Loose Lips: Josie Cunningham Part 10

Click on the Josie Cunningham tag up top for the story so far.

The last time I wrote about Josie Cunningham, the notorious “NHS boob girl” she was getting a lot of hate online and she actually announced she would be taking a break from Twitter. This was a bit worrying as it came after a deluge of hate including some scumbag suggesting suicide as an option for the clearly troubled and upset young lady.

Josie’s Twitter silence lasted about a week, at which point she roared back, addressing criticisms from other people, clearing up rumours about her entering the Big Brother house and then actually getting into a political debate (sort of) by arguing against Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s argument that boob jobs should not be available on the NHS. She even stated that she was hoping to campaign to set up a NHS loans company to help fund these procedures.

Still dodging trolls Josie continued to tweet sporadically, pushing her dating site (still not sure that’s a good idea) and then on Monday she hit the headlines again as The Sun revealed that she receives £6k worth of taxis funded by the taxpayer to take her on the school run, due to anxiety caused by the fact that she often receives abuse when taking her kids on the bus.

Cue the inevitable backlash, with people decrying that this is a massive waste of taxpayer money and could be going on things like nurses, teachers, whatever. I agree, there are better uses for £6k, but it’s a drop in the ocean for stuff our government wastes money on and what is owed by individuals and businesses who duck out of paying their full taxes. Gary Barlow’s tax avoidance could probably cover it, so maybe next year Gary should just pay her fares? Or Starbucks could sponsor her trips?

There was a lot of abuse flying around, as the tabloid readers seized the precarious moral high ground and spewed their outrage.

Demetri Martin

Here’s the thing, I get why people are annoyed, but at the same time, I can see the reasoning behind the decision. I know Josie’s made some bad decisions over the year or so she’s been in the public eye, and there’s a lot of resentment and anger aimed towards her, but is this really her fault? Shouldn’t we really have more of an issue with the folks who are hassling her in public, in front of her kids?

These idiots are upset, sure, but they are approaching a young woman and her children and giving her grief. There is no way to view that as anything other than a dick move. Why go out of your way to make a stranger’s life a misery and possibly scare and upset her children?

At the same time, Josie handled it abominably, tweeting a selfie from the back of the cab with this troll baiting caption:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but tax payers will always fund me 🙂

It was a spectacularly misjudged tweet and detracted from the line she took in the article, where she addressed the hate she received and the fact that the blame should be given to those who give her abuse on buses.

Josie then announced that she was due to appear on Loose Women, and I groaned over my phone.

For the lucky ones- Loose Women is a daytime TV show where a gaggle of female presenters discuss and debate the issues of the day, interview guests and gossip away. Even the presence of some MILF crushes isn’t enough to detract from the irritation this show provokes in me.

Even Carol Vorderman can’t convince me to watch it

I groaned because I thought it was a mistake for Josie to appear on the show. In a brief interview she wouldn’t get the chance to fully put her case across and might face a potentially hostile interview. In fact all it might serve to do is bring her to the attention of those who had thus far avoided her online or in the papers.

So, I fired up ITV’s online service and sat down to watch the show. It did not go well.

The interview wasn’t too bad, but they clearly weren’t onside from the off and Myleene Klass was rather patronizing in the way she handled Josie. Two of the others, Linda Robson and some brunette woman who seemed alright, suggested counselling- Robson as an alternative to the boob job, and the other lady (couldn’t find her on the LW website) put forward cognitive behaviour therapy as a potential aid to the anxiety.

At least these were constructive, and personally I think Josie might have benefited from counselling before and after the initial operation to address her insecurities and to help her realize that the new boobs were not some magic gift that would make her instantly happy and turn her life around.

But the main problem was that Josie didn’t put herself over that well. It’s unlikely that a single television appearance is going to turn the tide, but perhaps a longer, more in depth interview would have been better, because a short segment wasn’t going to get the job done, as evidenced by the response on Twitter:

What a deluded state of a woman!

why would @loosewomen put that vile creature josie cunningham on their show?!?! Don’t they see they’re feeding her antics!

Acting all innocent on loose women but laughing how the tax payers are cleaning up your mess

And possibly summing up the whole situation, if rather cruelly-

Nope @JosieCOnline appearing on tv did nothing for her at all! Haha still a stupid disgusting vile pathetic excuse for a human being #muppet (@BeckyBooEvans)

And that was the problem, I don’t see why Josie was doing this. She seemed out of her depth and her arguments weren’t constructed properly. She stated that anger over funding her boob job shouldn’t be aimed at her but the people making the decisions, which is maybe fair, but she has to realize that she sought that boob job and is the public face of these kind of decisions.

I agree that she shouldn’t get hate, and I think that if she is suffering abuse and anxiety that the taxis are probably needed. It’s just sad there’s not a school bus that runs which she could put the kids on and which would cut down on school run traffic. That’d be the best solution, in my opinion.

Controversy and notoriety can be useful tools in the fame game, but it’s starting to look like Josie or her people, are pursuing notoriety for it’s own sake. There doesn’t seem to be a clear strategy, she’s not parlaying this infamy into anything- there’s no book, or TV show, or DVD coming. So far all she’s done is the awful dating website.

She stumbles from controversy to controversy, with the trolls lining up to put the boots in at every turn. The tabloids use her as fodder to fire up their readers and distract them from being annoyed or concerned about larger issues, and for her part Josie seems to be getting very little out of the deal aside from public vilification and distress.

I continue to hope that Josie can achieve some success or happiness, to fade from the public consciousness and not have to endure the abuse and hatred from idiots.

Any thoughts? You know what to do. BETEO.