by James Argent
Although, as I learned, those blackberries had nothing to do with her illness, I must say that it has still put me off them. It was a long, hard struggle for Natasha but she has now made a full recovery and she is working again as a tennis coach. Her job takes her all over the world, and I’m very proud of her. She fought off the MRSA and all the other complications she suffered.
I’d just like to say here: Tash, it’s great to have you back! I’m so glad you’ll always be my little sister.
13
FAREWELL TO THE KING OF TOWIE
My friendship with Mark Wright had become a national institution on TOWIE – so it came as a real shock to me when he decided to quit the show. In fact, the thought of his not being there made me quake with fear because, until now, we’d done everything together. Mark was the one person guaranteed to get viewers hot under the collar. People seemed to love and loathe him in equal measure and he was always in the headlines, usually for breaking somebody’s heart. If there was an argument, a break-up, a bust-up or a row, Mark was at the centre of it and I was always by his side. The first two series of The Only Way Is Essex were dominated by his antics and I was proud to be in lots of great scenes with him. So I was gutted when Mark told me that he was thinking of leaving at the end of Series 3 in autumn of 2011. I just couldn’t imagine life in the show without him. Officially, Mark left to take up an opportunity to appear in the jungle on I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! but it was also due to the fact that he’d gone as far as he could in TOWIE. He’d been there, done it and had the T-shirt.
Mark’s decision to leave had a huge impact on me, because the majority of my scenes had been filmed with him. We were inseparable and I just didn’t know if I would be the same person on screen without him. I looked up to Mark because he exuded a confidence on camera that rubbed off on me. When we were together it felt so natural and our scenes would flow of their own accord. I couldn’t envisage having the same rapport with anybody else on the show. It never crossed my own mind to quit at the same time, but I was genuinely worried that it might badly affect my future. Aside from my scenes with Lydia, virtually everything I did on the show revolved around my relationship with Mark.
I was happy with the way things were going in the show, so, when Mark confided to me about his plans, it came as a bolt from the blue.
‘Arg, there’s something I need to tell you,’ he said to me while we were alone in his flat. ‘I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be in TOWIE.’
‘What do you mean, Mark? Everything’s going so well. You’re the top boy and everybody loves us when we’re together in the show.’
‘I know, but I don’t want to be known as the guy who breaks hearts in TOWIE for the rest of my life. I’ve been there and done that. I want to do other things with my career.’
‘But where does that leave me?’ I asked. ‘I only got onto the show in the first place because of you. Are you sure you’ve thought about this properly?’
‘I’ve thought about it a lot, Arg. I’ve got a new management company in place and they’re putting together a plan for me to do other stuff. I feel bad for you but I know you’ll be all right – the fans love you.’
I understood his reasons for leaving and I didn’t want to stand in the way of his plans, but at the same time part of me prayed that he would change his mind. There were a million thoughts running around inside my head because I had so many unanswered questions. Would the viewers still be interested in me? How would my career develop without him at my side? Who would I film my scenes with? Worst of all, it felt as if I were losing my best friend.
One of the reasons Mark and I worked so well on screen together was that we shared a genuine friendship. It wasn’t something that was created just for the cameras. ITV ran surveys that revealed that viewers loved the chemistry between us. Our so-called ‘bromance’ blossomed on screen and people even began to refer to us by the joint nickname of ‘Marg’ (short for Mark and Arg!). I love Mark to bits, he’s always pulling pranks, and whenever I would stay at his flat, he often woke me up by splashing a cup of water on my face – while he filmed it on his phone! Whenever I felt down, Mark would always be there to cheer me up. If I was feeling sorry for myself over a problem with Lydia, he’d put his arm around me and tell me to stop being such a donut. Mark had a knack of knowing what to say to me and his advice normally worked. I felt that he was my shoulder to cry on throughout my constant ups and downs with Lydia and he was a pillar that I often turned to for support. He was my rock, both professionally and privately.
Mark’s decision to leave TOWIE came at the end of a difficult period for him. His engagement to Lauren had been bumpy for some time, so I wasn’t surprised when they announced at the end of summer 2011 that they were splitting up. My view was that they’d done the right thing by calling a halt to things, because the relationship was causing them both too much pain. Mark’s only comment in public at the time was a brief line on Twitter in which he confirmed they had separated and he said that Lauren would always have a place in his heart.
Behind the scenes, Mark was in a lot of distress. The writing had been on the wall earlier in the summer when Lydia and I had joined Mark and Lauren on a holiday to Portugal. We had travelled there as a foursome to attend the wedding of a friend of ours. His name was Timothy Langer and he was marrying his fiancée Kathryn at the luxury resort of Vilamoura. Lydia and I were getting along OK at this point, having temporarily put our own problems behind us while I concentrated on trying to rebuild things between us. It was a hard struggle, because a lot of the trust had gone out of our relationship. Lydia had taken to checking my phone for messages and, while we were in Portugal, she found one from a woman that made her suspicious. It was actually an innocent enquiry about a booking I’d done in Malia from somebody I didn’t know, but it caused a bit of friction.
Meanwhile, Mark and Lauren seemed to be constantly at war. They grated on each other’s nerves throughout the Portugal trip and they both knew exactly what buttons to press in order to annoy each other. Their rows sometimes put me in a difficult position, because I got on well with both of them, but when the chips were down Mark was my best mate and he was the one I sided with. One source of friction between them seemed to be that Lauren hated it whenever Mark would show off his body by taking off his shirt. I think she was a bit conscious of the fact that Mark had a chiselled six pack, whereas she was slightly curvier and therefore not quite so proud of her own figure. I felt that Lauren could be a diva when she wanted to and she gave Mark a lot of stick that other people didn’t know about.
The wedding ceremony in Portugal went very well and afterwards Mark made a short speech, which he ended by making a joke about TOWIE.
‘I better stop speaking now before you all tell me to “shhhut up!”’ he quipped, using Amy Childs’s famous catchphrase from the show.
Unfortunately for Mark, nobody found the phrase ‘shhhut up’ very funny and his joke went down like a lead balloon! I later sang a few songs at the reception, which were well received. As part of the celebrations, Timothy and his best man were filming a video montage of the day and they wanted to shoot a sequence in which a group of the boys all stripped off to their boxer shorts and jumped into the pool. Mark naturally peeled off and joined in with the fun – but it seemed to send Lauren into a fury.
‘Why the f*** did you do that, Mark?’ she demanded.
Lauren and Lydia had spent most of the afternoon drinking together and the sight of Mark undressed seemed to make Lauren weirdly jealous, so much so that she caused a scene by threatening to strip off herself in retaliation.
‘You’re just showing off by getting your body out,’ she screamed. ‘If you’re going to do it, I’m doing the same!’
‘Don’t be so stupid. You’re out of order,’ Mark replied.
Mark was horrified and he had to persuade Lauren not to take her dress off right there at the reception. I suspected that Lauren was drunk and I got the impression she rea
lly would have jumped into the pool if Mark had not stopped her. When Lauren and Lydia got together they could drink like there was no tomorrow. Mark and I were soon pleading with them to take it easy.
‘We’re at a wedding and there are friends and family here,’ Mark told them. ‘You two are causing a scene by getting paralytic. You need to pace yourselves and calm down.’
I offered to get the girls some water and they agreed to curb their drinking, but, as soon as Mark and I went off to chat with some other guests, the girls were at it again. As I looked over my shoulder I saw them swigging from a bottle of champagne that they were passing back and forth to each other. Part of me found it amusing, but it was infuriating at the same time.
Mark and Lauren seemed to spend the rest of the time in Portugal arguing, and after we got back to the UK it seemed as if he had been pushed to the limit.
‘Look, Arg, part of me loves her but I just know this isn’t right,’ he told me. ‘I can’t see us lasting. It’s just not working. We make each other miserable.’
In the end they had a heart-to-heart and agreed to go their separate ways. I was sad because I could sense they were both hurting, but I’d seen their constant fighting and I knew it was better for both of them to be apart. Meanwhile, I suspected that Mark’s family were secretly quite relieved. Even though they had welcomed Lauren for the sake of Mark, I got the impression that they never really felt she was the one for him. They’d gone along with the relationship because Mark had been with her from a young age and they wanted him to be happy, but I suspected that deep down they didn’t think that she was good enough for him. I got the impression that they greeted the engagement with surprise rather than delight, and they saw it as a passing phase.
Even though Mark knew he had to end things with Lauren, it didn’t stop him from hurting a great deal. They had gone through secondary school and spent their late teens together and, despite their many break-ups, it was obvious that this time their split was for real. They’d made a big show of getting engaged on TV, which made things all the more painful.
Mark needed me as a mate more than ever, but it came at just the same time as I started to spend a bit more time with Lydia. My relationship with her was still troubled but for a while we seemed to be getting back on track. Lydia had thrown herself into her lifelong ambition of opening a fashion boutique, which I was happy to help her with. We had often spoken about opening a shop in the past, and, now that Lydia was beginning to earn well from doing the odd endorsement off the back of TOWIE, she decided to give it a go.
‘I’m so excited, James. I’ve always wanted to do this,’ Lydia told me. ‘I want the shop to be a big success. I’ve got so many ideas. I don’t just want to sell clothing: I want the shop to stock delicious things to eat as well.’
‘That’s brilliant, Lydia. I’m proud of you,’ I told her.
Lydia and I had previously enjoyed watching a romantic comedy called It’s Complicated, in which Jane, a character played by Meryl Streep, ran a bakery. Lydia wanted her shop to sell cupcakes and candles, just like in the movie. I thought it was a great idea.
Lydia found a vacant shop in Loughton and put together a business plan. She put up all the money and gave her sister Georgia a half-share in the venture. I was surprised that she chose to cut in her sister in like that, but it was Lydia’s money and it was a nice gesture.
Meanwhile, I did my best to help to promote the opening by persuading everybody I knew to come along. It was an exciting venture and it felt as if Lydia and I were enjoying being in love again. Things seemed to be picking up for me: I was still glowing after our success at the BAFTAs and I had my girlfriend back.
I was so tied up in my own world, that I failed to see how desperately low Mark was after breaking up with Lauren, and for a while I neglected to see him because I was with Lydia all the time. When Series 3 of TOWIE started to film Mark let rip at me over it during a scene in his flat. I arrived expecting to film a sequence consisting of our normal banter, but I could see straight away that Mark had the hump.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him while we were being filmed.
At first Mark avoided giving me a straight answer and claimed there was nothing wrong, but when I persisted his frustrations with me came tumbling out.
‘Can you sit there and tell me that you’ve been there for me?’ he said.
I knew he had a point and I said sorry on air.
Later on, when we discussed things in private, I apologised again.
‘I’m sorry, Mark. I’ve been trying to make things work with Lydia and I know I’ve neglected you,’ I told him.
‘You’re going to smother the girl,’ he warned. ‘One minute you’re out with the boys and then suddenly you’re spending every waking moment with her and you don’t want to be with anyone else. You’ve got to grow some balls and learn to divide up your time.’
‘I know. I never get the balance right,’ I said. ‘It just seems that I’m either always with you and she’s got the hump, or it’s the other way round and I’m blanking all my mates.’
I felt awful when Mark reminded me of all the times he had been there for me in the past. When I had come back from Spain in pieces he’d been the first to console me. Mark explained that the reason he was in so much pain was that he knew that this time his split from Lauren was for real, unlike all their previous break-ups. I was so carried away with being around Lydia that I had completely forgotten about Mark and I had just presumed he would be OK.
Although Mark had the ability to wrap most women around his little finger, Lydia could see through his bluster and she blamed him for leading me astray.
‘I’m fed up with always being made out to be the bad guy,’ Mark told me. ‘I’ve worked really hard to get on with Lydia, but how do you expect the girl to respect me when you’re the one who’s telling her that your behaviour is my fault?’
‘I know, Mark, but it’s only banter,’ I replied.
‘Yeah, but the truth is you’re worse than me for looking at other girls when we’re out together. You need to either man up and put Lydia in her place or stop giving her excuses to be on your case.’
‘But it’s hard, Mark. I love her and I don’t want to lose her again,’ I said.
‘I know that, Arg, but you’ve got to be firm. You gotta make it clear that there’s going to be times when you’re out with the boys and she has to accept that. Everyone thinks I’m to blame and, to be honest, I’m sick of it. I’m fed up of hearing that I’m in the wrong.’
There were times when I felt terribly sorry for Mark. He loved being the star of the show, but it came at a heavy price. A lot of people disliked him for the way he treated girls, and it resulted in his suffering a lot of abuse when he was in public. It was true that he messed with people’s emotions, but my own view was that Lauren, Sam and Lucy always chose to come running back for more. The negative fallout it created caused people to give Mark a lot of stick in nightclubs because they didn’t like what they’d seen him do on screen.
I know it happened a lot because I witnessed it at first hand. He’d often receive threats and people would try to pick fights with him. On other occasions, he would have abuse shouted at him in the street and he was constantly being caned on Twitter.
‘It’s all getting a bit much, Arg,’ he told me. ‘I want people to see a different side to me. It’s not my fault if birds kick up a fuss when they don’t get it all their own way.’
The criticism that Mark received was something that had been happening ever since TOWIE first hit the screens. The situation had become so inflamed during the first series that for a while the producers hired special protection for Mark. He was assigned a bodyguard, who stayed in his apartment and shadowed him during the day. It was around the time that Mark’s bar had been firebombed and for a while it seemed as if he was in real danger. It went on for several weeks, but in the end Mark decided that he didn’t need the bodyguard any more and his security was scaled down.
&
nbsp; I don’t seem to generate the same reaction from people because I’m perceived as a very different character. People think of me as being much calmer, so they tend to be friendly towards me when I go out in nightclubs. Mark and I were like chalk and cheese in that respect. I think part of the reason we worked so well together is because we are different personalities, but still we get on. I thought that a lot of the flak that he received was very unfair, especially as the women around him knew the score and should have realised that they were in for a bumpy ride.
When a possibility arose of his appearing on I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! it was an opportunity for Mark to show the public the warmer side of his character. Mark started dropping hints to me in private that his management team were in talks about his going to the jungle. We had been through thick and thin together on TOWIE and my first thought was, How the hell will I cope without him?
We were out in Mark’s car driving through Essex when he told me he had now gone ahead and set a date to leave.
‘Arg, I just need to let you know that I’ve been confirmed for the jungle. I’ve been signed up,’ he told me. ‘I feel bad about it, though, Arg. I feel guilty about leaving you. At the end of Series 3 I’ll be leaving TOWIE for good. My management want me to start doing presenting and maybe acting and I think it’s the right time for me to move forward.’
At first I tried not to show my feelings because I didn’t want to look selfish. I knew that it was a big break for him.
‘Oh, mate,’ I replied. ‘Obviously I’m proud of you and whatever, but I’m gutted – and I don’t want you to leave. I still can’t imagine the show without you.’
‘I don’t think I can do any more in TOWIE,’ Mark said. ‘I don’t think I can get any bigger, and now’s the right time to think of my future. I need to go down a different path for the good of my career.’
I was quiet for a moment while I let the news sink in. I was emotional because it felt as if I was about to lose my best friend in the whole wide world. I thought back to when we had first started the show together, when we had no idea in the early days whether it would be a success or a failure. All my best memories were of those scenes that we had filmed together. The thought of doing it all alone without him seemed inconceivable. When Mark was alongside me on screen I felt secure and confident, but without him I just didn’t know if things would be the same.