First Dates star Cici Coleman recalls being broke and ‘ashamed’ to ask for help

First Dates star Cici Coleman has opened up about how she became ‘broke’ before being cast on the show, admitting she was too ‘ashamed’ to ask for help.

The TV star has won many fans during her years on the Channel 4 dating show, and is absolutely obsessed with her job – but she’s open about not always having had an easy time of it.

Opening up on life before the show, Cici told Metro.co.uk ahead of the new episode of First Dates Hotel: ‘I was studying acting in America. This was about 11 years ago now. And I just got broke. Basically I spent all my money on the school fees and thought I could do it and was too ashamed, I was too embarrassed, my pride was too big to ask for help.

‘So I got myself in a position where I literally had no money in my bank account, there was nothing. And I had to pay rent the next day, and I just thought, “I don’t know how I’m going to make this work. I have no idea what to do right now.”‘

However, when she moved back to England, things took a turn for her.

‘I started waitressing in a restaurant in Soho and I absolutely hated it! I think I was just like, “I wanna be an actress and now I’ve got to be a waitress to pay for life!” And then about a year into working there, that’s when First Dates came in, they were one of my tables, I was serving them, and they said, “We’re casting for this show” and it kind of went from there,’ she recalled.

‘It just made all the hard times and everything I’d been through, even though at that point it was just a conversation, it made it all worth it and I thought, “God, now I know what the high feels like. Because the low is s**t!”‘

Reflecting on her experience, Cici went on: ’11 years later, you learn those lessons that actually asking for help is the bravest thing you can do, it doesn’t make you any less of a person.

‘But at that particular time I never wanted to be a problem or bother. It was a tough time but, my god has it humbled me on another level and it’s given me this empathy and understanding of what other people [go through].

‘I think it’s very easy to look at people who work in TV and [people] think we all have this fabulous lifestyle, we go to all these lovely award ceremonies, but we’re all normal people at the end of the day, we all have normal lives, just a few weeks of the year we work on a television show.’

First Dates Hotel returns to Channel 4 tonight, with plenty more singletons hoping to find love.

Giving an insight into filming, Cici explained: ‘We film obviously as much as we can, but we have to have a cut off.

‘The guests have to have some privacy. I could be wrong but I think it’s an 11pm cut-off, and that’s when we don’t serve drinks to the room anymore, we say, “You guys do what you need to do” and the cameras are off, they’re covered. So whatever goes down, goes down!’

Meanwhile, after so many years filming together, her First Dates co-stars are like ‘family’ to her, especially barman Merlin, who recently opened up to us about how the team are supporting him amid his cancer treatment.

‘Merlin’s family,’ Laura explained.

‘We’ve worked together for such a long time now. He’s seen me through ups and downs, relationship highs, relationship lows, and he’s a very good person to talk to. The guy that he is behind that bar, is Merlin. He is the kind of person you could tell a secret to and you know that secret would be safe.

‘He is a genuinely beautiful human, so what he’s going through at the moment has a knock-on effect to everybody. You just hope for the best. It’s been hard, but all you can do is just support and the little check-ins and just the little messages I get from him, like “I’m okay,” I’m just like, “Yes! Okay, that’s a good thing.”‘

As for her favourite memories filming? ‘Working with Miss Laura [Tott], she is the funniest person I know and whatever mood you’re in, she manages to say something that gets you to the point of, not even laughing, but tear-laughing. She just has this brilliant way with people and I think my moments with her are the most memorable because she always makes me laugh.’

Thinking back on her years on the job, Cici went on: ‘I think we’re coming up to nine years. It’s mad how it just feels fresh every time you do it. You don’t film all year round, we do a chunk. So that Italy one was five weeks abroad and that’s all we did that year.

‘So you’ve got five weeks of this amazing, incredible job where you’re working with such talented people and the guests just feed you, they remind you of what love looks like, because we can all get a little bit sceptical. Especially being single, you can forget what a nice romantic story looks like. So every time I do it, I actually have that light bulb moment of, “This is so cool.”‘

First Dates Hotel continues tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.

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