.  And I think that’s what my page is all about – just having a laugh but also educating people that little people exist and some people have disabilities, and you should know about it. You should know about the struggles and things like that so I’m glad that I try my best to have a good balance of it because I think it’s good to have that difference and it gives perspective as well because, just because I laugh and joke all the time doesn’t mean I don’t go through serious things. It’s good to share that side of me as well.

Oh, 100 percent. I love that. So when you do your comedy sketches, where do you draw inspiration from when you are creating content?

Life inspires me, you know, something might happen when I’m going to an event or something me my fiancée and I will be like, let’s make a skit about that. People laugh at that because if we laugh, I’m sure other people would find it funny. I used to find it nerve-racking. Like, how do I make people laugh? But what I’ve realised is if it’s funny to me, and other people have the same similar kind of humour that I have, then other people are going to find it funny. So once I don’t find something funny, I’m not going to film it because it’s not enjoyable to me. So, for example, it could be just road rage.  And then Alan could say to me, it’d be funny if people saw you having road rage, because I’m sure other people go through that as well. That’s how the process kind of happens. Life happens, and we write it down.

That’s also very authentic because like you say, if you think about it too hard, then it’s almost forced in a way, right?

You can tell, so it has to be authentic. And that’s what my content is all about authenticity. I do follow trends as well, but I put my own spin on it. So I’m like, do you know what? I’m gonna put this twist on it or that twist on it because I think that’s funny in my way.

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I mean over 3 million people have the same humor so there we go. Smashing it. Content aside, you have been on TV such as Unfiltered Women. It was ITV’s first disabled chat show. What’s that been like? What’s been the most surprising or powerful moment?

It’s been really good, really, really, really good. Like, I can’t believe I’m on the first disabled-led chat show on ITV, insane. But we need more of that. We need to bring it, bring that energy. We don’t want to have it just once and then, you know, oh, we’ve already done it, tick the box. I want it to be normalized.

One in five people have a disability, and it’s a thing where it could happen to anyone. And I think it’s really important to highlight that and make it so normalised that it’s not anything to think twice about. There have been certain improvements on TV where you see more reality shows having people with disabilities on them. But I think there still needs to be a bit more work in that. And I’ve done the Paralympics. So that one was incredible to be a part of. I used to watch the Paralympics when I was a child and say to my parents, Oh my god, I want to be a Paralympian because these people look like me. And then, I wasn’t an athlete, but I became a presenter of it. I think that’s great. I think that’s fine. I just want to bring more of that, and I will keep championing and campaigning for that. That’s the change that I want to see over time.

I fully agree and also can we just talk about how the Paralympics are just so impressive and inspiring.

For sure. So the things that I saw, then I watched it – Wheelchair rugby, I watched wheelchair basketball. What else did I do? I watched weight training, and that was incredible. Seeing people with no legs and doing, you know, 150, 200kg bench press. I was thinking, I need to up my bench thing. What’s going on here? It was so cool. Was just thinking, nah, let me stop giving myself excuses like, oh, I’m small, I can’t lift. Some people who were smaller than me were lifting. I was like, okay, yeah, let’s work on that a little bit. No excuses, which is really cool. And I even got to try wheelchair tennis. I couldn’t believe how much work it takes to do that. You’re wheeling the wheelchair, and you’ve got to make sure you look at the tennis ball, and then you’ve got to make sure you hit it right. I didn’t hit any, I didn’t hit it right maybe once or twice after god knows how long. It was hard, incredibly hard.

It’s honestly incredible. You mentioned earlier that you were on Glamour so obviously you won Glamour’s Creator Women of the Year which is a huge honour and congratulations. What does that mean to you personally?

For me, I think I’ve still got imposter syndrome. I look at other people not like me. Them, not me. I don’t do this for awards, I do this to make change but to get recognised for what I do was the cherry on top, I was like, yeah, you’re doing something right. That was a great feeling. It was incredible, really. I still don’t believe that I won it. It’s downstairs in my office and I look at it and I’m like, me?

Yeah, you! Well deserved. I relate with the Imposter syndrome bit so much but we just gotta own it.

Yes, like I tell other people, own it. Haha. Sometimes you just gotta take your own advice, right?

Exactly! Is there anything else you’re working on at the moment that you can share?

There’s things that are in the pipeline, unfortunately, I can’t share. But I am getting married. That’s probably the most exciting thing that’s going to be happening soon in three months. The time is flying. Like, it’s insane. I’m super excited to be a wife, his wife. I’m excited to document it all. We’ll see how it goes. It’s gonna be a beautiful day. It’s gonna be a spectacular time. And I cannot wait to finish planning because, honestly, it’s been hell.

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I am expecting a lot of wedding related comedy skits. I feel like there’s probably lots of material.

Oh, it’s coming.

Exciting. And congratulations! Last but not least, as an advocate for disability awareness, what advice would you give to young disabled creatives looking to build a platform or break into the media industry?

I would say, do not try to meet other people’s expectations. Do not compare yourself to other people. The only thing you can do is meet your own expectations. Do the best that you can with content, but also try your best to be seen. Try your best to use your voice to be heard because there are so many people that need it, but there are so many unheard voices that they will be speaking up for, and they don’t even realise. So that’s the advice I’ll give, and keep at it because it’s a very tough industry. I joined when people weren’t really doing it. It wasn’t cool. I was just doing it because I wanted to build community. I just wanted to do that. I just wanted to meet people online who were like me, and it’s turned into a whole thing now. I had so many doubts, so many, but there was something in my head that was like, no, this is going to work.

And look at you know! Can those doubters say they were in Vogue, published a book and won awards? No, they can’t. I’ll see you on a Netflix show next year, thank you so much for your time!

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