Ashley James is a force for change in a world of misogyny. She tells how more needs to be done to help women and girls when it comes to sexual assault, maternal mental health and more
Political and social commentator Ashley James
Bright and beautiful, This Morning’s political and social affairs correspondent Ashley James’ life is full of contrasts. She shot to fame in 2012 on E4 reality show Made in Chelsea, despite coming from Northumberland, and calls her new book Bimbo when she is both intelligent and accomplished.
With a 2:1 degree in English and French literature, she regularly gives Piers Morgan and Nick Ferrari a run for their money on the ITV daytime show and recently appeared on Celebrity Mastermind. Like Lady Constance Lytton – the 19th century suffragette who was her chosen subject (scoring 8 with no passes) – she is also a campaigner.
And she is bravely waiving her right to anonymity, as a victim of rape, to fight for better support for victims of sexual assault and to “changed the conversation” about rape. She tells The Mirror: “While at university, I was raped. It’s something I’ve never spoken about, and yet I’ve thought about it every day since – increasingly so since having children It’s one of the very worst moments of my life.”
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Ashley, 38, who was 21 when the attack happened, continues: “It was hugely traumatic. I’m not telling the story to shock, but as a mirror to show how common these experiences are, and also how broken the support system is.”
Ashley is a regular on ITV’s This Morning(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
Ashley uses her voice to speak out on important issues(Image: Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror )
Raped by a friend, according to the Office for National Statistics, 83-90% of female victims, like Ashley, are sexually assaulted by someone they know. ONS figures also show that 86% of sexual assault victims are women – rising to 91% in the case of rape.
Ashley – who doesn’t reveal her attacker’s identity – stresses that she now knows she was not to blame. She says: “It wasn’t my fault. Yes I was drunk, yes I was in going out clothes. But it wasn’t my fault. I know that now. As a culture and as a society, we still very much victim blame. We teach women how not to be raped, instead of teaching men how not to rape. Men can stop raping us .
“Because of the shame, taboo and stigma, people still think these [men who rape] are bad apples, or strangers in alleyways, and it’s not the case. We need to acknowledge it and tell our daughters to stop modifying their behaviour; stop questioning what people are wearing – we need to change the conversation.”
Ashley – who has two children, Ada, who is three in March, and Alfie, 5, with her partner-of-six-years City worker Tommy Andrews – did not report her rape. She says: “I didn’t come forward. Not because I thought the police wouldn’t believe me, but because the man wasn’t a stranger in a dark alley. He was a friend. Because of that, the only person I blamed was myself … for years. Even now I find it hard to think of him as a rapist. But I was literally unconscious.”
Gisele Pelicot leaves the courthouse after hearing the verdict of the court that sentenced her ex-husband to the maximum term of 20 years jail for committing and orchestrating her mass rapes with dozens of strangers he recruited online(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Her inspiration to speak out came from Gisèle Pelicot, the victim at the centre of the largest rape trial in French history. Her husband Dominique Pelicot, 73, was jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of drugging her and recruiting 50 other men to rape her over a decade. Gisèle waived her right to anonymity to publicly attend the trial and said of rape victims: “it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them.”
Ashley says: “She turned up every single day with her head held high and said ‘the shame needs to change sides’. If anything ever happened to my daughter, I would never want her to live with the shame and silence that I felt that I’ve lived with. Sexual assault is an area where there’s still a lot of shame and taboo. The system still doesn’t support women. It almost feels like the woman is put on trial more than the man who is accused of rape.”
Ashley also shines a spotlight on children with special educational needs (SEN) – having shared with her 688,000 Instagram followers last year that Alfie was having a SEN assessment. Also a DJ, a podcast host and parenting commentator, she nearly lost him when he was born. She says: “He came out blue. They were worried about Alfie. It wasn’t a good birth, it was very traumatic, and he’s still having to have a lot of osteo [osteopathy] to help him.”
Of his SEN assessment, she continues: “I suspect it’s autism, but it’s too soon for an official diagnosis. The school has been amazing at working with him rather than against him. I feel really grateful that we live in a time where it’s acknowledged and taken seriously. He’s very high functioning and I love the way his brain works. He is amazing. Some children process things differently to others – they’re not being naughty or rude. If we were more accepting of the ways different minds operate it would be a better world.”
Ashley and her beautiful family(Image: Instagram/ashleylouisejames/)
Doting mum Ashley with partner Tommy and children Alfie and Ada(Image: Instagram/@ashleylouisejames)
His SEN assessment has also helped Ashley to understand why she found parenting a challenge at first – something she is candid about. She says: “My mental health declined because I felt like – ‘is this my life now’ If your career is a big part of your identity, or you travel, then you’re suddenly stripped away from all of that and you’re supposed to find fulfilment in the monotony of doing the same thing every day.
“That is really hard. It doesn’t mean you don’t love your child. We need to have maybe a bit more understanding of that identity loss and grief. There was a time when I thought, ‘what have I done? Is this meant to be enough? Why is it not enough? Am I a bad woman?’ If dads had to sacrifice everything that we did in that first year, I think there would be more empathy, compassion and support in place.”
Despite the launch of the Be Kind movement, following the suicide of her TV presenter friend Caroline Flack in 2020, she feels little has changed in attitudes to mental health. Ashley, who is calling for less stigma and greater compassion, says: “It’s not just a women’s issue. We know that suicide is one of the biggest killers of young men, and yet we are still so unkind. When it comes to individuals who are struggling, we almost make them feel ashamed or lonely. This needs to change.”
Ashley is a force for good – and change – in a world of misogyny (Image: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
With a busy year ahead, starting with the release of Bimbo on February 12, Ashley laughs: “Prepare to be sick of me! I remember speaking to Carol Vorderman and she told me, ‘you’re a difficult woman and so am I’. We need more ‘difficult women’ in the world – then we might see some real change.”
Ashley, who first met Tommy when they were both working at Abercrombie and Fitch in their early 20s, says she may even consider more reality TV, despite only being paid £50 a session when filming Made in Chelsea. She says: “I was on a show about really rich people while living in my friend’s childhood home, deep in my overdraft. But I’d never rule out doing more reality TV.”
And she would happily take a call from Celebrity Traitors. She says: “I love Celebrity Traitors – who doesn’t? I think it was genius. I’m already excited for the next series. I feel like that’s the show that we all want to do now.”
*Bimbo: Ditch the Labels, Find Your Voice, Reclaim Your Confidence by Ashley James (£22, Century) is out on Feb 12
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