Nicola Thorp at the Soap Awards. (Photo by Mike Marsland/Mike Marsland/WireImage)

Here’s a fun game. Let’s play ‘Red Carpet Bingo’.

If we want better films we need more female directors and more diversity in general

Google any coverage of a red carpet event and look out for the following phrases. Winner gets to hit their head against a brick wall.

‘Flashed the flesh’, ‘leggy’, ‘busty display’, ‘flaunts cleavage’, ‘revealing number’, ‘ample chest’, ‘frumpy’, ‘totally inappropriate’, ‘too tight’, ‘too baggy’, ‘left little to the imagination’.

And as a bonus, if you see a man’s appearance being described in any other way than ‘wore a suit’, then I will personally come over to your house and bang my own head against a brick wall of your choice.




While the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns are redressing the gender inequality in the world of entertainment and beyond, there remains a dark alley of the web where sexism thrives: the red carpet reports. And the effects of the toxic language within them are damaging not only for the individuals in the article, but for the individuals being targeted to read it.

Over the weekend a shift started happening. Journalist Tracy Lea Sayer was called out for her remarks in which she told a 17-year-old actress to ‘have some fun and flash some flesh.’

After the Twitter backlash, Lea Sayer apologised for not knowing the actress in question was ‘only 17’ and removed the comment – as if being over 18 made her fair game.

How ‘Worst Dressed’ lists still exist is quite beyond me. Award ceremonies should be a celebration of achievement, and some press coverage reduces them to yet another opportunity to tear down women.

I walked my second ever red carpet on Saturday night at the British Soap Awards, I was Coronation Street’s nominee for Best Newcomer.

I get nervous before walking in front of the cameras. I’ve read enough online articles to know that they are waiting for you to slip-up. In a post Page Three era, the mainstream media still continues its obsession with women’s breasts.

A low-cut dress creates a Pavlovian response within ‘nip-slip’ hungry photographers. And I did not want to be on the menu.

I’m proud to be part of the soap world, amid storytellers who tackle issue-based storylines like no other genre on television. A great night was had by all, and although I didn’t win my category, host Philip Schofield shook my hand, which is sort of the same thing.

On my journeys to and from the ceremony, I was followed to my car by a photographer who tried his damn best to get a photo of my nipples as I was putting on my seatbelt. And he would have succeeded if it wasn’t for the nipple covers I had bought the day before after an anxiety dream.

If my nipples were in any way visible through my white dress, I would be vilified by the press. I doubt any of my male colleagues had that same worry.



And before anyone starts chiming in with ‘but Nicola, there’s a massive difference between male and female nipples’… don’t worry, I’m fully aware. One keeps babies from starving to death. The other does not.

Upon returning to our hotel for the evening, another photographer tried to get photos down my top as I stepped out of my taxi. My 59-year-old father and a male colleague of mine had no choice but to act as human shields.

This is not a position a modern feminist wants to find herself in, trust me.

A mate of mine had a similar experience that night, with a pap attempting to get photos up her skirt. Some might say this is all part of the territory of playing a character in one of the nation’s favourite soaps.

It isn’t, if you’re a bloke. No one tried to get a sneaky shot up a trouser leg.

The morning after the awards, and with it come the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ dressed articles in various online media. I featured in both lists. Many people do. Fashion is subjective.

And as I read comments about my appearance, some kind, some not-so-kind, I felt sad. Not because these words were directed at me, but because they are directed at women everywhere. All. The. Time.

They ranged from looking ‘too old’ to criticism for ‘flaunting’ my cleavage and then complaints about not having ‘enough cleavage to flaunt’.

One user really didn’t need to say they had ‘seen more cleavage on an ironing board’, because the boys I went to high school with had already told me that in a number of more creative ways and quite frankly it’s a bloody miracle that any woman has the confidence to step out in public after the hell that is high school let alone a red carpet.


I felt beautiful and happy and isn’t that all anyone ever wants to feel? I loved that dress and I love my body and I love my boobs and it’s a bloody good job too because I’m the one who is going to be spending the rest of my life with them.

I read these comments, not to depress myself, but to remind myself that we still have a long way to come.

We must call out this kind of journalism, and these kinds of comments for the toxic sexism that they are. If we don’t question it, if we don’t challenge it, nothing will change.

Slutty if we show too much, frumpy if we show too little. We need to be building up each other’s confidence, not tearing it down.

Whether we’re on the red carpet or the school run, we should be celebrated.

And we should dress for ourselves, not for journalists.

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