Katie Piper on Jailhouse Mums and how Channel 4 were "ahead of the curve" on diversity

Piper spoke with Radio Times magazine about the show, as well as her own perspectives on the power of documentaries, diversity on-screen and grappling with contentious issues.

What’s the view from your sofa?

We have a tiny snug in our house with a sofa, a rug and a flat-screen telly. In theory, it’s where we are supposed to watch films and chill out. It never happens. If we watch telly, it’s in the kitchen on the more uncomfortable sofa. That’s just where we’ve gravitated to!

You have two young children. Do you ever get to choose what to watch?

We don’t even bother when they’re awake! In the evening, my husband [carpenter Richard Sutton] is very much in control because he’s good and quick with the remote! If I get trusted with it, I accidentally cancel everyone’s recordings.

What do you enjoy watching?

We love a real mishmash of content. We just finished For Her Sins on Channel 5. We like to binge but always fall asleep by 10pm – if we’re getting wild on a Saturday, we will watch two episodes... then we’re exhausted the next day. We also like light relief – Gogglebox, First Dates and Mo Gilligan’s latest show!

In 2008 you were the victim of an acid attack, a story you told in Katie: My Beautiful Face. What did you learn about the power of documentaries?

I came to documentary-making first as a contributor. That programme had such a good response that Channel 4 wanted to continue making documentaries with me. At that time, I had set up a charity, I was meeting lots of people who were telling me their stories; they had been born with different genetic conditions, different facial disfigurements. That became the series My Beautiful Friends and I moved away from being the subject. Channel 4 were ahead of the curve – we weren’t seeing as much diversity on telly in terms of disfigurement and disability.

You once said, "If I must accept that I have permanently changed, then it’s the industry I must now change." How would you assess your contribution to on-screen diversity?

Every single person who shows up authentically – who just tells it as it is and resists the temptation to Photoshop and edit – contributes to that [diversity]. All this curated, edited content conditions us. If you can be authentic, do it – because it really helps.

After such a life-changing attack, how did you regain your self-confidence?

The reason why it’s a cliché that you get more resilient as you get older is because it’s true! Life experiences call on you to dig deep. Even when stuff goes wrong, it’s really powerful. It’s not a bad thing. You start to trust yourself that, whatever happens, you’ll have the ability to be malleable, that you’re not untouchable but that you’ll be OK.

In your documentary series Katie Piper’s Jailhouse Mums, you travel across the USA meeting women who are pregnant or have given birth behind bars. What did you learn about America’s prison system?

America incarcerates the largest number of women in the world, and 60 per cent of women are in jail for drug-related offences. You’re seeing women who are used as mules by men and criminal gangs, women who are affected by addiction themselves. Some would have been born addicted, their parents using drugs during pregnancy. The people I meet are women like you and me, whose lives have unravelled. The common thread is that the child is always the victim.

Some critics who have seen the documentary say that these women should not be afforded empathy because they’ve committed a crime. How do you grapple with that as a broadcaster?

Some of the contributors would tell you stories about when they were born. How by the age of three, their mum was letting drug dealers rape them in exchange for drugs. It’s naive to go through life thinking, "That would never be me. I would never make that choice." A lot of these women never had a choice. My biggest hope for this series is that it humanises this part of the population, gives an insight into a world that you think you know about, but you don’t. It helps people create a bit more empathy.

Katie Piper's Jailhouse Mums is available to stream now on UKTV Play. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.

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