Don’t slam Stacey Solomon: You would do exactly the same as her if you could

Stacey wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth (Picture: @staceysolomon)

Reading the comments, I felt sick to my stomach.

She’s an attention seeker… You only have to come across this page & K Price to see they freeload… even making money from there [sic] children… Stacey needs to read the room tbh… She doesn’t live in the real world anymore.

Given how painful I found those words, I cannot imagine how Stacey Solomon, who these comments were aimed at, felt when she saw them.

And what was the 33-year-old Loose Woman’s crime? Posting pictures of a rather fabulous looking holiday on her social media account.

Several of Stacey’s 5.7million Instagram followers took umbrage with the fact that she, her hubby Joe Swash and their five children had jetted off to the luxurious Regnum Carya hotel in Turkey.

Stacey made it clear in her social media posts that the break, which costs thousands of pounds at this time of year, was discounted and made sure to mark all of her photos as ads, as she is legally required to.

Yet her ‘fans’ were quick to point out that in a cost-of-living crisis, the photos of the blended family in ‘paradise’ were tone deaf. More than one pointed out that they could never afford a holiday like that – others said that the cost, which one person claimed was £47,000, was more than some people’s annual wage.    

For a celebrity who has always built her brand on being relatable to her fans, it must have been devastating to read.

In fact, it got to her so much that the owner of the infamous Pickle Cottage posted an Instagram story saying: ‘if me sharing our holiday doesn’t make you feel good then unfollow or just mute me or something.’

All I can say is, poor Stacey. Why on earth should she be subject to such vile trolling just because she has accepted a discounted trip to treat her family? Would you not do the same?

I certainly would. Life is for living and taking chances when they come up. And if the trip did cost nigh-on £50,000, all the more reason to grasp it with both hands.

Stacey wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth. When she first appeared on our screens, auditioning for the sixth series of The X Factor in 2009, she was a teenager, a single mum. I bet, back then, she couldn’t have even imagined going on a holiday that cost tens of thousands of pounds.

It would have been so easy for her, like so many of the auditionees we saw, to fade out of our memories and the public eye within months.

But then, the following year, she appeared on I’m a Celebrity and, as she completed various, gruesome trials and we got to know her, people began to fall in love with her disarmingly, ditzy personality.

She became so popular, she was crowned Queen of the Jungle.  

Since then, she has risen like a shining star.

Yet, despite her becoming one of Britain’s most famous faces, Stacey has always remained a mother first and a celebrity second.

And she is clearly trying to give her children the best childhood she can – and, on this occasion, that includes a 5* holiday. Why can nobody just accept how amazing that is – for their whole family?

When I worked as a journalist for national publications, I was offered trips to various places and hotels in order to review them. Nothing on the scale of Stacey’s trip, of course, ours were much humble. The Isle of Man, Gran Canaria, Spain…

Sadly, as a freelancer, those offers have come to an end now – but if I did still have the chance, for me and my family to go on them, of course I would still take them. No matter what anyone thought.

I want my children, Theo, five, and Immy, three, to have amazing experiences, to see as much of the world as they can, to have incredible memories with me and their dad, Tom. 

Surely all parents do? 

Times are unquestionably hard now, and have been for a long time.

With mortgages spiralling out of control and energy prices only just starting to go down, people are lucky if they can afford a couple of nights away this summer, let alone anything remotely extravagant.  

But that is no reason to turn on each other.  

A lot of people get perks with their jobs – fancy gym memberships, work trips abroad, meals at upmarket restaurants, bottles of champagne at Christmas. Are we going to begrudge them those things too?

Or people who have a win, big or small, in the lottery? Or come into an inheritance? Do they all deserve to be verbally abused too?

The world isn’t fair and it makes me angry – no, furious – that on a daily basis some people have to lie awake at night, barely able to breathe, as they wonder how they will feed their children the next day.

Or have to leave an exhausting, full-day shift at work and head straight to a food bank because their wage isn’t enough to cover their bills.

But that isn’t Stacey’s fault.

She has worked hard to achieve what she has and opportunities that come up as a result of this, she is perfectly entitled to. Without comment, criticism or question from anyone else.

All too often, people think just because you are in the public eye, to whatever extent, they can say what they like to them and it doesn’t matter. But it does. It really does.

From what I know of her, Stacey is a lovely woman and a fantastic mother. She just needs to keep doing what she is doing – without listening to anyone else.

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Stacey Solomon received backlash this week for taking her family on a luxury holiday and posting about it on social media.