MOLLY-MAE Hague has opened up about her “bad start to the year” in her first Q&A since her controversial comments on poverty went viral last month.
The Love Island star, 22, came under fire when she insisted that “we all have the same 24 hours in the day”.
Today the reality favourite took to her YouTube channel to catch up with her fans and decided to talk openly about the situation.
One follower asked: “Has 2022 got off to a good start?”
Molly answered: “The reality is things don’t always go the way you planned, and the start of the year definitely had different plans for me than I’d hoped, which is fine.
“But I definitely think that now things are started to get back on track. I definitely feel a lot more like myself.”
She added: “I’m definitely more myself now. The start of the year, it just was a bit of a jumble, a lot was going on and I definitely lost myself in the first few weeks and felt really disheartened that I had quite a negative start to the year.
“A very negative start to the year. I was really, really upset.”
However Molly confessed that she’s put it all behind her and has moved on.
Molly continued: “I’m quite good at starting a new chapter, pushing things behind me and moving on.
“In this life if I dwelled on every bad thing that was said about me, or every negative comment that I receive, or everything that doesn’t go the way I plan it to, I would probably never get out of bed!”
The creative director of PrettyLittleThing was branded “tone deaf” after what she said on the The Diary Of A CEO podcast, which was released in December 2021.
However her comments came to light weeks later in January 2022.
Molly and host Steven Bartlett were discussing how she deals with criticism.
The star said: “You’re given one life and it’s down to you what you do with it. You can literally go in any direction.
“When I’ve spoken about that in the past I have been slammed a little bit, with people saying ‘it’s easy for you to say that because you’ve not grown up in poverty, so for you to sit there and say we all have the same 24 hours in a day is not correct.’
“But, technically, what I’m saying is correct. We do.
“So I understand that we all have different backgrounds and we’re all raised in different ways and we do have different financial situations, but I do think if you want something enough, you can achieve it.
“It just depends to what lengths you want to go to get where you want to be in the future. And I’ll go to any lengths.
“I’ve worked my absolute a**e off to get where I am now.”
Many took to social media to air their grievances with her grafting sentiments, pointing out that she went on one of the UK’s biggest reality shows and had endorsement deals waiting for her.
One tweeted: “She literally just went on a TV dating show and got brand deals, I’m not sure she ‘worked here a**e off’”.
“So funny that people have gassed her up so much that she feels comfortable to be able to say this,” another remarked. “She’s always been well off and for her to say this is so tone deaf.”
A third shared: “Ngl I like Molly Mae but if you’ve never been in poverty you’ll never know how hard getting out of poverty is, it’s an endless cycle.
“Yes life is what you make of it but it also helps when you don’t need to stress about what you or your family are having for dinner.”
Four days after her comments hit the headlines, Molly issued an apology.
She wrote on her Instagram Story: “I wanted to come back on online today as normal but I feel like before I do I just wanted to say this…
“When I say or post anything online, it is never with malice or ill intent.
“I completely appreciate that things can affect different people in different ways however I just want to stress that I would never intend to hurt or upset anyone by anything that I say or do.
“I apologise to the people that have been affected negatively or misunderstood the meaning of what I said in the podcast.
“The intentions of the podcast were only ever to tell my story and inspire from my own experience.
“Love to you all, always x.”
Molly-Mae shot to fame on the fifth series of Love Island in 2019 alongside boyfriend Tommy Fury, 22.
