I was shamed for Matt Cardle affair on X Factor – but he faced no consequences, says former show stylist
FORMER X Factor stylist Grace Woodward has claimed her falsely reported romance with show winner Matt Cardle ruined her career.
The 46-year-old was the fashion director on the hit ITV series in 2010 when One Direction and were catapulted into stardom.
During the series, it was reported that Grace had enjoyed a romance eventual winner .
Now in an interview with The Sun on Sunday, Grace told how the reports came about after the singer spent a night in her London flat, turning up in her neighbourhood unannounced.
And while he escaped without consequence and went on to date show dancer Sarah Robinson, Grace said she felt belittled by the show’s production team and executives for the rest of the series.
The fashion stylist admitted she didn't know how the report came to light and made no suggestion that Matt was responsible for it going public either.
She said: "To this day I don’t know how it became public knowledge when all that happened was Matt stayed at my flat once. I have even wondered if I was set up because of the way it happened.
"Things at that point became difficult for me. I felt like I was being shamed on a daily basis.
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"I can remember Simon stopping me in the corridor and telling me, ‘You’ve changed.’ It was a really strange moment, because that was it, he didn’t say anything else.
"He didn’t care enough to speak to me about it properly.
“Then two of the executives stormed up to me and yelled, ‘This ends now’. It was really unfair because there was nothing to end.
"We weren’t in a relationship — we’d never even been on a date — but they didn’t care about that.
"No one ever asked for my side of the story or if I was OK about it. I was deeply shamed and I felt it was all my fault, when in fact I didn’t do anything wrong.
"I still feel deeply shamed today. But to my knowledge, there were no repercussions for Matt. Days later I was told he was dating one of the dancers. The attitude there was, ‘Boys will be boys.’
“Weeks later Matt had a bad week on the show and sickness was blamed for his poor performance, but I was told he had partied until the early hours one night with a member of Syco staff.
“But that wasn’t a problem. I told Simon long before the show. But he still let him perform.
“He gave him a bit of a roasting in his comments but that was the end of the matter. If it had been one of the girls, I feel they would have been made to pay a much higher price.”
Grace added: "After the story about Matt and I having an affair, the way some of the other men involved in the show treated me changed."
'MY NEARLY DESTROYED ME'
After the show finished in December, Grace was asked to return for the 2011 series.
She told bosses she would sign up only if she was paid a higher fee — which they rejected.
Weeks later she was shocked when it was falsely reported she had been fired from the show.
And she told how the fall-out from the reports irrevocably damaged her reputation and ended her career.
The stylist explained that she went on to suffer a nervous breakdown, and even attempted suicide.
Grace, a campaigner for Women’s Aid, said: “After that I appeared on one more series of Britain’s Next Top Model but I wasn’t the same person. I felt traumatised, and I have felt like that for ten years.
“The X Factor might be gone now, but I’m speaking out because I worry that the misogynistic, exploitative culture has morphed rather than vanished.
“It’s taken me a long time to get to this point to be able to talk about this. But I want to, because if people, especially women, don’t speak out about how they are treated it becomes normal.
“My shame nearly destroyed me. I wasn’t a weak person when I signed up for the show — I was a strong woman at the pinnacle of my career. But the show was a vortex, a black hole.
“My experience on it broke me and left my career in tatters. And I wasn’t ready for that. No one warned me. I wish to this day I’d never gone on the show.
“So I want to give that warning now. No one should ever have to accept their boundaries being crossed or compromise for a job."
In light of her claims, an X Factor spokesman called the allegations unsubstantiated and said: "The well-being of everyone involved in any of our programming is paramount.
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“We have thorough and robust duty-of-care protocols in place to provide support for anyone who may need it, including psychologists on hand to provide expert opinion.
“If we are made aware of any concerns, we treat the issue seriously and investigate immediately.”
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