Katriona O’Sullivan has discussed the realities of growing up surrounded by addiction in her debut book, Poor, which instantly became a best-seller.
Now she is back with her second memoir, Hungry, which will discuss her relationship with her body. How abuse, food, the world around her and becoming a mother has changed her relationship with how she views herself.
We sit down with her for the May issue of VIP Magazine, as we discuss being so brave with not just one but two books.
“I’ve been through a lot in my life, so to have that all laid out and have to read it in three days, that’s difficult. My voice breaks a few times in Poor and I think it breaks a few times in Hungry too,” she tells us about recording the audio books.
While we call her courageous, she admits: “I don’t feel that courageous”.
“I’ve always been very outgoing as a person; my nickname as a child was Mouth! I can’t be any different than this, and I think when you have the privileges that I have, you have a responsibility to try to make things a bit better for other people,” she tells us.
“You might look at my life and think she’s not had a lot of privileges, but I have a university qualification; I own my house; I have a safe job; I have a loving family. I’ve achieved happiness and security, and I feel like when you have that, you have, maybe, a responsibility to look at the world and go how can we make sure other people are getting that too.
“So I don’t think it’s necessarily courage, I think I just feel a sense of responsibility to help others. If more of us were a bit braver, a bit more honest, and a bit more helpful, then maybe we wouldn’t have loads of girls like me still struggling the way they are.”
Read our full interview with Katriona in the May issue of VIP Magazine which is on shelves now