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Samantha Brick Fights Beauty Backlash On ITV's This Morning (PICTURES, VIDEO)

Huffington Post UK  |  By Posted: 5/04/2012 11:27 Updated: 13/04/2012 12:04

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She’s dominated Twitter, Facebook and most of the news channels all week, and today Samantha Brick fought her corner on ITV’s This Morning.

After claiming her life has been blighted by her beauty, Brick appeared on the sofa alongside psychologist Emma Kenny to talk about the backlash.

Two days ago, Brick had revealed in the Daily Mail that even when dressed down in a "demure, albeit pretty, top" she attracts the ire of fellow women and "snarky comments".

Scroll down for slideshow images of Samantha Brick on This Morning and shots of the journalist at home with her husband

Deer in the headlights: But Samantha Brick maintains she has no regrets

She recounts the time the pilot of her plane sent her a bottle of champagne in admiration for her beauty, how barmen frequently wave away her money when she tries to pay for drinks and the occasion a stranger in the street randomly presented her with a bouquet of flowers.

She wrote: "Whenever I’ve asked what I’ve done to deserve such treatment, the donors of these gifts have always said the same thing: my pleasing appearance and pretty smile made their day."

But today Brick appeared to backpedal somewhat, telling This Morning hosts Eamon Holmes and Ruth Langsford: "I'm 41. Those things don't happen to me every day of the week. These are half a dozen encounters that have happened over 41 years.

"You'll appreciate the feature is 1,200 words, it's a compression of all my experiences into that. That's one tiny aspect of who I am as a human being and I've put it into a feature. Of course I'm not surprised that people think 'What an arrogant person'."

"So what you're actually then saying is that this is a very minority of experiences?" asked Kenny.

"These are experiences that have happened to me without question," shot back Brick.

"But on a minor level?" asked Kenny, before Brick replied: "Well, no."

"So on a major level?" persisted Kenny, leaving Brick to admit there were "shades of grey".

Langsford weighed in with the suggestion Brick may give off "an air of arrogance and superiority", adding "maybe that's why the women don't like you, not because you're pretty or beautiful?"

But Brick held her ground, stating: "Women are not nice to each other. They always stab each other in the back. In my experience anyway."


Judge and jury: Eamon Holmes and Ruth Langsford on ITV's This Morning

She added: "Perhaps people are mistaking self-confidence for arrogance."

Kenny said: "It is the suggestion that women, generically and in society don't like you because you're pretty. From my point of view, I have never felt, as a woman, dislike because of the way that I look and I have definitely not disliked other women for it."

Dressed in jeans and a modest navy blue top, Brick looked momentarily tongue-tied when Holmes looked her dead in the eye and asked her if she believed she was beautiful.

Recovering her composure, Brick answered: "Do I think I'm attractive? Yes, I do."

When Holmes pressed her, asking her hypothetically how many men out of ten would fancy her at a dinner party, Brick turned coy and refused to answer before quipping: "All of them Eamon!"

Bizarrely, Brick told how she'd been inspired to write the piece after encountering a female acquaintance as she walked her dogs in the French countryside, where she lives with her husband Pascal Rubinat.

Samantha Brick: 'I Know I'm Beautiful Because My Daddy Told Me So' (PICTURES)
QUIZ: Who Said It: Samantha Brick Or Derek Zoolander?
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Brick told how she waved at the woman, whose children frequently stay at her home, but got no response, recalling: "I thought, 'blimey'."

Holmes responded by wondering aloud whether the woman had even seen her: "Maybe she's like me and she needs glasses?"

When asked whether she regretted writing the piece, she was adamant: "No I don't. I pitched the article under the header 'Why does the sisterhood not like attractive women?' and I stand by that.

"Women do not like attractive women.

"Over the past 48 hours I've had thousands of emails to my personal account, not to mention all the rubbish on Twitter.

"And women have fallen into two camps. They've either gone: 'You're off your head, you're a nutter, what are you on about, you're really arrogant', or they've said to me 'You've reiterated the story of my life, thank you, It's really difficult when you are perceived as being attractive, other women do not like it'."

A nervous-looking Brick added: "In hindsight I wish I'd written it more tongue-in-cheek."

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She’s dominated Twitter, Facebook and most of the news channels all week, and today Samantha Brick fought her corner on ITV’s This Morning. After claiming her life has been blighted by her bea...
She’s dominated Twitter, Facebook and most of the news channels all week, and today Samantha Brick fought her corner on ITV’s This Morning. After claiming her life has been blighted by her bea...
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I was at an audition recently, a dance audition for a part in a major TV show, and it is fair to say there was no love between any of the women in the room. Which leads me into the million dollar question: Where has sisterhood gone? The patriarchal society wins again - but only because we let it.
Andrea Mann

Andrea Mann: There's a Little Bit of Samantha Brick in all of Us

If Brick is 'deluded' - not about her looks, but in her understanding of why the world responds to her as it does - then I'd argue that her 'delusion' has been shared by nearly all of us to a greater or lesser extent.
Olivia Rose

Olivia Rose: The Sisterhood Doesn't Want You Anyway Samantha Brick - and it Isn't Because We're Jealous...

I believe that I am a beautiful woman and I feel no shame in saying that out loud, in public, online or anywhere else... I suppose Samantha Brick and I are quite similar. The difference between us however, is that where I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Samantha Brick seems to think that beauty is a finite measurement.
Emma Gray

Emma Gray: Samantha Brick's Daily Mail Piece Misses The Point -- But So Does The Backlash

The issue, which Brick doesn't seem to realize, is that being valued -- or devalued -- for your looks alone isn't good for any women of any shape, size or level of conventional attractiveness. By running this piece, Brick and her editor(s) only underscored that point.

 
 
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JamieLeeBalyeat
6 Fans
 
03:57 on 25/04/2013
She probably really is pretty in real life; some people just aren't photogenic. But I don't see how bashing her is a good idea, it only proves her point, no? It certainly doesn't help anything.

Besides, people like Jen Davis sharing their experiences of being judged based on their looks are basically doing the same thing; but they are being applauded for it, not ridiculed. I do think that there is a problem; as indicated by these studies, with people judging other people simply based on their looks, both for being pretty or for being ugly. There's other articles out there that prove the same thing. Either way, it's wrong.

I wrote an article related to this a little while ago trying to explore the different aspects of the skinny vs. overweight ordeal:
Definition of Beauty: A Defense and Reprimand of the Fashion Industry and Those Who Criticize It-Regarding the Problems of Obesity, Anorexia, and Self Respect
mtgrl.wordpress.com
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hettyproud
0 Fans
11:33 on 23/07/2012
She sould seriously consider having work done on her body. Her face is melting rapidly. A serious facelift will be necessary in a very short time http://www.womenrepublic.co.uk/beauty/plastic/face_lift.htm.

Also, I cannot help but notice her belly. Please take a look at the number of procedures Miss brick can get http://www.tummytuckcost.com/tummy-tuck-before-and-after/ to tuck in that bit of wayward lovehandle.
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hettyproud
0 Fans
11:27 on 23/07/2012
She needs to get a tummy tuck at least, a cheap one http://www.tummytuckcost.com/ and then some Mexican facelift.
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hettyproud
0 Fans
11:50 on 23/07/2012
sorry about this HP. I thought I mis-clicked "post" but as it turns out, it's here. You may kindly delete this one.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
modelboss
27 Fans
16:16 on 10/04/2012
Should have gone to Specsavers lol !!!
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Mac Howard
Thank god we got convicts, you got the puritans
540 Fans
01:57 on 10/04/2012
This is a send up, right? Either that or you need to find some better photographs.
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harrisonaard1
3 Fans
11:37 on 08/04/2012
Attractive!? I don't think so. Neurotic, self-obsessed and high maintenance? Probably. Hard work and good results gets the job done not nice nails and make up and back-biting.
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penelope48
0 Fans
11:15 on 08/04/2012
What on earth is the world coming to, this woman has a pleasant face but in my world not a 'beauty' she has issues about self esteem and suggests woman don't like her because of the way she looks, come on, she comes across as arrogant and a bit loopy, she must be giving out negative signals to woman, to keep away, woman have got too much going on in their own lives, to get mixed up with a woman like this, she would be hard work to have a friendly relationship with. Maybe this is all a publicity stunt to get noticed, as she can't any way else.
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Annie Towne
12 Fans
07:00 on 08/04/2012
Beautiful? Catherine Deneuve is beautiful, Ingrid Bergman was beautiful. This Brick chick has a pleasant face, but that's about it. No doubt her coy and coquettish air gets her farther with certain men in certain situations than dignity would, but there is absolutely nothing about her appearance that is exceptional. What may be exceptional is her ability to create from nothing a small, profitable, fire-storm that keeps her in the public eye for a bit, but ultimately, narcissism is a bore. Perhaps it is this quality, not her supposed gorgeousness, that makes women dislike her. (I particularly liked the bit about how a woman who may or may not have even seen her from afar failed to wave, thereby proving Brick's point about being hated. Remember Jane from "Coupling"? 'Nuff said.)
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ae12wrangell
NEVER trust a lawyer/lawfirm whose phone is 1-800
4313 Fans
19:43 on 08/04/2012
Ms. Brick's comment on how 'overwhelmingly beautiful she is' is 100% crap. But it does remind me of a song written about somebody else; 'You're so Vain'. Vanity is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Ask Donald Trump, he can confirm it.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
zevonia
418 Fans
02:32 on 08/04/2012
Having read another article by Ms Brick, I think I can see where her problem lies. In the article Ms Brick said she'd rather spend her lunch hour flirting with the boss to get ahead then "gossiping" with her female co-workers. I know if I worked with a woman who was manipulating the boss to get a better position and never socialized with me or the other women in the office, I wouldn't like her no matter what she looked like.
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dandsbell
4 Fans
23:18 on 07/04/2012
What's all this womenstuff? I like people! All of them - they're fascinating!
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katefromthecouncilestate
406 Fans
21:19 on 07/04/2012
I prefer brunettes.
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AccidentalHindu
55 Fans
 
19:30 on 07/04/2012
I do think she is pretty (no need to counter her outlandish article with equally outlandish statements about her being ugly or anything like that). And she is far prettier on tv, and I presume in-person, than in the photographs the Daily Mail chose to publish.

That said -- I really despise this nonsense that women hate other women and are always competing and having a go at each other. In my 40+ years, I've not noticed this happening particularly among women, but when it happens among boys and men we just call it healthy competition and when it happens among girls and women it gets called cattiness or worse. And I'm relying on more than 'half a dozen' experiences to further that notion.

As far as the backlash, I took a quick look at the comments on the original article and the ones here, and I see as many male-seeming screen names and adrogynous ones as I did female-seeming ones. The notion she is now peddling that all her hate mail has been from women seems to be just the next sally in her bid to extend her 15 mins of demi-fame.
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gimmeanamethen
saying it like it is
80 Fans
 
18:41 on 07/04/2012
it's like kathy burke's character in gimme gimme gimme lynda le hughes.

she kept saying she was beautiful when in reality she was a dawg! lol
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fredgladys
Your Micro-bio is empty, I know, stop nagging.
744 Fans
15:19 on 07/04/2012
I can only believe that this whole story is a beat up or a spoof.
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TheloveYouth
4 Fans
 
15:04 on 07/04/2012
It's just excuse to be in the news. I can bet there are hundreds of females far better looking than Samantha and not looking for controversies. Probably she is the one going extra mile to grab attention!!!!!
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