Actress Daisy May Cooper revealed she bowed out of Celebrity Traitors over childcare while showing off her 10-stone weight loss on Independent Television (ITV) show This Morning.
The 40-year-old This Country star appeared on the daytime programme to speak with presenters Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley about her debut novel, What Took You So Long? During the broadcast, she displayed her transformed figure in a tartan mini dress with a Peter Pan collar and knee-high boots.
Cooper told the hosts that she had been in line to appear on the first series of the hit British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reality show. However, she had to drop out after learning about the production's hotel arrangements and finding that nobody would look after her three young children.
Why Daisy May Cooper dropped out of Celebrity Traitors
Speaking to Shephard and Deeley, Cooper explained that she was unable to secure childcare for her eight-year-old daughter, Pip, and her two sons, seven-year-old Jack and two-year-old Benji.
Cooper affectionately dubbed the three children "horrible" and "a complete nightmare" during the interview. She explained that once she discovered the set-up of the competition, which required the celebrity contestants to stay in hotels away from home, she had no choice but to withdraw.
"This was for the first series, I was meant to do it and then I found out about the hotel and it wasn't a Premier Inn and I needed the basics of a Premier Inn and then nobody wanted to look after my kids because they're a complete nightmare," Cooper said.
Premier Inn is the largest budget hotel chain in the United Kingdom, owned by the hospitality company Whitbread. Celebrity Traitors is the star-studded spin-off of The Traitors, the BBC reality competition series hosted by Claudia Winkleman at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands, in which contestants are divided into "Faithfuls" and "Traitors" in a game of deduction and deception.
Family life and debut novel What Took You So Long?
Cooper separated from Pip and Jack's father, Will Weston, 10 months after Jack was born. She shares her youngest child, Benji, with her current partner, Anthony Huggins.
While discussing her debut novel What Took You So Long? with Shephard and Deeley, the actress made a light-hearted plea directly to This Morning viewers to purchase copies of the book to help support her household.
"Please buy it, I need to feed my kids - my horrible kids," she said.
Cooper first rose to prominence alongside her brother, Charlie Cooper, as the co-creator, co-writer and star of the BBC Three mockumentary sitcom This Country. Her portrayal of Kerry Mucklowe won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance. She subsequently co-created and starred in the BBC comedy-thriller Am I Being Unreasonable? and served as a team captain on the comedy music panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
Daisy May Cooper weight loss and the keto diet
Over the last few years, Cooper has undergone a dramatic weight loss journey to improve her health, dropping from a dress size 24 to a size 10.
She recalled that when she was "at her worst" at a size 24, she suffered from chest pains and became out of breath simply from walking up stairs. After speaking publicly about her struggles with her body image, she initially followed the ultra low-carb ketogenic diet, commonly known as the keto diet, to lose weight.
The keto diet is a high-fat, very low-carbohydrate eating plan designed to put the body into ketosis, a metabolic state in which fat is burned for energy instead of carbohydrates. Although the regimen helped her shed the weight, Cooper later admitted that while the diet worked, she "would not recommend it".
Online trolling and fears over future acting roles
While losing 10 stone brought positive changes to her daily life and physical health, the transformation also prompted a wave of mean-spirited comments on social media. Last month, Cooper revealed that she had been trolled and shamed online after slimming down, leading her to get rid of her mobile phone altogether.
Because of the online negativity, her personal assistant (PA) now runs her Instagram account so that Cooper does not have to see abusive messages.
"People are so f***ing horrible and mean and say such horrible things, I just can't even go near it [her phone]," Cooper said.
She added that the remarks that hurt her the most came from people telling her she was no longer funny because of her slimmer appearance. Speaking to The Independent, she admitted that the backlash made her panic that her weight loss would result in her being offered fewer comedy roles.
"That made me really panic actually. I thought, 'F***. Is that going to affect me casting-wise?' Will I be scratched off people's lists when they go, 'She can't be the funny big one'? It's so mad that as women we even have to think about that," she told The Independent.
"It is women and it's still a thing. There's also that thing where people are just shaming you for wanting to feel better and be healthy," she added.
