A Place In The Sun presenter Jean Johansson says she has been reduced to tears after being told she was ‘not black enough, not white enough and too fat’ for jobs in previous years.
The telly talents also revealed she was recently knocked back by the UKs biggest talent agent.
Jean, who also hosts Channel 4’s Key To Fortune, admitted that rejection is something she has had it deal with throughout her life and says it still hurts.
Port Glasgow born Jean, who is married to ex Rangers and Charlton Athletic footballer and coach Jonatan, said: “Rejection is something I've always had to deal with since being a model, and in those days it was like, ‘not tall enough, not white enough, not black enough, too fat, too small, too thick’, and they just told you, and you left the room with your book and went to the next casting. I used to stand outside the room and cry at 15 and 16, but by 17 and 18, it's like, ‘Okay, next’. So I'm very, very thick skinned now. I learned that in a harsh way, but I'm so grateful for it.”
Jean who spoke about her life on podcast H1THR admitted she still gets regular knockbacks and give herself permission to grieve over them.
She said: “There was an agent that I had coveted for years and years and years, and I finally got a meeting with them, the biggest sort of talent agent in London. And I went and met them, and thought the meeting went really well, and thought these are the ones that are really going to take me to that household name, that next level. And they just passed. It's just an email, ‘Not the right time Jean. You know, we'll come back to you, but you're not for us.”
She added: “There's always ones as well where it's like, Oh, what did I do wrong there? But now I'm not the 15 year old crying outside the casting room anymore. I can sort of go ‘they weren't for me.’ Yeah, it hurts. And I think a big message that I want to give today is that allow yourself that space. You know, when you don't get a job, you're allowed to greet over it. Yeah, you're allowed to phone your friends and bitch, you're allowed to lose sleep that night, then get over it. I hate this, like ‘You're in the wrong space. You're not allowed to grieve. You're not allowed to be upset, like you didn't get it for a reason. It didn't happen because it wasn't meant to, bigger things for you.’
“That's all true, but can I have a couple of days, just to mourn and grieve that agent that I wanted to be with for twenty years.”
