Katie Hopkins is a very controversial figure in the UK. She has a lot of nicknames, and a reputation for being loud and opinionated. She's a bit of a narcissist, but she's also very opinionated, and her opinions can have a lot to do with it. In this episode of Value Entertainment's new podcast, we sat down with Katie Hopkins to talk about her views on women who don't like exercise too much, feminism, and Brexit.
00:00:00.00030 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start. Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, touch the stars up above. Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
00:00:17.260I'm Patrick Bedeby, host of Value Entertainment. In today's sit down, I have a conversation with Katie Hopkins, a very controversial figure in UK where we cover Brexit, we cover Trump, we cover Nigel Farage.
00:00:28.180Look, this is a great episode for somebody that doesn't really know what's going on in EU. She gives you a complete different perspective of what's really taking place with Brexit.
00:00:36.100So one of the things I want to do with the Value Entertainment audience is kind of get us educated on what's happening around the world. I know a lot of times it's a lot of US interviews we do.
00:00:43.420I decided to go to London. We are in London right now and meet with somebody who I think every time she tweets something, half of UK goes crazy on what she says.
00:00:54.220She's got a lot of different nicknames, a lot of things people call her. Katie Hopkins. We're going to talk about people who don't like exercise too much.
00:01:03.520We're going to talk a little politics. We're going to talk a little bit about moms, maybe a little bit of feminism, a little bit of taxes, Brexit, a little bit of all that stuff today with Katie Hopkins.
00:01:11.740Katie, thank you so much for making the time. I really enjoyed the latte we had earlier.
00:01:19.000You are amazing. But it's not coffee, right? No, you don't drink coffee. So we've had to slightly backpedal on that, that it definitely wasn't a coffee that I gave you.
00:01:28.120And what was interesting is Katie says, you know, I have a tendency of losing things. I just have a tendency of leaving things behind.
00:01:34.740I said, I'm so embarrassed to say, I just lost my wallet. And she says, no. So she was kind enough.
00:01:40.960We called the driver. She's talking to the driver and the people. They're just a whole different experience.
00:01:44.360But we found your wallet. We found my wallet. We found your wallet. And that's the instant thing is when I have somebody who's now an instant friend, I will fight like a little lioness to solve their problems.
00:01:55.760That was amazing seeing you in action, by the way. See, that's the stuff that people don't see behind camera on how somebody is. That was just fascinating to see that.
00:02:03.120No, but I'll fix it. If there's a problem, I can fix it.
00:02:05.320So why don't we get into it? I look at people and I study personalities. I'm curious. I'm so curious by how people are and what made them the way they are.
00:02:14.460You're somebody that's, you seem very comfortable in your own skin and the opinions that you, you say things that rattles a lot of people out there.
00:02:23.180Before going into some of your opinions, this is a simple question for you. If you and I were in high school together, you're 16, 17. I'm 16, 17. Who's Katie Hopkins?
00:02:30.840At high school, 16, 17, Katie Hopkins is, never talk about yourself in the third person, right, is finding school pretty easy.
00:02:41.820So it's not hard to get straight A's as it was then before you had A stars. I'm in the netball team. I've done my grade eight violin, my grade eight piano.
00:02:52.200Stuff's not hard for me in terms of doing, getting the grades I'm supposed to get and getting the marks I'm supposed to get and having certificates for my parents to put on the wall.
00:03:02.520And I'm walking to and from school every day. I have a normal family house with a mum and dad that are still together now, amazingly, all these years later.
00:03:11.280I've always been together. Mum's a housewife and my father worked on the electrical pylons, like the overhead cable.
00:03:20.020So super normal girl. And my high school was run by nuns, which is the one thing.
00:03:46.940Who decided nuns could teach? Like, no one ever decided that for monks, particularly.
00:03:50.280Never had boys' schools run by monks. But anyway, yes, I went to a convent girl's school and I was never allowed to be the Virgin Mary for any number of reasons.
00:04:01.460But at the Christmas play, you could only be Virgin Mary if you were a Catholic.
00:04:05.400And I had my, so I'm left-handed. I used to, Sister Bede, Form 3, I still remember her.
00:04:12.940She used to tie my left hand up behind my back because good people wrote with their right hand.
00:04:19.000Because good people wrote with their right hand.
00:04:20.280Yeah, I'm only 42 as well. I'm telling stories like I'm 68.
00:04:58.500So one thing, at 5 to 5, you'd be sat down. And I'd be sat down, my sister, my mom, and then my dad would sit down at 5 o'clock, dinner. Always. No change. 5 o'clock dinner.
00:05:20.660Not at all. And certainly with my kids now, I know that we can talk about all sorts of things and I'll ask them, oh, did you see about, you know, the volcano or did you hear about the, and I'll check that they have dialed into stuff.
00:05:31.000I think they should know. But I don't remember that about my childhood. I do remember not being able to leave my plate until it was finished. 100%.
00:05:42.180Both of them. But particularly, we were scared of my dad in terms of, you know, he was the figure of the family that you were.
00:05:47.720You didn't mess with. And I don't, I don't regret that or want to change that. That was how it was. We knew where we stood.
00:05:54.060Steak and kidney pie. That's when I remember the bits of kidney sitting, looking at them, wondering how to get out of that.
00:06:00.260So very normal, very standard, very, it's why I quite like order, discipline, people doing what makes sense in order to get an end result because with a lot of my growing up, do enough of the work, you'll get an A, no problem.
00:06:15.520Play the violin hard enough, you'll get a distinction at grade eight, no problem.
00:06:19.180Like, I understand what you have to do.
00:06:26.340You know, my dad said, we have three kids, six, five, and a two-year-old. My dad says kids need systems because it's a level of predictability that gives them trust and peace.
00:06:35.440So it's amazing how you're saying that with systems and processes.
00:06:37.540I think it's true, and I almost wonder whether my super normal, super normal upbringing, you know, when mom and dad really, dad, you know, worked a lot of hours to be able to get me and my sister to the school that I slightly took the mickey out of.
00:06:50.660But, you know, maybe that super normal upbringing is what gives you enough space in your head and your mind to then go on and kind of burst out.
00:06:58.780Where did the chip come at? Where did the chip come? Because almost everybody I see that's chippy or a little bit confrontational, comfortably confrontational, kind of like yourself, there is an event.
00:07:09.620There is something happened that, you know, triggered something. I don't know what it was.
00:07:14.460I mean, I know for yourself when you were coming up, you wanted to go to Oxford, something's happened there, and then you wanted to do military, you went military, there were some things health-wise at the end.
00:07:22.700When did your chippiness, what event, was there any event that you remember or no?
00:07:26.740Yeah, I think my chippiness is because at 17, I was diagnosed with epilepsy or suspected epilepsy, and that was the start of a 20-year epilepsy, a lifetime with epilepsy until recently.
00:07:41.680And those fits got more and more significant.
00:07:44.060So it's almost always been all of my life, actually, hiding an illness that I didn't want anyone to know about, overcoming the things that may have kept me back because of that epilepsy, and then determined to be better than that and be anybody else.
00:08:00.520And that's definitely where my chippiness is.
00:08:03.060That's why I had to leave after I passed out of Sandhurst because they found out I had epilepsy, and it's what I've been pretending I didn't have all of my life whilst going on and being on The Apprentice or being this person or standing up and speaking to 2,000 people.
00:08:17.420It's always been about, you don't know I'm epileptic.
00:08:20.520You don't know I dislocated both my arms in the night with a fit.
00:08:25.860And so running and all of that stuff, all the fitness stuff was always about being, knowing that actually secretly I was probably weaker than a lot of people, but needing to have a front that was ultimately strong.
00:08:39.620I think you said something where every 10 days, your arms, your elbows would, and that lasted for like, what, two years, a couple of years that lasted?
00:08:46.900It was in that back end of my, so I don't have fit.
00:13:13.040So I don't think I've done a 180, but I think I've allowed this other me, this, this epileptic me, the me that worried about not being around for my kids, the me that was in the casualty or A&E or ER to your guys at three in the morning, having her shoulders put back in.
00:13:31.760You know, that I've allowed her to catch up or maybe I've allowed big, strong Katie to come back.
00:13:37.560And those two people be like identifying the same person.
00:13:41.880I've allowed those two people to be the same.
00:13:43.660Hence, I'm able to speak about this openly.
00:13:46.480I wouldn't ever bore someone with this at dinner, just for reassurance.
00:13:49.620If anyone's ever thinking of inviting me to dinner, it's not a story I tell.
00:13:53.580But I've allowed those two people now to join up.
00:13:56.200And I think it's a much more honest me.
00:13:58.240And it's also me that other people, they get this part of me.
00:14:01.800You know, I wrote about it in my book and people then went on and bought the book for like their friends who maybe were undergoing chemo or a really horrible divorce or had just lost their job and were feeling rubbish about themselves.
00:14:14.140And it became a kind of book for people that saw, actually, we all have a bit of a rubbish time and we can come on after that.
00:14:23.200And unfortunately, most of us are not comfortable bringing it out and talking about it because we have to have that facade and cover ourselves up.
00:14:30.720Because in case we show a certain level of weakness, because you know the whole saying, you can never show weakness, never show hurt, never show this.
00:14:39.980But I think from my perspective is I like a person's human side when I see it and I say, wow, I respect your opinions, but I now connect with you on the human side.
00:14:53.240I don't connect with you on, let's just say, whatever opinion you got on what I would like.
00:14:58.260But I connect with you with the opinion.
00:15:00.260So at least we have something in common.
00:15:01.900And I think that's true for a lot of people that know a bit about me or know me or have met me or meet me in the street and they can say, I thought I hated you, but actually, or they'll come and listen to a talk and I get people at the start, right, hands up who thinks I'm a cow, you know, and the whole room will be like, or people will start to be bravely.
00:15:19.240But then by the end, people will come up and say, it's really annoying now.
00:15:22.540I came here and I really wanted to hate you.
00:15:24.700And I realised I can't hate you as much as I thought I did.
00:15:27.700So there's that, but I still say, you know, that our lives are such that the evolution of a person, you know, at a certain age, you can be this person.
00:15:37.740I've been able to reconcile epileptic me and big, bold, annoying me.
00:16:15.160And I think why don't we just start off with something basic right now?
00:16:17.400We'll talk about different topics and you give me your thoughts and we'll banter a little bit and we'll go to the next topic and the next topic.
00:16:22.940Let's start off with something where, you know, my goal a lot of times with entrepreneurs, there's a lot of, you hear people that say, there's one thing I don't do, I don't do politics.
00:16:33.420If you're an entrepreneur, you're paying taxes, you better pay attention to politics because one regulation could affect your business.
00:16:39.720I can't tell you how many CEOs call me and they tell me, well, you know, this one regulation changed the game for me and our revenues dropped 40%.
00:16:45.940Well, you should pay attention to some of the stuff that's going on and rather than just saying, well, I'm not going to do anything with this.
00:16:51.300So let's talk Brexit and let's talk EU.
00:16:55.080This is an event that took place a couple of years ago and I think there's like seven other countries right now that are trying to separate themselves from the EU.
00:17:13.940Why are some countries wanting to be part of EU?
00:17:15.680EU, this idea that you can join a group and you are better in than you are out.
00:17:20.440You're better as a group where you're combining your strengths as nations, that you work together so you have common security, common rules and regulations, common understanding, that idea, which sounds very noble.
00:17:31.340A common market and a common currency, the euro.
00:17:33.720But as a staunch Brexiteer, so I get called the female Farage quite a lot, which is annoying because he has really bad teeth.
00:17:41.660So on the 23rd of June, 2016, we voted to leave.
00:17:56.120Londonistan, as I call it, for obvious reasons, as you'll have seen coming from the airport.
00:18:00.400And the rest of it is called the rest of the UK, where I live, where lovely people live, where regular Brits live, people that I really identify with.
00:18:08.980And for people in the rest of the UK, a lot of us voted leave.
00:18:12.280And what's been very traumatic is spending two years, which we're at now, still waiting, still not getting to actually leave.
00:18:39.020You know, some people, the people that live here in London that are doing very well, thank you, are, you know, the elites, the establishment,
00:18:46.540the people that are very wealthy living in the biggest houses in the centre of London, old London.