Chanelle Hayes has revealed that she's still shocked over the tragic death of her fellow Big Brother contestant, Nikki Grahame.
Although the reality TV stars didn't appear on the same series of Big Brother, Chanelle, 34, crossed paths with bubbly Nikki several times, and thought her tragic death was 'awful' when she heard the news last year.
In April 2021, Nikki tragically passed away at the age of 38 after a long battle with anorexia.
Ahead of the one-year anniversary of Nikki's heartbreaking passing, Chanelle described the disease as 'horrific'.
"It was awful, tragic. I met her on a few occasions but I didn’t know her," the former reality TV star told.
"It just makes me feel sick because it’s a disease and people don’t talk about it enough. It must have been so horrific and lonely for her, I can’t even begin to imagine.”
Chanelle appeared on the 2007 series of Big Brother - one year after Nikki became a household name after starring on the reality TV show in 2006.
And while Chanelle admitted that she didn't actually know Nikki all that well, she told OK! Magazine that she could see she was an amazing person.
Nikki had been battling anorexia since she was a child, with her mother noticing her changed eating habits shortly before her eighth birthday.
She soon stopped eating the lunches her mum Sue made for her to take to school.
When things reached a desperate point a year later, she was taken to the hospital to be examined.
The late star spent the next eight years of her childhood going to endless hospitals and institutions.
"She spent more time admitted than she did at home or at school," Sue previously told Sunday Mirror.
Nikki's tragic death last April came after she was discharged from hospital - where she had been staying in order to receive special treatment for her eating disorder.
Her pal Leon Dee started a GoFundMe to fund private treatment after Nikki "exhausted every option" on the NHS - raising more than £70,000.
Nikki was found unconscious at her home on April 9, one day after she had been discharged from Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester.
Her mother Sue told The Mirror that she begged nurses not to discharge her anorexic daughter.
Speaking for the first time since Nikki’s death last year, the grieving mum told the Sunday Mirror: “I am destroyed. There’s part of me that’s lost forever.
“My fight to get Nikki well started 30 years ago. In the end, I lost her. It has been the fight from hell.”
Nikki came in fifth place on the 2006 series of Big Brother.
She became well-known and well-loved for her hilarious segments in the Diary Room.
* If you’re worried about your own or someone else’s health, you can contact Beat, the UK’s eating disorder charity, 365 days a year on 0808 801 0677 or beateatingdisorders.org.uk