I guess on conversations today is Amanda goth. Now you might not recognize the name, but you certainly would recognize her her pseudonym Samantha X. And she's written a new book called Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha X. Samantha hang on, Sorry, Amanda, Amanda, welcome to the program.
Thank you. Everyone gets it muddled up. Don't worry. I sort of am still Samantha deep down.
Are you sensitive about that? Though?
Not at all? No, I sort of think when you know, my old next door neighbor used to call me Samantha, and I thought, what websites? No, not at all. I mean I created her. She is part of me.
So you've had two previous books hooked back on top. Now you wrote in this book you can't believe you wrote them. What do you mean by that?
Well, looking back now, it hooked and back on top. They were very sexually explicit, well reasonably sexually explicit, and to me, I just think, God, I can't believe I wrote all of this. I did, and it's out there and they did pretty well. So I think, especially these days, erotica is very in demand, especially with women, so I have to maybe relaunch the books. I was a bit ahead of the times about ten years ago.
This is a different book either. The fore word is written by a professor of psychiatry, Gordon Parker. He's also headed up Black Dog. Then he talks about bipolar iiO and obviously you've been diagnosed with that. Yes, did you realize you had mental health issues?
I think everyone else around me realized. I think I was probably the last tact to know. I just thought it was part of my character. I just had all my life the periods of what I now know is mania and chronic depression, and I just thought that was just me. I didn't realize it was an actual illness or disorder and that there could be treatment for it. But looking back some of the decisions I made, and very publicly too, and a lot of things I did, I look back and I think, you know, it gives
me context. Bipolar just gives me context. It doesn't certainly doesn't excuse my behavior or I can blame bipolar, but it helps me understand myself a bit more.
Pretty frank about your behavior, particularly about your first visit to the Church of Saint Margaret Margret, I think you say that just explain that for us. Obviously the first time you went there, you weren't in a good space.
I first went to So it's in this church is in a little village called Cortona, which is in Tuscany, near Tuscany, and my sister lives in Italy. And inside the church is the mummified body of Santa Margharita, which is who was and I can't remember when she.
Was alive escapes thirteenth century.
Okay, thirteenth century.
Give the date in the book. Actually it's twelve or so.
Apparently another symptom of bipole, his memory loss. So I've got an excuse. And she was the ordained saint for misfits, so lapovorell which means misfits, so prostitutes, you know, robbers, divorced women, single mothers, that kind of those kind of
people people I relate to. And when I went to this see the church with my sister many many moons ago, I was drunk, and so I went back recently and I sort of got to make amends with her, because it's not every day that you see a mummified body of a saint ordained, a woman ordained who helped and I'm going to say prostitutes and back in the day, but she did so.
Yeah, pretty graphic about her body. I mean, I just lies it's a mummified Yeah.
I've never seen any body, thankfully, and I saw I saw her body and it was just it didn't even look like a body. It was just so it looked like if you blow on it, it would disintegrate. But it was dressed in you know, in in a shroud and holding the cross. It was fascinating and her history is fascinating and it's a beautiful church and anyone who is in Cortona, I really suggest you go and see it.
So was there an epiphany of sorts? I thought, all, I've got to go back and make amends, to sign to Marguerite.
I think subconsciously there was, Yes, subconsciously it was quite a pivotal moment. He was in the middle of me writing my book as well, and that's where the title Misfits came from, because she was the saint for misfits.
We go back because I'm fascinated about this journey of yours. Where were you born?
I was born in London, Southwest London. I was born in ham Smith and I grew up in Wimbledon, it which is southwest London.
And what was the family history? What did what did mom and dad do?
My father was a very successful lawyer, he had his own law company in London, and my mother was a speech therapist. And I went to a private girls school, very privileged. I went to Wimbledon High School for girls. Funnily enough, I haven't been invited back for a careers. They might just skip over my name. So I had a very reprivileged life. You know, I was the eldest child. There were issues at home. I no longer have a
relationship with my family. I think me being a very public escort was the nail on the coffin, but it was quite a dysfunctional relationship before then.
It's one of the why what was it? Were you? Were you a rebel or No?
I didn't have a relationship with my mum basically.
So it always fascinates me. Why does a daughter not have a relationship with their mother.
I genuinely think some women don't love their daughters, you know. And I you know, I have careful what I say because my mum's still alive. But I generally think that some women. I'm not going to say my mum was one of these women have a very complex relationship with daughters. It's maybe, you know, as they see their daughter grow, it's just a mirror reflection of themselves and what they're
what they're growing out of or getting old or whatever. Anyway, she didn't have a great upbringing herself, and I think I bore the brunt of it being the oldest. So I had no sort of primary female role model in my life. And I know a lot of sex workers also have a lot of mummy issues. Everyone assumes it's father issues, but it's actually mother issues.
What was your relationship like with your dad?
It was okay, it was okay. They had a very sort of I could say, toxic relationship. And again I got in the middle of that, so it was it was he was a great he was a good parent. Yeah, my dad was a good parent.
But it seems as though your career path was traditional. You had a good education. Did you go straight into journalism?
Yes, I did. I was so when I came out of school, I went to university and I studied a course called humanities, which was the biggest waste of time, and then I went to journalism. College. I was paid to go to journalism college by newspaper in London, and so they trained me up to be a journalist. And then I worked on the tabloid It's in London, chasing celebrities down the street with paparazzi photographers, totally unethical stuff.
And I remember meeting Piers Morgan, who at the time was the editor of The Mirror, and I was doing some freelance shifts on the Mirror. I won't say what I used to find out in the Mirror newspaper, but it was explosive. So I love my time. I can't say.
You can't say that you have to give us some give us just a tidbit.
When it was in the era of the phone hacking times. And I'm not going to say whether I witnessed any of that, but it was in that time, and I think a lot of the people I worked with, not just the Mirror but in that newspaper group, some of them have gone to prison.
Did you ever listen into private phone calls?
No comment, I'm going to say no, but okay, my memory is terrible memory.
So what was your life like as a as a journalist? I mean, it sounds it's intrusive, but it's also it sounded like it's quite exciting to chase the celebrities around.
Yeah, it was the era of Princess Diana, and you know it was it was I used to wait outside a celebrities house for twelve hours just to get a snap shot of them with a photographer, and it was why I wanted to be a journalist. It was exciting and sometimes unethical, but I loved it. And then when I moved to Australia when I was twenty six twenty seven, I remember working for a magazine and writing up an interview I done I had done with I think a famous violinist, and I added a bit of color to
it being a tabloid preyer journalist. And my editor said, Amanda, stopped making stuff up here. We don't misquote people in Australia,
and I remember thinking, God, how boring. You know you actually want back because in London we just used to make celebrities sound more exciting than they were, and celebrities didn't mine because to be in a tabloid newspaper in London was a massive It was a massive thing, you know, like it's the celeb needed the press just as much as the press and needed the celebrities.
But not if you're writing mistruths about them.
It wasn't mistruths necessarily, It was more adding a bit of color to their quotes. But they didn't used to complain because number one, they can't who can afford to take on a big newspaper like the mirror of the Sunday people. And you know, any publicity is good publicity.
So what was happening in your private life while you're you're this tablaud journalist.
Yeah, it wasn't great, to be honest. You know, I'd always suffered anorexia when I was a kid, and yeah, I was a bit lost. I didn't really I didn't live with my parents, so I sort of lived with boyfriends or with friends, and you know, I had no idea who I was. You know, I used to get a lot of attention from men, and I suppose that's where I got my validation from because I wasn't getting it anywhere else. And so yeah, I would have these highs,
but I didn't know that we were highs. And I would be so disassociated sometimes and my anxiety was through the roof, like I couldn't get on a London underground tube because I'd get my panic attacks were so bad and so I didn't know what was wrong with me. Like we didn't discuss mental health in those days. I didn't know there was such a thing as anxiety, but I suffered it really badly.
Amanda GoF is my guest. We need to take a break. A new book is called Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha X. Back shortly, Welcome back to conversations. My guest today is Amanda Gough. Now you might remember Amanda's Samantha X, who shot to fame here in Australia, Australia's highest I don't
know about highest paid, but most high profile escort. But it's a sad story and a sense that that her upbringing was I would say troubled, which she suffered from anxiety and a Redixia didn't have a great relationship with her mother and father. Working as a tabloid journalist, decides to come to Australia. What prompted the move to come to Australia.
I wanted to live in the sunshine and I wanted to get as far away from my family as possible. To be honest, and I couldn't think of a more further away place in Australia. I'd never been to Australia. I just used to get books out on the library on Sydney and I knew inherently deep down that's where I was meant to be. So I ended. I was working as the features editor of a magazine in London at the time, and I said to them I really want to move to Sydney. Can you get me a job?
Then they managed to transfer me to the same magazine, but based in Sydney.
Were you married by then?
No? No, no, I've never been married. No no, no, I was single and I didn't know a soul in Australia, not one person. But I packed my bags, signed a two year I actually think it was a four year two or four year contract, and off I went.
I hope you're not offended by this question, But were you a promistuous young lady?
I don't know, looking back, I probably thought about it more than I actually did it, As most people do with sex. You know, it wasn't that I was promiscuous necessarily. It was that I allowed men to take advantage of me because I had no idea about boundaries and consent. I actually thought you were you know, it was my job as a woman to please men, and if I didn't please them, they would get angry. That's what I felt. That's what I thought about men. I didn't realize I
could have a say in the matter. I was never told that.
I never learned that you have a daughter? Now I do. Are you guiding us strongly in that we have?
We have a yes, And she's completely the opposite to me. And I think when you don't have a mother, you become. I became a mother that I wish I did have, and we are extremely close and I'm very blessed to have her in my life. And she's my children have taught me a lot how to love and be loved, which I've talked about in my book. And I hope I'm by no means a perfect parent, but I hope I've taught them a lot of things that I wish i'd known.
Let's go back to you get on a plane, you come to Sydney, you don't know anybody. You've got a job on a tabloid, which were Women's.
Day it was. That's life. I've worked on Women's Day. But it was That's Life magazine, which was great fun because I was still interviewing people. I mean, I don't really care much for celebrities, since I find them quite dull. I actually love real people and real stories, so I would I used to be. I am still fascinated about
people's stories, you know, because everyone has a story. And I think that's why I loved my job as an escort so much, because I would hear so many stories from men and it was just so compelling for me as a journalist that I wrote to you know, my first two books were about their stories.
So you're working as a journalist in Syne.
Yes, what happened?
What happened? Tell me what all of a sudden are you? Well?
One is a more ethical career. I guess which one it is. So I wasn't. Yeah, Well, I met someone and we had two children, and you know, I had a very nice, white picket fence life, and then I just there was something about it that I wasn't happy. I was I was suffocating in this relationship. We never married, but we had children. It was you know, committed, and
I just there was nothing against him. I just it was more what that life represented and that was, you know, the same thing, day in day out for the rest of my life, and I just couldn't do it. So we separated, and you know, I was a nightmare at the time. I had a lot of anger inside me, and I didn't know sort of it was. Looking back, I think it was my bipolar bubbling to the surface. And I had always been fascinated by sex work, even when I was a young girl, and I had I
was when we separated. I was single for a year and I dated men for a year, and I just got sick of being messed around by men. So I thought, I'm going to I'm going to take my power back up other men, and I'm going to research what it is to be a sex worker. And that's what I'm going to do. And I don't think any of my close friends were shocked, but you know, I didn't know anyone in the industry. You know, We've got to remember it was over ten years ago. It was not it
was not talked about in the media. It was there were no podcasts, there was no only fans, there was no sex workers writing columns. There was nothing in the media about it. So yeah, I mean I was. As soon as I started, I was I was completely hooked on the on the industry.
What was the first one, like my.
First client, it was Yeah, I won't forget. He was just so normal. It was so kitchen table, you know, it was just very very ordinary vanilla. I just remember the conversation. We just talked about very vanilla stuff. So and I remember thinking, my god, is this it? And I was almost disappointed. I thought, you know, the job was going to be magical and mystical and sexy and decadent. It was very It was like a therapy session and I got paid hands for it. So that was it. I was hooked.
Were you satisfied as well?
You'll have to read my book about that. Sex is sex and sex and sex. It's aways an anti climax, let's be honest. But men weren't coming for sex, were coming for a whole lot more.
Yeah. Well, there's a quote in your book that I was really interested in. No man has ever been as nice to me as a client has.
Yes, I think I think a lot of women will understand that. And still to this day, I get dicked around by men all the time. Still when I'm Samantha, I wasn't. Men were very respectful. They were terrified of me. They were very intimidated, and I had control. Now I'm dating in the real world. Let's just say this is when I missed Samantha. Not only am I dicked around Graham, but I'm poor with it too, So I'm not even
mentioning money from them. So I think when a woman has become an escort or has dipped their toe into the adult industry, it's incredibly hard to go back to real life and real dating and real disappointment. And not every man is disappointing, present company excluded, of course, but it's very I mean, it's no secret that dating is really challenging these days.
What did your friends, What did your ex partner, father and children to say when he found out this was your chosen profession.
Well, he's someone who's very conservative. I mean, yeah, it was. It didn't go down too well, but we were separated, you know, like it didn't go down too well. I don't think he really understood it, and I think a lot of people close to me didn't understand.
I don't want to harp on this career, but of course it's.
Well, I am it was amazing to me that men pretend to know nothing about the industries. Every single man asked open to is completely dumbfounded about the industry. But is there the ones that are funding it? Yeah?
Nod he go. How did you get your first client?
I worked for a high end establishment, like a you know it was. So it was a madam in North Sydney. So she had one of these heart This is back in the day, you got to remember. It was so exciting. So it was a penthouse suite in a higher rise in North Sydney and the madam was this wonderful woman called Francesca who dressed in leopard print. She was very posh and she had about three girls that worked for her. So I managed to locate this woman by sheer chance,
and yeah, we became very close. So I would go to this penthouse in North Sydney every Saturday and Sunday. And I realized I was making more money and having more fun in that Saturday and Sunday than I was in my five day week job. That I was getting paid terribly for working, you know, ten hours a day and barely seeing my children.
So so, how much did you charge? Well, how much did you charge in that.
At the height of my career, I was fifteen hundred dollars for an hour. My most popular date was dinner dates, which literally is the dinner date, and that was about five thousand dollars.
Wow, did you have a regular client who would pay five thousand dollars?
I had many regular clients. Yes, they were all regular clients by the end. Like there were men I've known for ten years and I still speak to them and I still love them dearly.
Amanda Gough, it is my guest. There are so many questions. Her new book is called Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha Rex. So we're spending as much time putting it back together those but we'll get onto the new book after the break back shortly. If you've just tuned into conversations, folks, I'm talking to Amanda Gough, who you may remember of Samantha Rex, and she has a new book called Misfits, The Unraveling of Samantha Rex, and we've been chatting about
her adventurous life as a as an escort. Tell me, as a sex worker with things like sexual transmitters, diseases and things like that, how do you handle on them? How do you take precautions against them.
I've never even caught a cold, never caught a cold of a client, you know, I think. I think whys are more at risk of catching things off their cheating husbands to be honest when they go on business trips than a sex worker. A sex worker has regular tests. You know. No other woman I think in the world has sexually transmitted tests every three months. And of course you use protection. But I've never been caught a cold of a client.
When did you realize it wasn't for you?
I never realized it wasn't for me. I guess I got sick of being known for that. But as I got it, I got I guess I got sick of always writing the same thing in my columns and always you know, being known as Samantha. But the job I never had an issue with. And I still don't have an issue with the job. And I think I know I was under a lot of pressure to stop or certainly stopping so vocal about it. But the job, the job, I never I never had a problem with.
That's another thing I've been trigting in your book. You don't kiss the kissing, you see, No, I.
Think kissing is very intimate. So yeah, I reserve that for people in my real life. And I say real life because Samantha was a character I created.
Well, you've been flippant when you said you had a boyfriend for five hours, which is a record for you.
I can't remember saying okay, yeah, I've been well, I can't remember which boyfriend that was.
Well, you wrote it like.
My relationships are not my strong point, my strong point, which is why being Samantha suited me, because as I also wrote, snapshots of intimacy suit me best rather than long stretches of relationships. It's just not who I am.
So the book, I mean, as flippant as we're being here having fun, the book is quite serious. When you talk about your bipolar diagnosis, how did you? How did you come to be diagnosed?
So I stopped drinking and how and why through twelve step recovery which is also known as Alcoholics Anonymous, which those meetings probably saved my life. So I'm very grateful to those RUMs.
Can I pause there? So you had to go along at the meetings, you had to stand up and say what they say? What was that like for you?
At first? It was terrifying also, I inherently, subconsciously, unconsciously did not and struggle with the word alcoholic. I just know I had a problem with drinking. My life would turn to mat to a mess. I would It would be chaotic, and I had to stop. And the only way I could stop willpower is not enough for most people. The only way I could stop was to take accountability for my actions and be with people who were in the same position as me. So meetings really helped me.
You know, I never went to rehab or hospital or anything. It was never that bad, but I could see it was progressing that way. So I nipped it in the bud pretty quickly.
And did you go cold turkey? Did you just stop?
It wasn't that I had to go cold turkey because I wasn't drinking every day or even every week. It was more when I did drink, i'd binge drink, and then you know, the knock on effect was disastrous. So then I wouldn't. I wouldn't drink for a few weeks, and then I drink again, and then the knock on effect was disastrous. So I just had to break the cycle. So the best thing to break the cycle was, yeah, just quitting that like, there's no I just had to start at day one, and it's been a bumpy ride.
I had one relapse four years ago, but I mean, I haven't had alcohol for six years, and I relapsed on a mind altering drug we call it in AA and yeah, so but no boosts six years. I think that's important to acknowledge.
That what's the mind ordering drug.
Or marijuana, you know, something like that.
I've spoken to alcoholics before and recovering alcoholics, and particularly women. They realize they're in trouble when they wake up in the morning and they're not sure who where they are and who they're with. Did you have that experience?
No, I woke I would wake up with bruises, wondering where my bag was, wondering how I got home, piecing together parts of the night, apologizing to certain people. Yeah, and then but it wasn't just my actions when I was drinking. It was the week after I would you know, I wouldn't work, I would look like death. I would be really unwell, guilt, shame, remorse, making amends to people, and then by the end of the week I'd feel
better again. And then the cycle would just repeat and It's very common, particularly for women when they get to a certain age, that we can't handle our alcohol. You know, white wine. It was like poison for me, and I do miss it. Sometimes I have to say, I have this, you know, rose tinted spectacles vision of what sitting down and having a glass of wine would be like. But then it's just not worth the risk that I could destroy everything I've worked really hard for my sobriety and
my stability and my peace of mind. And with bipolar you can't drink basically because of the medication.
So when did you make the break and how did you make the break from escort service?
Well, it's a good question because I think that there should be a twelve set step recovery program for sex workers because it is incredibly hard to leave the industry. So when I was diagnosed with bipolar, and to answer your question previous question, I was diagnosed when I stopped drinking because my behavior hadn't changed. So I stopped drinking, but my behavior is still erratic, and that's when they
make up the bipolar. And answer to your second question, when I was diagnosed with bipolar and medicator, I became more grounded and stable and I didn't need to have this character Samanth through my life anymore. I didn't need to disassociate and run away and escape from my life because I started to sort of accept my life and accept who I was and heal. So it was quite It became quite exhausting to be two different people. So
I just thought, I'm just going to be one. I'm going to go back to being myself, and with that, the escorting sort of fell away.
With that.
It was quite a relief.
Actually, what does yourself look like? When you say you went back to being yourself? What did that look like? Did you go back to journalism.
Or I have gone back to journalism. Yes, I never really stopped being a journalist. I was always writing, you know, I wrote books and I wrote for news outlets online. I was never I never stopped being a journalist.
When you say medication, can you explain that? I mean people often shy away from medication, but particularly serious medication, And it sounds like the medication you want is quite serious. Can you can you explain it? Well?
So I am on a medication called lamactol, which is not lithium, but it's I don't know whether it's a form of lithium. But it's what a lot of women, what people men and women take when they have bipolar. It stabilizes. It stabilized me, and it's it can't stop the cycle that I go through, but it can make it less extreme.
And there's another issue that affects all women as they as they get older, when menopause starts to kick in, and that that complicates it. Over are you contemplating what life will be like when that happens? You're not.
How do you know it hasn't happened already? Well, fifty one, I'm fifty one. Look, I to be honest, I have no idea whether it's happening or not. I presume it is. But I take HRT medication, so I take estrogen and testosterone. But taking testosterone, I know what it's like to be a bloke now.
So while this is all happening, you've got two young kids. You've got two children. What are they noticing about their mother as you're transitioning from being.
But I'm less, you know, like I'm just back. I'm just more grounded, you know, I'm making more sensible decisions. I'm more present, you know, I really tried in the height of my mad I call it my madness. In the height of my madness, it didn't really affect my mother, my ability to mother. I was very I was still like I worked when so we did week on week off for many many years. And the weeks I didn't have my kids, that's when I would be Samantha and
I would travel around the country. And when I did have my kids, I was Amanda and I was Mum. Now they're a lot older, and you know, teenagers being teenagers, they spend a lot of time with their friends, et cetera, et cetera, university, So I think I think they appreciate the fact that they've got a more stable mum who's around more.
They don't have to explain anything to their friends who might recognize you.
I think those days are well over now. I think they did have to. But yeah, it was a challenging time. But I've certainly taught in brasilience.
I still have so many questions. Amanda Goff is my guest. Folks will take a break back shortly. Welcome back, everybody. We're chatting with Amanda Goff, who some of you may remember as Samantha X. A very high profile escort. But she has a new book, Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha X, and she talks about the mental health issues she've had and the difficulties that we're associated with the previous life
and how she transitioned from that. I did read you were a pilates instructor and you're working in Bondi, But then I read you've left bonda and gone to Melbourne. Now what is your what is your current situation?
Anyone would think I had bipolar. I'm always making these decisions. Yeah, I did study pilates and I have got my qualification and I am moving to Melbourne. I've always wanted to move to albourn I've been in BONDEI for twenty five years and either it's changed or I'm getting old. I think a bit of both. So I've always loved Melbourne, being a London girl. So yeah, I may or may not teach pilates, I don't know, but I'm qualified in it.
It's a big step, though, to go from BONDAI to Melbourne. Melbourne a great place to visit, let's face it, but.
I just feels changed a lot. It's you know, it's full of young influences, and I've always found Melbourne very sophisticated city and exciting city. Sydney I think is boring, to be honest. It's beautiful but boring, and Melbourne there seems to be so much to do and I've got a better network in Melbourne.
You wrote that in BONDI you're a six out of ten. No.
I didn't like that. I Daily Mail wrote.
In Melbourne, You're nine out of ten.
No. I would never say that. That was a That was a good, very clickbait headline from the subs, and I just had to accept it was going to be a week of cringe when it came out. It's passed now until we brought it up.
You can't deflict it like that. You must have said it true, So.
I speak the truth. I didn't like that headline, and if you read the column, I didn't actually say those words.
Well, let's talk about the context of that. You feel that you did you feel in Bond Are you that you weren't as attractive as you wants?
I feel no. I don't really think it's about that so much being attractive. I just think that I no longer recognized Bond lie for the place but I think I'm just getting old. I just want to be somewhere where it's not all about active where twenty four hours a day and influencers. I just want to go where it's a proper city and there's more depth to it. And I think Bondla has been great. It's the longest
relationship I've had with anything in anywhere. But it's time to move on and I think it's important to evolve, and part of evolving is is a new life and I'm really excited about it. A lot of people from Bondi are actually moving to Adelaide's they watch out.
Well, I know, but then they've inflated the prices of it they come over. We're so unaffordable here in Adelaide now, prices of property of just since COVID when we have an influx of people coming back, coming back or moving to Adelaide, property prices have really escalated. So we know they're expensive in Sydney. But yeah, well, if you move to Melbourne you have to have a football team. You can't with that colleague.
Well I have a reason for that, because someone wrote, because I I put it out there to my to my Instagram followers who should I support And someone wrote Collingwood because they're the underdogs and everyone hates them and they're controversial. So I thought to myself, that sounds like a team I would get behind. So yeah, besides nice.
Colors, they're not the underdogs. They're the biggest team in Australia.
Well someone said they no one likes them and they're controversial or something along with the line.
That's true.
So I thought I can get behind someone who's a team that's controversial.
The Adelaide Crows, of course, but in Melbourne. My first memory is watching my father play footy in Country Victoria and he was wearing a black and white jumper, the same as the Collingwood jump. So when I was a little boy, I did varry for Collingwood. But moving to Adelaide black and white team is Port Adelaide and I played for another team and we hate black and white in a football since we hate it, So no, you can't go wrong with it, will you? Will you attend games?
There? You go? I haven't been to a game yet, but yes, I will be going to games. I will be throwing myself in Melbourne.
Life do you still have relationship? Is in England? Your mom's still alive.
Did your parents live in South France?
How exotic? As exotic as it sounds.
South of France, it's beautiful. I personally am not a big fan of France. I prefer Italy. England and France seemed to have very tense related I've never liked Paris that much. I've always thought London was way better. I prefer My sister lives in Italy. My parents live in France. But my mom's exotic. She's from Iran. She's a Persian princess.
A Persian princess. You tried to slip that.
One by us, it says it in my book.
Well I didn't. I didn't see that. Well, what's her story?
How did she end up in She's not literally a princess, but she came to England where she was very young and she yeah, she met my dad when she was very young. And yeah, she's from Tehran.
And was that before or after the downfall of the shower before?
So I think she really missed her life there.
Do you I have fascination about her family back there?
I think the older I get, I do, and it's a shame we can't talk about it. She never wanted to talk about it.
Really. See if you never met her parents.
I did. I met her father. I met her father. He was a very successful, influential man in Iran. He worked with the Shah. But yeah, it was they had a very tense relationship. He didn't live in England when we were growing up in London. He lived in France.
There's so much to talk about, but we're really here to talk about your book, and we've done everything but the Misfits to just give us a broader expansion of what's in the book and what do you hope to get from it?
Well, I hope that people who read my book will look, I've changed my life at my age, and I think a lot of people are too scared to change their lives and to reinvent themselves. But to me, it's harder to live in the past and not to change. I had to evolve. And no one talks about bipolar. We all talk about ADHD or you know, that seems to be the buzzword these days. But there's a lot of people who have bipolar and feel that they're stigmatized because
people with bipolar are seen as mad and crazy. But I feel like it can be a gift. I wrote my best selling books in record time. I have achieved a lot in mania. A lot of Sportsman Graham have bipolar and Winston Churchill, Vank, Winston bankof have bipolar. It it can give you immense creativity that can last days, months, years, but it also can bring a lot of sadness and depression. But as long as you understand that you can manage it.
It's getting the diagnosis, and a lot of people are diagnosed later in life, so you know it's okay not to be okay, And you know I've made my mistakes, and I made them very publicly, some of my mistakes, but I own that and I have no shame. I've had to work through that, and I hope that it
helps people who are maybe in the same boat. You don't need to be a high cler escort to make mammoths mistakes in your life and to feel shame at certain decisions, but you can get through it and realize that everyone's a bit mad.
Well, everyone is a bit mad. Is it hereditary though? Does it concerd you that it might be hereditary?
By Paula? It's caused by trauma. It can be caused by trauma, and it can be genetic.
Yes, what was the trauma that would of course yours?
Just just growing up and you know, there wasn't one single event I could I could point it to. But I think that, you know, a very strained relationship with my mother. I think was as a young girl was looking back, pretty traumatic.
What feedback if you had from this book, which is so different to your other books.
That's a great question. It's it's more, it's I've had a lot of people who have contacted me saying that they struggle with bipolar and addiction, and it's amazing btically men and I find that, you know, it makes me sad that men don't feel they can talk to anyone about that and they suffer in silence. And funnily enough, a lot of sex workers have contacting me saying that they have bipolar too, so much so are created a
WhatsApp group for a few of us. So it's interesting that that people are drawn into the sex industry with bipolar.
Maybe what's the name of the WhatsApp group?
Say that grand I cannot I cannot give that away. I cannot give that away, but I can add you if you.
Want, I think I'll be right. Thank you, thank you for the offer. It's been great chatting. I can see why you were so successful as a companion the tope. The book goes well for you and people understand you a little bit better. Mandy Goff is my guest. Folks. A book was called Misfit, The Unraveling of Samantha X. It's an Echo publication. Thank you so much for joining us.