Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu: ‘Don't Let Other People's Opinions Define You’ | GREAT MOMENTS

Summary

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Great Company with Jamie Laing

Episode: Ekin-Su – ‘Don't Let Other People's Opinions Define You’ | GREAT MOMENTS

Date: May 17, 2026
Guest: Ekin-Su, TV personality, beauty pageant contestant, and Love Island winner

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Episode Overview

This “Great Moments” edition of Great Company highlights an inspiring conversation between Jamie Laing and Ekin-Su, a TV personality renowned for her candor and resilience. The episode delves deep into Ekin-Su’s formative years, her struggles with bullying, body image, cultural identity, her rise to confidence through beauty pageants, and her hard-earned insights about self-worth in the era of social media. The interview is a candid reflection on overcoming adversity and the importance of authenticity, offering valuable advice for anyone navigating challenges around fitting in or facing criticism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Growing Up Different – Facing Cultural and Social Challenges

[03:13–04:39]

• Ekin-Su discusses her childhood in Islington, moving to Essex at age 10.
• She recalls feeling out of place in a less multicultural environment, referencing her obviously “foreign” name and feeling “like an alien”—out of sync with the social cliques of her peers.
• “I had quite hairy legs at the time... all the other girls had Prada bags and fake tan and mascara on. I idolized that, but I was never fitting in... I was kind of the dork, I guess, teacher’s pet at school.” (Ekin-Su, 04:12)

2. Bullying and Isolation

[04:39–06:06]

• Ekin-Su recounts intense bullying from age 12 to 14, encompassing body shaming, racism, and physical abuse.
• “Got pushed down the stairs, being called fat, being called ugly. Racism. Yeah, had quite a tough time at school.” (Ekin-Su, 04:52)
• She internalized her pain to avoid burdening her pregnant mother and turned to food as comfort: “My best friend, funny enough, was chocolate. I used to eat a lot as comfort... it was like a weird bond we had.” (Ekin-Su, 06:51)

3. The Drive for Transformation – Beauty Pageants and Body Image

[06:06–08:53]

• Motivated by a crush who ignored her, Ekin-Su began an extreme diet (the “Green Apple Diet”), emphasizing the unhealthy pressures on young people to change for acceptance.
• “Kids, do not do this at home. It's not advised. Very unhealthy.” (Ekin-Su, 07:09)
• She describes how external validation increased when her appearance changed, leading her toward beauty pageants for confidence and spotlight. She won a UK pageant, competed in South Korea, and represented Ireland (“Although I'm not Irish. I don't know why I did that...”).
• On the performative confidence gained through pageantry: “All of a sudden this confidence came out and my performative side again came out... If I can do the bullies, come at me, what's the worst that can happen in life?” (Ekin-Su, 08:58)

4. Lessons from Overcoming Bullying

[09:26–10:36]

• Ekin-Su’s advice to listeners going through similar adversity:
  • “Please speak to someone. Whether that's a teacher, a friend, or someone. Don't bottle it in.” (Ekin-Su, 09:29)
  • “It's going to make you a stronger person... those bullies at school are gonna end up below you because that is what happened.” (Ekin-Su, 09:33)
  • She later saw her bullies again after her Love Island win: “One of them looked absolutely ridiculous... one of them was like, can I have a picture of you? I went, do I know you?” (Ekin-Su, 10:07)

5. Confronting the Past – Stories of Empowerment

[10:36–11:33]

• Jamie shares a story from Scarlett Moffatt about confronting a bully years later, reclaiming her power and finding closure—a story which resonates with Ekin-Su.
• “I hope your little girl never goes through what you made me feel at school.” (Scarlett Moffatt, recounted by Jamie, 11:27)
• “That's given me goosebumps. Good for her for saying that.” (Ekin-Su, 11:33)

6. The Nature of Bullying and Moving Forward

[11:38–13:56]

• Jamie and Ekin-Su discuss why bullying happens, relating it back to insecurity, trauma, or poor role models; also, the reality that bullying often continues in adult life.
• “Bullying happens even now... There's always a manager or a boss or a colleague that just doesn't like you. But you just have to accept it... When you know that that's life, you can move on.” (Ekin-Su, 12:44)
• “Hate is an emotion. You gotta worry when no one has no feelings towards you, Jamie.” (Ekin-Su, 13:07)
• The importance of focusing on character, not appearance:
  • “I prefer being real. I prefer, you know, the mind and the heart being beautiful than focusing on the... the look.” (Ekin-Su, 13:13)
  • “There's only one of you.” (Ekin-Su, 13:47)

7. The Impact of Social Media & Learning Self-Worth

[14:01–15:45]

• Jamie probes how to reshape one's mindset and build authentic confidence, especially under the pressures of the entertainment industry.
• Ekin-Su’s candid answer:
  • “It changes for me when you hit rock bottom and you realize how... There was a moment in my life I was very depressed... I looked at Instagram and I was like, oh. It just seemed really... something didn't feel right. Looked like an illusion. I felt like I was in a video game.” (Ekin-Su, 14:11)
  • She recounts refreshing her perspective by disconnecting from social media, walking barefoot outdoors, and appreciating life’s fundamentals.
  • “It's not living in the moment, realizing what's important. Family, morals, happiness, being healthy. We're breathing right now. There's people in hospital that cannot breathe...” (Ekin-Su, 15:33)
• The journey from external validation to internal peace and the “unlearning” required to achieve it.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On not fitting in:

  • “I felt like an alien and almost like I had these... I was kind of the dork, I guess, teacher’s pet at school.” (Ekin-Su, 04:12)

• On overcoming bullying:

  • “Please speak to someone. Don't bottle it in.” (Ekin-Su, 09:29)

• On confidence:

  • “If I can do the bullies, come at me, what's the worst that can happen in life?” (Ekin-Su, 08:58)

• On self-worth:

  • “I prefer being real. I prefer, you know, the mind and the heart being beautiful than focusing on the... the look.” (Ekin-Su, 13:13)
  • “There's only one of you.” (Ekin-Su, 13:47)

• On social media's illusion:

  • “[Instagram] just seemed really... something didn't feel right. Looked like an illusion. I felt like I was in a video game.” (Ekin-Su, 14:20)

• On perspective:

  • “It's not living in the moment, realizing what's important. Family, morals, happiness, being healthy.” (Ekin-Su, 15:33)

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Timeline of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:13–04:39 | Growing up in a new, less diverse environment | | 04:39–06:06 | Experiences of bullying and its impact | | 06:06–08:53 | Beauty pageants and seeking external validation | | 09:26–10:36 | Advice on overcoming bullying; confronting bullies later in life | | 10:36–11:33 | Empowering story: confronting a bully as an adult | | 11:38–13:56 | The nature of bullying, the importance of real beauty, moving forward| | 14:01–15:45 | Social media, self-worth, and reconnecting with real life |

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Episode Tone and Closing Thoughts

Ekin-Su’s story is honest, self-deprecating, and empowering, marked by resilience and a willingness to confront both internal and societal pressures. Jamie Laing matches her candor with empathy, drawing out insights that are useful for anyone grappling with self-image, bullying, or the illusions of social media. The episode’s core message: You define yourself, not the opinions or validation of others.

Key takeaway:
“Don’t let other people’s opinions define you.”

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Transcript

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[Jamie Lang]

Hello, everyone. I'm Jamie Lang and this is Great Moments. Hello, everyone. This is Great Moments where I share some of my favorite moments from my conversations on Great Company. Something that's made me think, made me laugh or change my perspective, and hopefully, hopefully, there's something in it for you, too. So are you ready? Let's get into it. You grew up in Islington, right, And then you moved to Essex when I was 10. Okay. And then what was that like growing up there? What was school like? Tough.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

This is when things changed. I went in very. Year six, I went into. I remember having a very long skirt in primary school. My name was very obviously foreign at the time. Ekinsu, Juljal. All are very long. And it was a very sort of like. It wasn't a multicultural school because when I went to school in Tottenham, it was, you know, different, you know, backgrounds and stuff. So I went from that to going to, literally, me and everyone, basically. I felt like an alien and almost like I had these. I had quite hairy legs at the time. You were only young, you know, a child, and then you had all the other girls of Prada bags and Prada shoes and fake tan and mascara on. And I'm like, wow. Like that. That. I idolized that. But I was never fitting in that. I was kind of the dork, I guess, teacher's pet at school.

[Jamie Lang]

Yeah.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

I loved the teachers.

[Babbel Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

And I see my. My school lunch in the toilets a lot. Then the extreme bullying. Bullying happened from year seven to year nine.

[Jamie Lang]

How old are you at that point?

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

12, 13. I was quite big when I was near seven. Chubby, got pushed down the stairs, being caught fat, being called ugly. Racism. Yeah. Had a quite a tough time at school.

[Jamie Lang]

I'm sorry, That's. It's just. It's. Yeah, I. I chatted to Luke Evans, the actor. Amazing. So he. Yeah, he's amazing. He grew up in Wales and he was really badly bullied and he said he had a mentality, though. He said he. He knew it was gonna end. He said, if I get through school, it's gonna stop. It's gonna be okay. I just gotta get through this. And I said, that's a unique way.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lang]

Because lots of people don't have that when you. When you're in the thick of it like that. It is you in the tornado.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Yeah. It's hard. You think that your life's gonna end. You think, this is what I deserve? Until I fancied a guy at school who wouldn't even look at me. And I thought, you know what? I'm a bit fat here. I need to lose weight. So I Googled how to lose weight. Some stupid diet came up called the Green Apple Diet. Right. You're young, you're a kid at this point, how. You know, morning, afternoon, night, I was just munching on this apple and skipping rope.

[Jamie Lang]

Are you serious?

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Yeah. I obviously couldn't afford a gym at the time. You were a child. But, like, didn't have iPhones then. Oh, did we? Can't remember. And. Yeah, and I lost weight, and all of a sudden, people started looking at me and. And fancying me. And then I did the beauty pageant after that, which was wild because I was, like, 17. Went to South Korea. I know. To compete.

[Jamie Lang]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a second.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

So much to say. Wait.

[Jamie Lang]

Oh, my God. This is. So you were at school. You're having this really tricky time. You're saying there's racism. You're being pushed down the stairs. Are you telling your parents about that?

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

No. You're not, because my mum was pregnant to my brother at the time. I didn't want to stress them out.

[Jamie Lang]

So you internalized everything.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Yeah. And actually, my best friend, funny enough, was chocolate. I used to eat a lot as comfort. I would snack a lot because I felt happiness and comforting. It was like a weird bond we had.

[Jamie Lang]

So you then go on this diet, you start eating apples, you're skipping.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Guys, kids do not do this at home. It's not advised. Very unhealthy.

[Jamie Lang]

Yeah. And I suppose that maybe came and. I don't want to put words in your mouth. It probably became a bit of an obsession, maybe.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Oh, 100%. And that's when I started to become obsessed with what I looked like. So it was like, okay, what is the meaning of beauty? Okay, it must be the way I look. Actually, it's internal. It's about how you are your soul. But I learned that later on in life. So these pageants I did were very all about what you look like. The perfect person, beauty. Very wrong message, by the way. But when you're young. Unfortunately, I got influenced by that.

[Jamie Lang]

So you saw this pageant. You thought, this is what I want to do.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Because I thought I needed the confidence Where I lost it. Do you know what I mean?

[Jamie Lang]

Yeah.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

I didn't know who I was because. But I liked the attention I got. So let me go into this. And then somehow won the pageant in England and then went to South Korea from Asia Pacific 202012 and became 15th out of 75 countries represented Ireland. Although I'm not Irish, I don't know why I did that, because I had to represent something from the uk, which is Northern Ireland. Yeah. Interesting times.

[Jamie Lang]

And so you represented Miss Island.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

I don't even look Irish.

[Babbel Advertiser]

But

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

don't. Oh, no. I'm really.

[Jamie Lang]

There's two things here, I would say. Firstly, it's very entrepreneurial of you in certain ways, because you knew what you wanted to get. We all lie about different things. It's not really lying. You just knew what you wanted to get. But also, you're going into this. It's also about competition and it's about honing yourself. That demands a lot of confidence.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Yes.

[Jamie Lang]

So going from someone who was lacking that confidence to then getting confidence to go and do that, that's a massive shift.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

It is. And I don't understand how that happened. It was like, almost like I wanted to compete. I wanted to be better. So I was like, you know, there was a talent show in actually one of the pageants, and I was singing in it. So all of a sudden this confidence came out and my performative side again came out. And that's when I think confidence happened at such a young age. And it went on forever. Almost like, I've done the bullies. If I can do the bullies come at me, what's the worst that can happen in life?

[Jamie Lang]

What would you say to someone listening who's going through something like that?

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

I would say, please speak to someone. Whether that's a teacher, a friend or someone. Don't bottle it in. And I would definitely say that it's going to make you a stronger person. And those bullies at school are gonna end up below you because that is what happened. And I'm gonna definitely say that it's gonna pass and never hold everything in. And if anyone needs help, seek help, therapy, whatever it needs, even if you're, you know, young person, there's always help out there, free help. There's loads of websites that you can talk to someone to.

[Jamie Lang]

Have you ever seen any of the bullies again?

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Yeah. Oh, 100%. They didn't even deserve my blink. I saw them on the high street. One of them looked absolutely ridiculous. Honestly, I literally did this. I was like. And one of them was like, can I have a picture of you? I went, do I know you? Oh, you're the. You're that guy from school. And I just passed and I walked off and I was like, yeah, it was the best feeling ever, Jamie. It was when I won Love Island 2022 and felt good.

[Jamie Lang]

I chatted to. And I'm sure she won't mind me, Scarlett Moffat.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Okay.

[Jamie Lang]

Who's amazing. And I haven't seen her in a few years, but I was friendly with her and she said one of the most empowering moments for her ever. She was in a supermarket and she saw one of her bullies and she went straight back into being this little girl, like, scared, like, oh, my God. Freaking out. Oh, my God, there she is. And the bully ran up to her and she was with her daughter. And she said, oh, my God, Scarlett, I haven't seen you since school. You're doing so well. All these kind of things.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lang]

And she said, oh, I've been telling my little daughter how we were best friends at school. And Scarlett said. She said, oh, can I have a photo? She said, I want to say one thing to you. I hope your little girl never goes through what you made me feel at school. And she dropped her basket and walked out the supermarket. And she had never felt more alive that she had confronted her bully. Yeah. Unbelievable.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

That's given me goosebumps. Good for her for saying that.

[Jamie Lang]

Yeah.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Because it is brilliant. That's all you need to say and walk off.

[Jamie Lang]

Because I think this, especially with something like bullying, it's such a. Firstly, it's so awful, it's horrendous to do that to people. It's such a short term sort of thing to do to someone. People don't realize that in later life you're gonna see each other or walk past each other.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

The world is small.

[Jamie Lang]

The world is small. And be nice to everyone on the way out because you never know who you meet on the way down. Never, ever step on the little people. Never be rude, never bully, never do anything like that. Because you'll meet them in the future and like you did, you'll flick your hair and walk on.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Exactly. And you know what, Jamie? I never understand bullying at a young age. I understand bullies as an adult. I feel like it's a reflection of who they are because they hate themselves. So they want to make you feel bad. But I feel like when you're young, when you're not fully developed, how are you? Like, I don't understand what goes through that child's mind. How can you be nasty to someone? Is it bad parenting? Is that a question? It just. Do you know what I mean? I've always thought about it.

[Jamie Lang]

I think it's. I think it's probably they are making themselves feel better. So they've probably gone through some sort of trauma, 100% or something like that. That's what I think. The. How do you stop the bullying?

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

You can't. This is the sad thing. You can change and you can control yourself in the situation because bullying happens even now, right? It happens in everyday work. There's always a manager or a boss or a colleague that just doesn't like you. But you just have to accept it. And when you know that that's life, you can move on. Even now, there's probably people that hate me for no reason. That's fine. Hate is an emotion. You gotta worry when no one has no feelings towards you, Jamie, really, I've had hate, I've had bullying. Just love life, you know, it's amazing. Mad. It is mad. But I prefer being real. I prefer, you know, this, the mind being. The heart being beautiful than focusing on the. The look.

[Jamie Lang]

I feel like it's hard though, right?

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

It is hard. It is so hard.

[Jamie Lang]

It's really time. It takes a lot of time because it's, it's. And that's such a great message to do because we live in this world because of social media and what we look like and things like that that we kind of forget that actually it does come from the inside and all of the outer shell doesn't matter.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Anyone can be. Be Jamie. Anyone. There's loads of people that are handsome, beautiful. There's someone better looking than me. Better looking. It's okay. But there's only one of you.

[Jamie Lang]

But how do you change that? And be honest, because that takes. That is a lot of unlearning to do.

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jamie Lang]

And that's hard. Really hard. Especially as we're talking about the industry that we're in, especially being a woman in the industry. So how does that change? When does that change for you? And be. To be totally honest with that change

[Guest (possibly a former beauty pageant contestant and Love Island winner)]

for me, it changes for me when you hit rock bottom and you realize how. There was a moment in my life I was very depressed and I just looked at myself and I was like. I looked at Instagram and I was like, oh. It just seemed really. Something didn't feel right. Looked like an illusion. I felt like I was in a video game. Like, what is this? We take a picture, we put it on instagram we wait for people to like it. We edit our pictures. Why? I went to a walk in a park after and I took off my shoes and I walked barefoot on the grass. I sat there, closed my phone, just meditating. And I was like. And I went back to like. It was really weird. But where we came from, Adam and Eve, like for instance, we're humans. Like this social media is all new. It's toxic. It's not natural. We're all living a lie. I feel like it is. How do you know this? Instagram is what is right. It's not living in the moment, realizing what's important. Family, morals, happiness, being healthy. We. We. We're breathing right now. There's people in hospital that cannot breathe. They cannot. They've bro and a leg or an arm. We. We still are here right now. But then there's someone that's moaning about the weather being rainy. Do you get it? It. It takes.

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[Jamie Lang]

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