+ FRANK MAGAZINE

Frank magazine, launched by Sykes in 2016, differs from Dynamic inasmuch as this publication focuses far more on women in business, and all of the surrounding issues of women in work, in commerce and in leadership; Frank is more at the lifestyle end, but with personal stories and issues to the fore.

Society award was “tainted” as she “kept being touched up by a TV personality, who would not leave me alone. He was grabbing my breasts and being a complete pest. I felt sick.”

The book chronicles Sykes’s experiences of sexism, abusive relationships and racism, while providing an insight into the often toxic culture that she claims pervaded the fashion and showbusiness industries during her career.

Those stories of sexual coercion come thick and fast in her book, including one colleague - get this - laying on the floor just to look up her skirt. She threw a drink on him, and it was all captured on camera, which was bad enough, though the show was edited to take out the oddball intrusion – making Sykes, “look like I was crazy.”

She alleges that she was also quite often “thrown under the bus.” As an example, Sykes recalls the time she and game show co-host Mark Wright fi lmed a pilot, only to have it cancelled as it fell foul of TV gambling rules. However, the press release issued about it cited, “Mark and Melanie had ‘failed to understand the concept of the game’.” Sykes fumes at re-telling this story.

She fi nally decided to leave television presenting after co-hosting Celebrity MasterChef in 2021 with Gregg Wallace. He told her, despite not having had as long a TV career as Sykes, that the show would “do a lot for you.” That was the fi nal insult, and made her “decide to end my television career once and for all. I was done.”

She felt she had been “tap-dancing for corporations who couldn’t give two hoots about my wellbeing”. As a result, presenting on television now no longer interests her.

She hopes her book and the two fi lms currently in production would shine a revealing and positive light on autism, especially as her son was diagnosed autistic as an infant; and issues affecting vulnerable women, such as coercive control.

Sykes told The Guardian, “Women that ask for certain boundaries can be misconstrued as difficult. Many men ask for what they want, which is great, but we should be allowed the same courtesy. It is our right to equality. But if you challenge their status quo, you are considered a problem.

“Men do not talk to other men the way they speak to women because they would be in deep danger of getting punched on the nose if they did. Not all men, but quite a few, save up all their anger and anxiety and unleash it on women.

“For too long women who don’t fit a notion of normal have been deemed ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’”.

Sykes said she only wanted to use her profi le now to help people, including by highlighting campaigns against domestic abuse and harassment. Writing her story had helped her, while hoping that it would help women recognise if they are in coercive relationships.

‘Illuminated: Autism & All the Th ings I’ve Left Unsaid’ by Melanie Sykes is published by HarperCollins, 2023

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