‘I’m slim and privileged – I totally get the mistrust’: Jameela Jamil on controversy and coming out
Were she another kind of person, Jameela Jamil would have an easy life. Everything seemed to be going her way. First came the break that led to a job presenting Channel 4’s Saturday morning hangover slot, T4, which was followed by a job on Radio 1, before a swift, and unexpected, move to become an actor on the hit US sitcom The Good Place. Yet barely a month goes by without Jamil popping up to ignite some controversy or inflame the kind of commentator incensed by any hint of perceived “wokeness”.
February was a particularly difficult month. First, she came out as queer, which appeared to infuriate many people. Then she had to defend herself against accusations she had Munchausen’s syndrome – a psychiatric disorder in which people feign illness – an allegation started by a writer who didn’t believe her history of health problems. She ended the month embroiled in a Twitter row with Piers Morgan (public feuds being something of a natural stomping ground for both) after the death of TV presenter Caroline Flack.
Does Jamil ever feel like living a quieter life? “It’s not an easy path,” she says. “You get hurled up on to a pedestal and it always feels a bit like a trap – it’s very high, it’s easy to slip off and it’s a long way down. I’m just learning, I’m not the authority on anything.” She has not, she says, “handled myself perfectly at all times, but I am a human, prone to error”.
