Episode Details

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Lee and Michelle sit down with Emily Massey, a London-based professional model and disability advocate with a story that goes far deeper than the camera. What starts as a warm catch-up about shoot locations, hiking trails, and the great "where should I move?" debate quickly becomes one of the most candid conversations the podcast has hosted.

Emily is sharp, funny, and refreshingly direct. She describes herself as "homeless" in her own body, yet she's also the person who just completed a 42-kilometre hike, passing out on slopes and still finishing every kilometre.

Emily opens up about growing up in Singapore with a body that never quite behaved the way she expected. Years of unexplained symptoms, regular dislocations, migraines, and eventually seizures led her on a long medical journey that finally resulted in a diagnosis of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), along with a cluster of related conditions including Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), bipolar disorder, ADHD, and asthma.

Rather than stepping back from life, Emily stepped into one of the most physically demanding and visually scrutinised industries there is. She talks honestly about the year she barely left the house, how a trip to a hairdresser set her on the path to full-time modelling, and what it actually takes to walk a runway when your body might decide to do something entirely different.

The conversation covers a lot of ground:

• What it means to live with an invisible illness in a highly visible career
• How Emily manages pain and joint instability on set through constant movement, and why what looks like expressive flow posing is often just survival
• Her experience having a seizure immediately after coming offstage during a L'Oreal tour, and the unexpectedly compassionate response from the brand
• The reality of being called "the fat model" during fashion week, and the fashion industry's retreat from body diversity in the wake of weight-loss medication trends
• The pressure of having your measurements publicly listed and what that does to your relationship with your own body
• Why she chose to start sharing her health journey on social media, and what she hopes it gives to others who feel isolated or unseen
• Her plans to launch a modelling agency specifically for disabled models, and her frustration with tokenism in the current industry
• ADHD as a creative advantage, and why she and Lee both describe neurodivergence as a superpower rather than a limitation

Find Emily on social media via her Instagram channel at  https://www.instagram.com/emily_masseyy/

The channel includes a beautiful poem written by Emily entitled "Not Your Inspiration, Not Your Tragedy 🩼🌈".  Watch and importantly listen here https://www.instagram.com/p/DMPt2Rgsr2M/

Find Emily on social media via the links in the episode description. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it, and leave a comment. We love hearing from you.

Courage and Confidence is hosted by Lee Iggulden and Michelle Rogers.

Find Lee at:

• Website: https://welshotimaging.co.uk/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leeatwelshot/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lee.iggulden

Find M