Jack Monroe 7 Wiki

Kickstarter

In December 2015, Jack opened a Kickstarter to self-publish her third book Cooking on a Bootstrap. Her initial target was £8000 but she ultimately raised almost £70,000. Many people also bought an extra copy to be donated to a food bank or school. It was announced in February 2016 that Bluebird had bought the rights to publish the book; but the Kickstarter continued and Jack promised an April 2016 release date. This was repeatedly delayed, with her giving various excuses. At one point she said she was "writing in a freezing cold flat without even a sodding table to sit at", as if nothing had changed for her after several years of having a successful career in the media.

Her backers became frustrated, and some asked for refunds or proof of where the money had gone to. She guilt-tripped those who had asked for updates; saying that they were hurting her and affecting her mental health. Some were told she had refunded their money because they were "bullying" and "harassing" her by asking where the product they paid for was! Jack threatened to sue someone who had speculated as to whether she had bought a house with the money. Once again she resorted to guilt-tripping, this time suggesting she had been a victim of stalking and domestic violence behind the scenes while the Kickstarter was ongoing. She said she had taken no money for herself at all, as she was paying a team of artists and an admin assistant in addition to the costs of postage and printing.

The book did not materialise until it was published by Bluebird in spring 2018. A few months later, some backers received their self-published copies in black and white and with no illustrations - by this time, the published, illustrated, full-colour edition was in print and widely available. Others never received a copy at all.

For the full saga, and how Jack responded to the people who donated money, see the Kickstarter here.

On-off sobriety

Jack first spoke about being an alcoholic around 2014-15 after being criticised for her comments about David Cameron's son (see 2014 section on wiki page 6.) But in 2016-17, she went back and forwards on her social media about whether she was drinking again, trying to cut down, or Sober. See here for a timeline of just some of her posts. Needless to say, it's irresponsible to give the impression that alcoholism can be instantly "cured" through going cold turkey with no side effects.

Diva column

Jack was given a column for Diva magazine where she wrote about her experiences as a trans/non-binary parent. Columns can be seen here. In one column, she said she and her son had a "two-hour round trip" to school, implying (without outright stating) that they had to do this every day from her home. Her son was actually living with his father in a nearby town and going to school there - as was apparent from the father's public social media account. Despite this, Jack continued to ask for donations on her social media, saying she was her son's main custodial parent and needed money to provide for him.

Mrs Gloss & the Goss

Mrs Gloss & the Goss is a popular Facebook group about fashion and beauty. Jack joined in 2016, posting as Jack Xatzinikolas (apparently a name from her father's side of the family.) She frequently shared photos of new clothes, haircuts, and designer makeup in the group - including a collection of "77 lipsticks, 14 foundations and 40+ eyeliners." On one occasion she posted about her new perm, only to share the same photo on Instagram and say her hair had naturally dried that way. It apparently did not occur to Jack that people might follow her across multiple platforms. She made so many comments on her own posts that mods would often close comments to give others a chance to post. The group is a popular place for people to ask for advice, and Jack's posts always being near the top made it harder for other posts to be seen.

Here's an archive of most of her posts in the group: 2016, 2017-2019. She often mentioned using high end makeup (Chanel, Urban Decay, Benefit, Smashbox, etc.) and owning hundreds of products! She would also post pictures that were clearly filtered but say it was just makeup, see wiki page 10 for other examples of this. At the same time, Jack was telling her Kickstarter backers that she was struggling and didn't have utilities. She was also saying in the press that she used testosterone, wore a binder, and had worked out to build a more masculine figure (see 2015 section on wiki page 6) - none of which was apparent from the photos she regularly shared in Mrs Gloss.

Abuse and sex work disclosures

In June 2016, Jack was interviewed for a Buzzfeed article about domestic abuse in LGBT relationships. She was pseudonymously referred to as "Sam", but later confirmed to Pink News that she was the person being referred to. In the interview, Jack described her experience of living with a violent girlfriend while pregnant. The article stated: "Some deemed her not a 'real' lesbian because of the Pregnancy. They did not know that Sam had previously, briefly, worked as a prostitute to try and survive financially." This suggests Jack's son was born as a result of sex work, evidently not true as his father is Jack's old friend. He was born in April 2010, so that would mean she was poor when he was conceived in 2009 - at a time she says she had three jobs and earned almost £40,000 a year.

This is one of many conflicting stories Jack has given about doing sex work and when:

• In 2009, leading to her son's conception (Buzzfeed article, June 2016)
• "Hooker (...) former SW (...) former prostitute (...) bona fide whore." (Twitter, April 2017.) Saying that multiple exes had threatened to expose her to the press, and that the Daily Mail was going to run a story about it so she pre-emptively told them herself. At no point has the Mail ever run a story about this.
• "(I was in) prostitution and stealing food to survive, 2013." (Twitter, December 2019)
• "I worked in (a brothel.)" (Twitter, July 2022) - again doesn't mention when she supposedly did this
• "I went on to work briefly in the s*x industry" (Twitter, August 2022). This suggests it was either before she joined the Fire Service or while in poverty.

I, Daniel Blake

Ken Loach released the film I, Daniel Blake about a man whose life is destroyed by the bureaucracy of the benefits system. Jack was interviewed about the film and published an article about it. She claimed that researchers working on the film had contacted her and she had given them permission to use material from her blog. This included a scene in which characters use tea lights under a flower pot to heat the room when they have no electricity - something Jack said she had done in 2013 and written about on her blog at the time. There is no such post on her blog, nor does the Wayback Machine show evidence of a deleted post. Perhaps not surprising given that in 2013, Jack had a full time job, an influx of media work, and a financially stable partner! She also stated she "barely left the house" when she was poor, which doesn't explain why her blog at the time described her volunteering, supported by friends, and regularly attending local council meetings. See 2012 section on wiki page 6.

Pulse nightclub shooting fundraiser

Jack announced that she and a friend had set up a shop called Heather and Jack to sell their artwork and photos. She referenced giving up photography when she was poor and had to sell her camera - even though she evidently had one in November 2012, when she became self-employed selling photography.

Heather and Jack held a sale to raise money for the families of the victims of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting. Notice how the website states that the artwork was donated but that only the "profits" would be donated to the JustGiving fund. What costs were being incurred, and were Jack and/or Heather drawing any wage from this? Jack never gave any further updates and did not reveal how much was raised, or show any proof of donation.

From 2016 until 2023, Heather and Jack's shop remained open, including a print in aid of the charity Broken Rainbow - which closed in 2017. Why was this sold for years after Broken Rainbow closed? Did anyone buy it in that time and if so, where did the profits go?

Libel case

In 2015, Katie Hopkins falsely alleged on Twitter that Jack had defaced a war memorial. (She confused Jack for the writer Laurie Penny, who had expressed support for protesters that defaced the Cenotaph.) Subsequently, Jack sued Hopkins for defamation. In spring 2017, Jack won and was awarded £24,000 in damages plus the cost of her legal fees.

Much of her case was based on the argument that she had been harassed and received death threats because of Hopkins' comments, causing her mental health to deteriorate. However, the judge noted that Jack didn't provide strong evidence to support this, and she had not helped her argument by deleting a large number of her own Tweets. After the case concluded, Jack told the BBC that Hopkins' actions had driven her to a breakdown and caused her relationship with Allegra to fall apart. But only seven months before, she'd said in the Guardian that her breakdown was because of gender dysphoria. Later in 2017, she stated at the Greenbelt Festival (11:10 in the audio) that her breakdown and the end of her relationship were caused by tabloids printing lies about her (transcript).

Jack was invited to discuss the libel case on The Victoria Derbyshire Show, where she met the TV exec Louisa Compton and they began dating. At the time, Louisa was in a senior role at the BBC; she's now the Head of News at Channel 4. She is estimated to earn £250,000 a year and would still have been on a high six-figure salary when she and Jack got together.

Patreon

On 7th April 2017, Jack posted on Twitter saying that she had ruined her favourite Mulberry bag by spilling whiskey over it, and was devastated that she couldn't afford another one. The bag was purchased in 2013 with her first book advance, but she also mentioned that her Samsung phone and a lot of designer makeup had been ruined. The bag apparently made a miraculous recovery, as it resurfaced in 2021. (It's the same bag - notice that the strap doesn't quite match - Jack has said her son broke the original and she had to buy a replacement.)

The following day (8th April) she stated that her credit was very poor and she had almost had a breakdown after her card was declined for £15 worth of groceries. She then announced she had opened a Patreon. She asked for donations, saying "I work 80hr weeks and right now can't afford to pay my rent." According to Jack, she didn't have access to the damages money Katie Hopkins had paid, because Hopkins was planning to appeal the verdict - this is likely true, as it was reported in January 2018 that Hopkins had been denied permission to appeal. When others criticised Jack for asking for more money after the Kickstarter disaster, she accused them of expecting her to "work for free." In another tweet she pondered whether she could crowdfund for a house. She later said in a 2019 interview (at around 52:57) that she had wanted to do this but her then-partner (Louisa) found it "mortifying."

At the same time Jack claimed she could not pay her rent, she was still posting regularly on Mrs Gloss & the Goss with high-end makeup and new clothes and hairstyles; and displaying other expensive possessions on her social media. In an interview with the Evening Standard around this time, she said she drank 122 units of alcohol a week during the worst of her alcoholism, and was a member of the Groucho Club - a private members' club for those working in the media/creative industries. It would have cost her £250 to join and (at the time) £575 in annual membership fees - not cheap for someone in a supposedly desperate financial situation.

Grenfell blog post

Jack shared a blog post about the Grenfell Tower fire, which she used as an opportunity to draw attention to herself and present false credibility. She gave the impression that she was an experienced firefighter; and told an implausible story of being waved through a police cordon, somehow acquiring plans for the building, and being in contact with lawyers and architects about the official investigation. See 2010 section on wiki page 6 - Jack can't drive or swim, so she would not be accepted for training as a firefighter. The post contains a photo of her supposedly in uniform, but the obvious poor fit suggests it may have been taken at a charity event or taster day where civilian staff can try on a uniform and pose with the fire equipment.

Political campaign

Jack ran as an independent MP for Southend West (her local ward) in 2017. She stated in the Evening Standard interview that she had wanted to run for office for years but put it off because her son was too young. She received a lot of backlash from voters in the area, who accused her of self-promotion and were concerned she would split the left-wing vote. The NHS was a key issue for local people and the Green Party had already agreed not to run against Labour, who stood the best chance of winning the seat. She subsequently withdrew from the race, citing harassment (as always) and poor health.

At this time, Jack was still in a relationship with Louisa Compton. Jack downplayed Louisa's wealth, saying in a February 2018 blog post that "my partner has not had a working cooker for two and a half years." That's disingenuous when Louisa earns a six-figure salary and could clearly afford a cooker if she wanted one! Jack announced her engagement to Louisa in January 2019.

She admitted in a 2018 interview that she was addicted to social media and had at least nine anonymous Twitter accounts for political arguments.

In 2018-19, Jack began to give increasingly extreme accounts of her past poverty, examples include:

• "I lived rough for two years, with six months relying on the food bank." (Washington Post, December 2018.) It's not clear if she was trying to say she was homeless or simply poor. Either way, she wasn't poor or homeless for two years. She stated in March 2013 that she had never been homeless, but has since said she was - see 2013 section on wiki page 6.
  
  
• "(I was) unemployed in 2011. Selling everything I owned in 2012. Prostitution and stealing food to survive, 2013 (...) Evicted from my flat with my three-year-old (...) I lived with no heat and no LIGHTBULBS and no carpets and no fridge for TWO YEARS." (Twitter, December 2019. Warning - link discusses suicide.)

All this has been contradicted many times; see 2012-13 sections on wiki page 6.

In August 2018, Jack became interested in landing a job on TV. She asked her fans to express support for her to be given her own show, then announced that she had paid to train in TV presenting and film a pilot. She asked for donations to help with the costs of training and to help fund a YouTube show of her own if her pilot wasn't picked up for TV. She said "Am funding the pilot myself as I'm not a pisstaker" in the same tweet as she asked others to "help!" This was at least her second request for donations during the year.

Alleged royalties theft

In January 2018, Katie Hopkins was denied an appeal and would have had to pay Jack damages at this point. Jack told the press that she would be "celebrating by laying a new kitchen floor" and had spent the money on "a nice new couch and four holidays."

In May, Jack claimed on Twitter that her former agent had withheld "around £20k" of book royalties from her and as a result she had made no money at all from her first two books, despite working "7 days a week." She said she was reluctantly going public with this after failing to resolve it privately, and asked for help in finding a lawyer. She then made the following claims in a blog post:

1. She was owed between £30k-£50k in unpaid royalties, and had made no money from any copies of her first two books sold since 2015. (Both books were actually published in 2014.)
   
   She stated she made around 39p in profit on a sale of a £12.99 book. Pan Macmillan, which published her first book, A Girl Called Jack, claims that it sold nearly 60,000 copies. Presuming both books sold 60,000 copies each, she would have made £46,800 in royalties. The true figure must be less than that - since her first book didn't quite sell 60,000 copies, and the second did less well. But evidently, she still made more than enough that she'd have good grounds to sue and could go to the press about what happened. She had friends in the media on her side and a girlfriend who is a powerful figure in TV. A publisher withholding royalties from a new author would have been a scandal that would be widely reported on, and even the threat of exposing them would have helped get the money back.
   
   
2. During the court case against Hopkins, she could not work, and the £24,000 she received did not even begin to cover her lost income. Most of the money had been spent on repaying friends she had to borrow money from. She had also had a cheap weekend break in Paris with Louisa; bought a sofa in the sale; and bought a new carpet to lay herself (not a floor.)
   
   This differs from what she previously said; that she'd spent the money on four holidays and a new floor (not just a carpet.) In the same month the blog post was published, she and Louisa went on holiday to a nice resort in Cyprus, as shown on Jack's now-deleted Instagram (here's her confirming the date years later.) Jack had continued to write professionally and make public appearances during the court proceedings, and had claimed in April 2017 that she worked 80 hours a week. Furthermore, she lived in a rented house, and replacing the floor or carpet should have been the landlord's responsibility. Not many landlords will let a tenant do this themselves unless they're a professional fitter which Jack is not.
   
   
3. Because of her financial difficulties, she had fallen behind on energy bills. As a result, bailiffs had broken into her house and forced the door. She no longer felt safe in the home she loved, and would be forced to move.
   
   

   I stopped answering the door. Stopped sleeping at night. Started letting the post stockpile on the doormat again. Started to live in fear of unknown callers on my mobile. Started checking my banking app ten, twenty times a day. Started crossing my fingers out of habit every time I put my debit card into a chip and pin machine to pay for groceries, despite checking my bank balance in the queue thirty seconds before. I started cowering behind the front room door every time the postman came. Parcels were sent back. Letters unsigned for. I lay awake at night, every creak in the central heating an imaginary boot waiting to kick in my front door, every slowing car on my busy seafront road a group of henchmen, every flashing light an imaginary Police car for imaginary crimes. I have woken screaming, shuddering, sobbing, flailing, inexplicably distraught, thrashing, terrified, inconsolable. I have barely slept properly, alone, in over six months.

   Click to expand...

   "Over six months ago" places this before November 2017. She would not have received the money from Hopkins until at least January 2018 when Hopkins' appeal was denied. If by this point Jack felt driven out of her home and thought she may have to move, why would she buy a new sofa and carpet/floor? Furthermore, in England, bailiffs legally must not force doors. They can get a locksmith to open the door under some circumstances, but not for a debt on energy bills. Jack should have known her legal rights, since she says she'd been in serious debt in 2012-13. She makes it sound more like she had a loan shark after her!

A while later she gave an update saying she had recovered a third of the royalties, but still needed money for her legal case against the former agent. Her agent at the start of her career was Adrian Sington, then the CEO of DCD Publishing. This is who she was with when her first two books (A Girl Called Jack and A Year in 120 Recipes) were released. She publicly thanked him many times, and said that they had an excellent working relationship.

Jack had moved to United Agents (a larger, more prestigious agency) by February 2016. In July 2020, on her blog (warning: link discusses suicide and sexual assault) Jack repeated the story that her former agent had withheld royalties for her books, saying they had "stonewalled" her and denied she was ever on their books. DCD Publishing was dissolved in January 2018, so she would have had to raise the matter directly with Adrian or another representative. Despite this, in December 2022 Jack left (or was dismissed from - see wiki page 2) United and went back to Adrian, who now works at Kruger Cowne. Why would she go back to an agent she couldn't trust to pay her? At the 2023 Greenbelt Festival, while still represented by Adrian, she repeated the story that "my former agent did a runner with the royalties." See here for a transcript.

"Year of sobriety"

In January 2019, Jack was interviewed about her alcoholism in the Guardian. This was stated to be the first time she had spoken about it publicly. She said that she began to abuse alcohol in her teens due to social anxiety, and later quit, but the problem began again when she moved to London in 2014. She said she had now been sober for a week, and this had vastly enhanced her creativity and improved her life. At the end of the year, in December 2019, she provided an update saying she was still sober (warning: link discusses sexual assault) with the help of her family, friends, publisher, and Alcoholics Anonymous.

In both the January and December articles, there were a lot of implausibilities/inconsistencies:

• Jack had previously stated (in the Evening Standard in 2017) that she began drinking when she was poor and "never quite stopped." This time, she said she was "absolutely certain" that she did not drink when she was poor; and had stopped drinking in her late teens because she was busy working three jobs. (See 2012 section on wiki page 6 - she also told the Sunday People in 2012 that she didn't drink.)
  
  
• In the December 2019 sobriety "update", she described the owner of her local corner shop recognising her from the previous article in January, and her asking him not to serve her alcohol. But she later gave a different version of the corner shop story in Diva magazine.
  
  
• Jack said she had taken baskets full of alcohol to the till in shops and then handed the cashier a piece of paper asking them not to serve her. This doesn't usually stop an alcoholic and they will go elsewhere if someone won't serve them. Why would you pick up the alcohol in the first place, only to ask not to be served? She credits Alcoholics Anonymous for helping her manage her addiction, but AA teaches you, the drinker, to take responsibility - not place it on others by asking them not to serve you alcohol.
  
  
• In both Guardian articles she said she was struggling with temptation to drink but felt better almost instantly, seemingly with no withdrawal symptoms. That's not very likely for someone who was previously drinking 122 units a week.

Tin Can Cook fundraiser

Jack opened a GoFundMe and raised almost £45,000 to donate copies of her book Tin Can Cook to food banks. The funds seemingly went to her personal PayPal - making it difficult to distinguish what was for the fundraiser and what was a donation to her. It's also strange that she set up a fundraiser (which was to pay for her publisher to buy copies for food banks - incurring the costs of admin, postage, etc.) rather than simply asking people to donate money/books directly to their local food bank.

Soliciting donations

In March 2020, Jack used Twitter to beg for donations (part 1, part 2) and job offers, saying she had lost work and had no money coming in because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was living with Louisa, who was now the very well paid Head of News for Channel 4. Jack said she and Louisa shared bills and rent equally, but that she spent just £20 a week for food, suggesting Louisa didn't contribute money for groceries. This is hardly a fair arrangement if Jack had so little while Louisa was on a high six-figure salary (Jack claimed not to know what Louisa earned.) Louisa owns a house in London, and they were renting because Jack wanted to stay in Southend.

Jack also had a regular income from Patreon; when her Patreon was hacked in December 2023, figures indicated she received around £1000 a month in 2020. Her parents have money and she should have been receiving child support from her son's father if he is the non-custodial parent. At the same time as asking for money because she had no work coming in, Jack still insisted she worked 90 hours a week (doing what is unclear.)

She publicly described her house as a "shabby" and "shitty" bungalow - at one point complaining that it was all she could afford because she was so short of money. Again, this was when she was living with a wealthy partner who owns another house. This didn't stop Jack appearing in a Sunday Times feature that made it apparent the "shabby bungalow" is actually rather nice. She later gave herself away by inadvertently mentioning on Twitter that the house had stairs and a downstairs toilet. If it has two floors it is not a bungalow!

COVID

At the start of the pandemic, Jack claimed to be immunocompromised and unable to leave the house, and said this was having a serious impact on her mental health. Yet, around a week later, she admitted to breaking lockdown laws by going out to buy unnecessary goods.

She refused to download the NHS Track & Trace App, claiming that she had the personal data of "thousands of vulnerable people" on her phone. Even telling an absurd story about how, when she had to hand over her phone on a visit to Downing Street, she "defiantly" took out the SIM card and put it in her bra! When criticised for this she said she barely left the house unless for work, and had not even gone out when having "an actual mental breakdown" (implied to be caused by Louisa leaving her at the beginning of May.)

On December 27, 2020, Jack strongly implied that she had long Covid-19. She never explicitly stated it in her first tweet of many but soon started asking the #LongCovidCommunity for help. If we take this at face value, she would have had Covid-19 since somewhere between October 4 and November 1 (it is generally accepted that you have to have had symptoms for 8 – 12 weeks before you get diagnosed with long COVID-19).

October was the heyday of her £20 shop, where she merrily scampered off to Asda multiple times a day. It was clear from her extensive tweeting that she had no symptoms and was not self-isolating. One can only conclude she didn’t have Covid-19 then. Around this time, her ex Louisa moved back in as a "bubble buddy" under new Covid regulations.

Jack clarified on December 27 that her symptoms started three weeks ago. She posted a "pyjama selfie" for sympathy on December 28 2020. This is alarming, as that would take us to somewhere between December 6 and December 13. Yet, in that time period she went to an important meeting dressed as a schoolboy, foraged for mushrooms in her local Tesco, and (as any respectable left-winger would) bought three copies of the Daily Express. The last two actions also seem to coincide with Louisa being symptomatic and self-isolating in Jack's home. A full timeline of that shitshow. When some of her followers started questioning the timeline of her illness, Jack went on a mass tweet delete spree.

Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver was given a show about cooking on a budget during the pandemic. Jack felt this was her personal "niche genre" and the job should have gone to her; and ranted on Twitter about it (Part 1, Part 2.) Jamie is an experienced chef and TV presenter who owns a TV production company, making him an ideal choice to put out a show at short notice. Jack was a food blogger with no presenting experience other than a day course she had seemingly done in 2018. Despite this, she felt she had a right to be the only person talking about budget cooking, something she neither invented nor brought anything new and original to.

She encouraged her fans to attack/criticise Jamie, and this gained her a lot of followers and attention. Jack started trying to "compete" with him by holding a daily event on Twitter where she would give others advice on how to use up leftovers or what to make with store cupboard ingredients. She also implied to others that Jamie was profiting off of her recipes. Hypocritically, she accused him of deleting posts and blocking people to protect his image - something Jack has repeatedly done herself.

Ultimately, she published an insincere apology on Twitter (bear in mind that Jamie probably doesn't even read his official Twitter), and attempted to blame ADHD and the press for her behaviour. She was largely not criticised for anything she'd said about Jamie. What reaction do you think he would have got if he'd called Jack "her" and "that woman", encouraged others to pile on her, and accused her of stealing work from him?

Daily Kitchen Live

Jack landed a job as a co-presenter on Daily Kitchen Live; a two-week daily spin-off of Saturday Kitchen Live. (Even this didn't stop her making spiteful comments about Jamie!) Jack couldn't decide if the reason she hadn't presented a TV show before was because she lacked confidence or because TV execs thought she was "too common." (In 2022 she changed her mind again and said at the Edinburgh Festival that it was because they thought tinned food wasn't glamorous enough.)

She had to film the first week at home because she was quarantining with possible COVID symptoms. Jack was clearly underprepared, with poor sound and internet connection and a jerky webcam. She tried to blame this on Louisa, which would have made them both look extremely unprofessional to others. Later she filmed from a makeshift "kitchen" in her garden shed using a camping stove. This is obviously dangerous; carbon monoxide builds up quickly in an enclosed space, and the shed was made of wood and was flammable. While the show was ongoing, Jack monitored social media and Tattle obsessively, and led her followers into pile-ons against anyone critical of her - many examples can be seen in her early threads. She was caught on camera checking her phone while live on air, and posted tweets while the show was live.

She said that filming her brief appearance in each episode was 20 hours' work for her and she "earned £8 an hour." Later clarifying that this was actually what she took for herself from her fee - as she was a freelancer with no guarantee of income, and also had to pay her admin assistant (Caroline.) Choosing to take £8 an hour from your considerably higher earnings is very different from only earning £8 an hour!

See wiki page 1 for links to all episodes.

Hellman's/Black Lives Matter

Jack had a brand deal to promote Hellman's mayonnaise, and did an Instagram live with them every week. In the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, she made a YouTube video in support of Black Lives Matter. The video is no longer available after she deleted her YouTube channel, however screenshots show that she stated she would donate all proceeds from the video to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. She never provided any evidence of a donation or mentioned it again.

Jack was criticised for her lack of transparency over any supposed donation, and describing herself as "white as mayo" - seen as an attempt to plug Hellman's. She responded to this by trying to suggest she herself experiences racism because her father is half-Greek. Obviously, you can't say one minute that you're white and don't experience racism, and then the next that you're mixed race and do experience it. Criticism of Jack's "dirty hands" refers to her having visibly unwashed hands and nails in a lot of her cooking videos, something that would be criticised in anyone whose job involves food preparation.

Jack was due to host one of the Hellman's Instalives on June 2, 2020. Hellman's had invited a social media user (N.) to take part in the live; N. was on Tattle, but didn't post on Jack's thread and wasn't familiar with her. Subsequently, June 2 was designated as "Blackout Tuesday" - an initiative for people to stop posting on social media for 24 hours, in protest against racism and police brutality. N. expected that the live would be cancelled for Blackout Tuesday, but when she didn't hear from Hellman's, she contacted them to check. They said they would get back to her, and later confirmed the live was cancelled. She was left with the impression that neither Jack nor Hellman's knew about Blackout Tuesday, and had hastily cancelled the live after N. told them. She spoke about this experience on Tattle and her social media.

Jack tweeted about the cancelled live more than an hour after Hellman's confirmed to N. that it was cancelled. If she had wanted to express her support for Blackout Tuesday she would have done so when it was first announced/when she found out, not at the last minute on the day of the live. She insisted she did know about Blackout Tuesday and had asked for the live to be cancelled, both in support for victims of racism and to avoid putting N. (who is a woman of colour) in a difficult position. When accused of "bandwagon jumping", Jack stated that it was her duty to bring awareness to important causes and that she had "risked a five-figure contract" with Hellman's. Note the vague language here; she deliberately didn't say that Hellman's had threatened to sack her or that she'd said/done anything in particular.

This drew the attention of Alexis Adjei, a food/lifestyle influencer. Alexis shared her experience of how she had allegedly shot a commercial for Hellman's, but she and a Black colleague received racist treatment and their scenes were then edited out of the finished product - which didn't happen to any of the non-Black people featured. She challenged Jack to confirm that she'd almost lost the contract. Jack replied that Hellman's had always supported her, but that she had "risked" the contract by speaking up in the first place. The postponed live eventually went ahead, but Hellman's only allowed pre-approved contributions.

Tattle battle

Jack's first Tattle thread began in March 2020 after an incident where she failed to disclose affiliate links. Tattlers commented on her hypocrisy and obvious untruths, and her behaviour towards Jamie and on Daily Kitchen Live. There were also posters alleging that Jack had publicly attacked them on social media. One person said that they had criticised her on Instagram and she subsequently doxxed them, sharing a news article with their full name and location. Another person had commented on Twitter about an episode of DKL where, after a segment by the Hairy Bikers about afternoon tea, Jack and Matt Tebbutt immediately criticised the segment. Jack quote tweeted with a snide reply implying she wasn't privileged enough for afternoon tea and that the poster was bullying her. This led to them receiving dozens of abusive DMs from her followers, including death threats and police had to be involved.

On social media, Jack suggested that Tattle posters:

• Tried to find out where she lived and get the deeds to her house. This is false; what actually happened was that a poster said it wouldn't be wise for Jack to lie about whether she rented, because anyone who knew her address could check the owner via the Land Registry.
  
  
• Published "defamatory, libellous, slanderous claims, outright lies, and ridiculous allegations" about Jack and her family. By definition, slander is a spoken statement; no spoken word about Jack had been posted on Tattle. She claimed to have screenshots and print-outs of every thread on Tattle, and threatened to sue unless her threads were deleted. This is the same woman who publicly accused Jamie Oliver of stealing/profiting from her work, and other statements for which he could have sued her.
  
  
• Were "trying to put in CPS reports about my son, find my home address, harrass (sic) my employers, make fraudulent claims about my finances, campaign for me to lose my job, and harrass (sic) my family." Tattle didn't do any of this. By "CPS", she probably meant Child Protective Services, the US equivalent of social services (in the UK, CPS normally stands for the Crown Prosecution Service.) Social services need quite a lot of information before they can act on a child safeguarding concern - if anyone did report Jack, it was probably someone who knows her offline.

She joined Tattle in thread 31 in response to N. posting about Jack's Hellman's live. Jack gave N.'s real name, accused her of libel, and threatened to sue her. Jack didn't stay long but did give her version of events.

David Walliams

Jack attacked David Walliams on social media after her son brought home Walliams' book The World's Worst Parents. She accused Walliams of “sneering classist fatshaming nonsense” and described his books as "like Little Britain for kids." In particular, she criticised two of the stories in The World's Worst Parents:

• "Supermum": Jack insisted this story about a working-class mum who cleans toilets for a living was making fun of poor people. In context of the story, Supermum's children find her embarrassing because she pretends to be a superhero in public, not because of her job or how much money she earns. She does get to be a hero at the end. Jack appeared to have not even read the story in question.
  
  
• "Miss Tutelage": Jack said the character of Miss Tutelage was a racist stereotype of a Black woman, citing descriptions of the character's "frizzy hair" and someone making fun of her name as "Desmond Tutu." Tutelage is a real word that means instruction or tuition, and Miss Tutelage is intended to be white - confirmed by the publisher. See this illustration from the book and compare actual Black character Harriet Hurry.

When someone mentioned Walliams giving an interview about his "writing process", Jack shared a meme of Henry Hoover snorting white powder - implying Walliams takes cocaine. She also said that he doesn't write the books; and then went after the Director of Comms of a major publishing company, who had worked with Walliams and said that he does write them. She fairly quickly deleted the Henry Hoover tweet, and later said it wasn't aimed at Walliams but was "poking fun at (her) own industry." Jack was confident that her lawyer in Israel could handle it if she were sued, and her followers offered to donate money if she needed to fund a legal defence. She also "jokingly" threatened to assault Walliams and appeared to be digging for damaging information on him.

Walliams didn't respond to her directly but his publisher issued a statement in support of him. Jack gained some Twitter followers and was featured in the news; but ultimately, nothing changed. The following year, the host of a small podcast successfully petitioned Walliams' publisher to remove a story from another of his books as it contained racist stereotypes of Chinese people. Jack has far more of a platform, yet her crusade against Walliams didn't achieve anything.

Pet loss

Jack had a disabled kitten named Sophie Ellis Pretzel (aka Sophie/Pretzel/Pretz.) She denied that she got Sophie from a breeder, however SB's father breeds cats of this type - Sophie's condition was likely caused by inbreeding. Jack repeatedly attacked people when asked if Sophie was receiving treatment and said "I don't share everything on social media!" She claimed to have taken Sophie to a vet but it appears she never did, and eventually the kitten passed away. A full timeline of events can be seen here with screenshots - warning for pet loss and animal cruelty. Jack said she had received death threats over Sophie and was struggling emotionally.

Edinburgh trip

Jack had hard times in May-July 2020 which included the loss of Sophie, and her relationship with Louisa ending. She decided to go on a trip to Edinburgh, her favourite city (at that time, Scotland had just relaxed COVID restrictions.) Jack insisted it was not a holiday but was for "healing" and she would have to "(go) away involuntarily" if she hadn't gone to Edinburgh.

Jack took the train to Edinburgh, which would have cost around £80-£95 for a one-way ticket; saying she hadn't booked a return and had no idea how long she would stay. She posted on Instagram about what she'd packed, which included a Nutribullet, two sets of AirPods (retailing at £99 each), Beats headphones, photo/video equipment, and lots of other tech. Upon arrival in Edinburgh she immediately gave away her location by sharing a photo of the view from her rented apartment. This was right after she'd said she had received death threats because of what happened with Sophie. If you were being threatened, why would you make it easy for others to find you? The apartment was in an affluent area, and Tattlers discovered (again, from Jack herself freely sharing her location) that it cost over £250 a night. She bought lots of things for the apartment, including plants and so much kitchen equipment that she couldn't take it back to Southend with her and offered to donate it to a local charity.

Jack went out to various public places and restaurants including Dishoom - leading to her infamous "in restaurant parlance it's not a chain" tweet. She announced she was healing and felt great; only to rant and verbally abuse someone who had asked why her son wasn't with her. She returned to Southend less than two weeks after going to Edinburgh, saying there had been "unexpected circumstances." On the way home she complained that LNER (train company) hadn't respected reserved seating arrangements to protect against COVID; resulting in some of her fans criticising LNER on Jack's behalf. COVID didn't seem to bother her when she was eating out and socialising in Edinburgh.

Evidently, Jack had no problem spending thousands of pounds on the trip at a time when she claimed to be under huge financial stress and to have recently lost a year's worth of work due to the pandemic. Or engaging in unnecessary travel, putting herself and others at risk of COVID.

"You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal"

On July 30 2020, Jack published a blog post called "The Price of Potatoes and the Value of Compassion." (Warning - link discusses suicide in detail.) She later retitled it, "You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal." The original title referred to comments by Annunziata Rees-Mogg that no one should be starving or obese when raw potatoes are cheaper than oven chips.

In the blog post, Jack gave a heartbreaking account of the lifelong effects poverty has had on her; leaving her unable to open her front door or open letters, and forced to frequently move house because she didn't feel safe there. The blog post tried to suggest that she spent longer in poverty than she did (it was roughly between November 2011 and March 2013 - not two years or more), and that it was far more severe than she described at the time. Again, see 2012 section on wiki page 6 and compare her blog posts from that time with what she says here.

Some of the claims she made in "You Don't Batch Cook ..." include:

• "I was evicted from my flat with a toddler when my Housing Benefit was suspended because I was deemed to have made myself deliberately unemployed by having a baby within the confines of a job whose flexible working patterns were a paper policy rather than a reality." See 2012 section on wiki page 6: Jack remained in her home for almost a year after leaving the Fire Service. She was threatened with eviction over rent arrears, but managed to find another home quite quickly, and less than six months later was back in employment with her media career taking off. Because she had a child below school age, she was not required to look for work while claiming benefits, and would not have had her benefits suspended for leaving her job.
  
  
• She currently used a GoHenry card for her daily shopping, as she needed its spending control feature to ensure she wouldn't go over budget. GoHenry is intended for under-18s and an adult can't sign up; there are also cards available for adults that have spending controls. See 2021 section for what happened when she continued telling this story!
  
  
• She was forced out of education because she didn't have enough GCSE grades to continue to sixth form - as her school had a policy of not enrolling students in the exam for any subject where they were predicted below a B. See wiki page 8 for other accounts about why she left school.
  
  
• Her agent stole book royalties from her (see 2018 section)
  
  
• "I wrote the majority of A Girl Called Jack by email on a Nokia E72." "(My editor) cleared a desk for me at their enormous great big office (...) and insisted I come and work there to finish the manuscript. I had to wait for my signature payment to come through before I could afford the train fare." "I produced a handwritten notebook of recipes and tried to hand it in as a completed manuscript, thinking that that was how real authors did things."
  
  A Nokia E72 was a premium business smartphone, and cost about the same as the then-current models of iPhone and BlackBerry. Aside from it being very difficult to write an entire book on a phone, there's also photographic evidence that she had a laptop! She mentioned having a computer in this blog post where she talks about writing her first book, and this one where she refers to typing up her recipes. Most publishers don't care what you use to type your manuscript and if they "insisted" Jack go to their office to write it, that may well be because she'd already missed her deadline.
  
  
• "A flat I was refused a viewing on, to rent, because I was on benefits. October 2012. I still remember how humiliated I was standing in their office being told I wasn’t the kind of tenant they wanted." Jack posted about this in October 2012 on her blog and said she simply called the estate agent and was told they didn't accept tenants on benefits - which is common in the UK.

Jack also shared several pictures of what were supposedly her everyday meals when she was poor, suggesting she lived like this for weeks or months. All these photos were taken over one week in 2013 (see 2013 section on wiki page 6), when she did the "Live Below the Line" challenge to spend no more than £1 a day on food to raise money for charity. See below for the original blog posts each picture came from:

• "My lunch, April 2013"
• "Rice with lemon curd, chicken stock and mixed frozen vegetables."
• "Another measly receipt, 2013 this time."
• "Another variation on rice with mixed frozen veg, 2013. That measly bowl was lunch and dinner." (She did have different meals for lunch and dinner)
• "F*ck me this is a bit repetitive. And that’s the point."
• "Here we go again! My god there’s a reason I barely eat rice any more."
• "More rice and veg. 2013. And an apple. The sheer profligacy of it all."

Her meals were insubstantial and repetitive because she was living on £1 a day for food (less than half what she says was her usual food budget) for a short time to raise money for charity! She didn't ask for donations in this post, but did promote her Patreon on her Twitter account.

Anonymous Twitter account

Tattlers suspected a Twitter account called @Peeky_Mink was a "sockpuppet"/alternate account of Jack's. Signs included Louisa and Jack's mother following the account; the account also following/commenting on Louisa's tweets; writing "thankyou" as one word the way Jack does; misusing words the way Jack does; listing the location as Edinburgh; and using a cartoon avatar from an image that Jack had previously posted on Facebook. @Peeky_Mink posted about having expensive Ocado deliveries at a time when Jack was saying on her main account that she was struggling. The account was quickly locked and then deleted after Tattle identified it.

Linda McCartney/Veganuary

Jack landed a brand deal with Linda McCartney and they appointed her the face of their campaign for Veganuary (an initiative for people to adopt a vegan lifestyle during January.) Vegans were not happy with this because Jack isn't a vegan, wasn't doing Veganuary herself, and uses cheap meat wiih low welfare standards. They began complaining to Linda McCartney and also looking over Jack's social media, leading them to question the many inconsistencies in her stories. We refer to these critics as "viggles" (vegan squiggles - where a squiggle, or squig, is an anonymous person on social media.)

The viggles then began questioning Jack's claim that she "only works with brands that agree to charity donations." They repeatedly asked what charity she had donated to (or asked Linda McCartney to donate to), highlighting other instances when she claimed to have donated money but never shown proof - such as from her monetised Black Lives Matter video. Jack never addressed this or showed any proof of a donation.

GoHenry

GoHenry provides a bank account for children under 18. The account comes with a spending control feature in order to teach kids how to manage money. Jack had previously claimed in one of her blog posts ("You Don't Batch Cook When You're Suicidal" - see 2020 section) that she lied about her age and signed up for a GoHenry card so she could use the spending limit to keep to her very strict budget. She repeated this several times in 2021 on her social media.

Shortly afterwards, she alleged someone had impersonated her and got her son's savings account shut down - saying she would report them to police. She again told the story that this was part of a harassment campaign which included trying to get her fired from her job and making false "CPS" reports against her. (Again, see above, by CPS she seemingly meant social services.) GoHenry confirmed that an account had been closed.

A Twitter user stated that they had safety concerns about an adult being able to sign up for a GoHenry account, and had sent screenshots from Jack's Twitter to GoHenry, who then closed the account. That's not "impersonating" or harassing Jack. Later, when she shared shopping receipts, Tattlers noticed that she had paid with Visa, whereas GoHenry uses MasterCard. So it appears her son's account did get shut down through her own actions. Why did Jack want to give the impression she was so poor she needed a child's bank card to stick to her budget? There are services for adults that have spending control features.

School discipline row

Jack attacked a school on Twitter ("School X") because they had tested a new government scheme for managing behaviour. She said that the school's approach was harmful, and implied they were grooming children to join the military. She publicly accused her old school of causing her lifelong mental health problems, and destroying her future, by failing to accommodate her ADHD. See wiki page 8; Jack is unclear on whether she was supposedly diagnosed with autism/ADHD as an adult or a child. If we accept her story about being diagnosed as a child, then this is at a time (1990s) when there was little support available for children with these conditions, and it was rare for a girl to be diagnosed. Her school probably wasn't being deliberately neglectful.

When the actor Tom Bennett pointed out she was being somewhat unfair to School X, Jack threatened to sue him - even though he'd said nothing offensive or untrue about her, and had even asked critics to leave her alone. She got into arguments with squigs who pointed out that Jack went to a grammar school, whereas School X is a regular (non-selective) school that already has problems with behaviour - in some schools this can be very serious, e.g. knives and fights. Jack denied her parents were wealthy at the time she attended grammar school, this is when she said her dad is a "Marxist-Leninist landlord."

Rehab

In spring 2021, Jack disappeared from social media for a while and later returned, sharing photos of her stay in an "aparthotel." Tattlers speculated that she had been in rehab. Jack later confirmed this in the November 2021 essay of Diva magazine, in which she wrote that she had relapsed after Daily Kitchen Live and had to go into rehab. Jack stated:

• An "obsessive team of anti-fans" (apparently meaning Tattle) had terrorised her during Daily Kitchen Live. Again giving the false story that Tattle had tried to get her fired from her job, sent hateful messages to her, and made malicious false reports about her to authorities.
  
  
• As a result, she "fell off the wagon" and relapsed into alcoholism, later also becoming addicted to tranquilisers and sleeping tablets. She realised she needed help, and entered a nearby rehab facility.
  
  
• Jack stayed for four months (longer than anyone else), made lots of friends, and was admired for her cooking. She became "the mother hen of the group, the one they all gravitated to for a laugh, an ear, a shoulder, a confidence."
  
  
• She initially lied to her family and friends that she'd gone away to film Strictly Come Dancing, but over time admitted that she was in rehab. This was harder than having to tell them she was gay, pregnant, transgender, or no longer vegan
  
  
• She'd had a cancer scare but managed to get through it without substance abuse
  
  
• She was now fully recovered and was enjoying life, writing and cooking again, taking care of her appearance, and getting proper help for her various medical conditions including arthritis and ADHD.
  
  
• She was studying for a bachelor's degree in nutritional science and hoped to work with a new unit at the rehab facility. If Jack has only four and a half GCSEs, most universities would not accept her onto an undergraduate course unless she first took other qualifications such as A-levels, a BTEC or NVQ, or a foundation course. The Open University accepts people without traditional qualifications but does not offer a course in nutritional science. Jack hasn't mentioned studying for a degree since.

There were also descriptions of her new friends gushing "we wish you could see yourself the way we see you!" and her 11-year-old son thanking the therapist for "making Mama well again." The whole article came across as Jack humblebragging and wanting praise. She had also previously said in October 2020 that she was "22 months sober." That wouldn't be the case if she had relapsed after DKL (around May 2020.)

Rental contract crisis

In the UK, a fixed term rental contract normally lasts 6 months to a year. After this, the tenant may sign up for another fixed term, or enter a "rolling" contract. Jack and Louisa moved into a rented house together in February 2019, and their relationship ended in May 2020. But around November 2021, Jack began saying that she was still committed to a rental contract she had taken out with Louisa. This would mean the contract was over two and a half years long - not impossible, but unlikely.

The following year, in 2022, Jack said on Twitter that she had a year left to go on the contract; suggesting it was four years long with no break clause. Such a contract would likely not be legally enforceable, and if Louisa's name were on the tenancy with Jack, she'd continue to be liable unless Jack signed a new contract just for herself. Jack said she had tried and failed to get out of the contract and couldn't take in a lodger. This left her solely liable for the rent, bills, and council tax, which took up 94% of her monthly wage. Jack gave the impression that Louisa had selfishly left her in this situation - even though Louisa had returned to live with her as part of her "bubble", and Jack had also said they were still on good terms and that Louisa still sometimes looked after SB.

Jack apparently found a way around the restriction on lodgers, since later in the year she mentioned a new housemate; seemingly not her partner, as she had just started seeing someone at that time. She could have got free advice from her local council, Citizen's Advice Bureau, or Shelter ... or she could have made up the whole story about being locked in an interminable contract and left poor.