SHE has been announced for the lead role in This Morning Sofa, which wowed viewers with her outspoken views on misogyny and sex.
And former reality star Ashley James has shown just how much fans can relate to her – sharing intimate personal battles to help others.
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Ashley James has become a hit with This Morning viewers for her outspoken views. Credit: Splash
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Ashley reveals how her first birth experience caused a number of ‘humiliating’ health problems Credit: Rex
Ashley always makes it clear that no topic is off limits.
Now the presenter has bravely revealed she went through eight months of ordeal after giving birth to son Alfie, now three – because she was unable to make love to her partner, advertising executive Tom Andrews.
Ashley, 37, who is also mum to Ada, 2, said: “I was expecting Tommy like a caveman.
“You know, ‘A man needs sex.’ And six months went by, seven months, eight months, and sometimes I’d try, and then he’d say, ‘Oh my God, are you crying?’
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“I’d say, ‘It just really hurts.’ “He was like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t want to hurt you.’
“It was the first time it dawned on me that men aren’t just guys looking for sex.”
With typical candor, she reveals that her first experience of giving birth caused a series of “humiliating” health problems, including incontinence and pain.
In the Made By Mammas podcast, Ashley explains how her pain was caused by a condition called vaginismus, which affects many women. It was caused by birth trauma, and she went to see a private physiatrist for pelvic health.
She said: “Basically all your muscles go stiff and you can’t control it, but it’s so easy to fix.
“All she did was a few massages and it was like she was healed.”
This morning Ashley James and Cat Deeley lead the glam at the 2024 National TV Awards as the stars hit the red carpet
‘I blamed myself’
Ashley’s career is now thriving, as is her relationship with Tom.
We revealed last week that she was screen-testing for the This Morning presenter and has already filmed with several male presenters as producers try to reverse a slump in ratings.
The influencer is already a regular commentator on the ITV show.
She recently made an impression when she subjected OnlyFans star Bonnie Blue to bragging about sleeping with “barely legal, 18-year-old girls”.
Viewers applauded Ashley’s condemnation of the sex worker, 25, for targeting teenagers and promoting misogynistic views, with one commenting: “So glad Ashley is standing this woman up.”
It also brought the program back into the headlines for the right reasons following the departure of scandal-hit co-hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.
However, Ashley’s heated exchange with Blue was clearly not driven solely by her desire to win a permanent spot on the This Morning couch.
Because she revealed on a podcast that she was assaulted by a friend at university – and later blamed herself.
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Ashley met partner Tom Andrews on a dating app – but has no plans to marry Credit: Instagram
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Ashley is already screen-testing to become the host of This MorningCredit: Eroteme
She said: “I was hypersexualized as a 14-year-old girl, but I felt like it was my problem.
“What did it was that while I was at university, something happened without my consent, which I have never talked about before.
“I blamed myself because I thought: ‘It was my fault because of my clothes, because I was drunk, because I put myself in that situation’ — and I didn’t tell anyone.
“I blamed myself and what’s worst, because I was such a people pleaser, I even wanted that person to still love me and be my friend.
“What we know now is that the more you tell young girls, ‘Don’t dress like that, your skirt is too short,’ what we’re doing is saying, ‘It’s up to you whether men sexualize your body, so you have to dress accordingly. team’.
“Ultimately, we know that men will kill women, regardless of whether they’re dressed appropriately or not, whether they’re going home the right way or not, whether they’re taking a taxi, whether they’re walking in the park.
There is no difference between a man’s and a woman’s sexual appetite, except for the fact that, socially, men are allowed to be sexual beings and women are not.
Ashley James
“It doesn’t matter how we dress or what we do or whether we’re drunk or not. It doesn’t and shouldn’t matter because we should really be telling guys, ‘You shouldn’t be sexually objectifying women, you shouldn’t be staring at women’.”
Ashley argues that women have the same sexual appetite as men – but historically they just haven’t been allowed to express it.
On female libido, she said: “There used to be an idea that men were more sexually active than women because they had testosterone – and that men couldn’t help it if they had casual sex or cheated on their wives.
“But now we know, because research is more advanced, that there really is no difference between male and female sexual appetite, other than the fact that, socially, men are allowed to be sexual beings and women are not.
“So what was really interesting was that they did all these different studies where, in some cases, they would ask men and women questions about their sex lives and whether they masturbated and all these things, knowing that other people would find out. Then they did it again, asking people but saying this was completely confidential.
“Women were the same, they were sexual like men.
“If you’re constantly telling women, ‘Don’t be like that, men don’t like women who do that, be woman material,’ and all these narratives that we’re told from a young age, it makes us feel like we’re men’s property and that we should be clean.”
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In recent years, Ashley is best known as the ‘influencer mom’, although she doesn’t like the termCredit: instagram/ashleylouisejames
‘Trolling really upset me’
Ashley’s outspoken views prove a breath of fresh air on This Morning and she has a past many viewers can relate to.
Despite bursting into the limelight in 2012 on the fourth series of Made In Chelsea — the E4 show about privileged young Londoners — Ashley lived off her excess and donned a posh accent.
Brought up in a “small town in the North East” by parents she describes as “very Geordie”, she got her first taste of the showbiz industry when she gained some work experience at Radio Cumbria aged 16.
Ashley appeared on Celebrity Big Brother 2018 before becoming a DJ performing at top clubs such as London’s Ministry of Sound.
In recent years, she has been best known as an “influencer mom”, although Ashley considers the term “derogatory” and says it has led to abuse online.
The trolling got so out of control last year that malicious followers reported her to social services for allegedly neglecting their children.
The false accusation, which was unfounded and immediately dismissed, was that she had drunk too much at a party.
Speaking on the Gentle Start podcast, Ashley said: “I was reported to social services for neglect and it all came back to this anonymous gossip website.
“That really upset me. As I told the social worker, I know how much my children are loved and I know that I am such a good mom.
“That’s one thing I never doubted.”
Amazingly, just a few years ago, Ashley had no interest in settling down or having children.
She had been single for six years and was living her best “Carrie Bradshaw life” when she reconnected with Tom via a dating app in 2019, after first meeting him at work ten years ago.
The couple now share a house in London with their two children.
But Ashley is in no rush to get married, explaining: “Long story short, I don’t like marriage.
“If I choose you every day, I’m with you because you make me happy.”
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Ashley won fans after taking OnlyFans model Bonnie Blue to task on This MorningCredit: Rex
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