We’ve been talking for three hours. My preordered taxi has been and gone. Our tea has twice gone cold. She walks me to the tube station (we get papped), and an elderly gentleman stops her for a photo in the street. Not, apparently, because she’s famous (he didn’t seem to know who she was), but because he wanted a photo with a woman that beautiful.
“Does that happen to you all the time?” I ask. “Yes”, she shrugs. “One for his wank bank.” We cackle the whole way down the street.
On a more serious note, she tells me she is excited to be officially launching ‘Move For Your Mind’ this month, a radically inclusive exercise programme for anyone looking to reap the mental health benefits of movement in a fun, supportive environment. Jameela tells me people are often excluded from exercise “because of rampant fatphobia, ableism, racism and a general elitism that exists within the exercise industry, which feels more married to the diet industry than ever before”. These events – including a virtual session with Jameela and her trainer, Al Jackson, on October 10th for World Mental Health Day; and a community self-defence walk in London on October 29th – are a safe space for those who want to find joy, rather than punishment, in moving their bodies.
As we’re saying goodbye, she adds: “You know how I told you that everything I do is to atone for my 12-year-old self? Well, I feel I’ve achieved that. I feel I blew all the whistles. I healed the eating disorder. I said I was sorry to her. And I get letters from so many women telling me I’ve helped them, too. So now, everything I do is for the 85-year-old me. Everything I eat, every walk I go on, every holiday I take and every shag I have. I want her to look back and thank me, because all I’ve ever done is look back and say sorry. And now I’m done with that.”
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