SHE spent three years as a glamorous Towie regular before bosses brutally cut short her reality TV career over Zoom.
Kelsey Stratford was 21, enjoying luxury holidays and had just splashed out on a new Range Rover when she was axed from the ITVBe series in 2021 – just two weeks before filming was due to restart.
She was a victim of a huge cast cullthat also saw Yazmin Oukhellou, Courtney Green and Chloe Meadows cut from the programme.
As a result, Kelsey was forced to begin a very different career out of the spotlight as a full-time carer for her little sister Kennedy, who has spinal muscular atrophy.
Speaking exclusively to Flying Eze from Dubai, where she now lives, Kelsey, 24, says: “I obviously thought I was going back to filming, I literally got myself like a brand new car, a Range Rover, was going on loads of holidays thinking I was going to be fine, I'm going back to my job.
“And then two weeks before we went back to filming, they basically said that they don't want me anymore.
“So I don't think they dealt with it in a good way because obviously I had no other job, it was just Towie.
“Lucky enough, I was living at home at the time. Because if I was paying for rent and stuff, I don't know what I would have done, honestly, because I didn't have any savings, and I was only young.
“I just think the way they went about it was so wrong.”
Kelsey went on to become a trained carer – a role she describes as incredibly fulfilling – for her sister Kennedy, who she is extremely close to, and describes as her inspiration.
Kelsey, who is now a high-earning OnlyFans star, believes she was axed for not bringing enough drama to the show, unlike her close friend and former show regular Chloe Brockett.
But the thought of throwing herself into rows with co-stars and dramatic showdowns left her racked with anxiety.
“It genuinely wasn't me,” she says. “It was just fake, and it would give you that anxiety, pretending to be someone that I wasn't.
“They would just say to me sometimes, ‘Kelsey, you have no drama. You need to have some sort of drama, otherwise you're not filming’.
“And obviously, if you're not filming, then you're not getting paid. So it kind of makes you think, ‘Oh, maybe I do need to create some drama here'.”
At the beginning of her Towie career Kelsey was earning £90-a-day before moving her way up to £300-a-day.
She sometimes filmed six days a week, though the average was around three days at a time.
On top of this, her burgeoning fame saw her earning thousands through sponsored posts on Instagram.
But panic set in when she was told she was surplus to requirements, and she was suddenly left scrambling for a backup career to help pay for her new car.
“It was really depressing,” she says. “I felt like my whole life had just been turned upside down because I had three years on a TV show. I was only young, 18 to 21.
“And then I just thought, ‘What am I actually going to do with my life now?' I don't know.
“I didn't go to college or anything like that. So I didn't really know what I was going to do, but I just had to quickly figure it out for myself and get another job.
“I'm not going to lie, at first, because I've gone from filming and getting dressed up and always being with my friends and really enjoying my job, to going back to a normal job, it wasn't a good feeling at first.
“Obviously, I loved looking after my little sister, but I just thought ‘Why has this happened?'
“Because my friend Chloe Brockett was still on there at the time. So I just didn't understand why I had to go back to working a normal job when I had years on the show.”
A representative for the show said: “[The] Cast are contracted per series on Towie. The wellbeing of all current and past cast is of the upmost importance to us. All current and departing Towie cast are offered access to our robust welfare and psychological support if required.”
Fan favourite
Kelsey spent nearly two years as a carer before working up the courage to do OnlyFans, a subscription content creation platform that sees many of its members uploading sexy snaps and videos.
Initially worried about the stigma around the site and how she'd be perceived, Kelsey's eyes were opened when a management company revealed how lucrative it could be.
And by this point, she'd grown disillusioned with living in the UK and was desperately seeking a way to shake up her life for the better.
The decision to make a change paid off immediately with the money rolling in from day one.
I'm much more happier because I think deep down Towie was giving me a bit of anxiety anyway, having to be in this atmosphere that you have to have drama and animosity with people
Kelsey Stratford
“On the first night I made much more than what I would earn in the whole month from my job,” says Kelsey. “So I was like, yeah, this is crazy.”
And part of her success is due to Towie fans craving more of her.
“I would say a lot of them are Towie fans,” says Kelsey. “Because a lot of them message and they're like, ‘Is this actually you, Kelsey? Am I talking to Kelsey from Towie?' And stuff like that.
“So yeah, I think obviously my following from Towie, it's helped with the OnlyFans.”
Star double standards
The idea to join the site first crossed her mind while she was on Towie but Kelsey claims she was told she wasn't allowed to do it.
However, current stars like Lauren Goodger are active on the platform, leading Kelsey to question the seeming double standards at play.
Apparent favouritism was something she noticed on the set when she was a regular.
“I definitely felt like they had their favourites,” she says. “And it always seemed to obviously be the ones that had the drama. They would be filming all the time.
“Sometimes we would go on these holidays, like say to Marbella to film, and they'd keep certain people there and then send us home if you wasn't creating drama, or they wouldn't even invite you on the trips.
“There was one time that a lot of the cast went to Thailand and only some of us stayed in England. So I felt like that was a bit out of order. Like they kind of like leave certain people out.”
A positive future
Despite the difficult years of uncertainty and reinvention, Kelsey isn't hung up on the past and is thankful for the direction her life has taken.
“I do think everything happens for a reason,” she says.
“I'm earning much more money than I ever would on Towie.
“I'm much more happier because I think deep down Towie was giving me a bit of anxiety anyway, having to be in this atmosphere that you have to have drama and animosity with people. I just a lot more happier now.”
Single Kelsey now has her sights set on entering the property market in Dubai, and is hoping to have found Mr Right and be a mum within the next five years, leaving OnlyFans behind for good.
