Stacey Solomon thought she looked like Halle Berry after giving birth to her first son.
The 27-year-old star now admits that she felt "pressure" to get back into shape after having nine-year-old Zachary - whom she has with ex-fiance Aaron Barnham - however, when she looks back at old photos she now thinks she looked more like "Shamu the whale" than the 50-year-old former Bond girl.
Writing for her HuffPost UK blog, she said: "After I gave birth for the first time, I actually felt like Halle Berry. I thought I was amazing and had this gorgeous bikini body. When I look back at pictures now, I was more like Shamu the whale.
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"I dunno why I had this warped vision of just being a goddess, but I had stretch marks everywhere."
Talking about the fear of never looking the same again, she added: "A year on you feel like, \'I\'ll be able to get in my jeans then. I\'ll look exactly how I looked before.\' But when you don\'t, you start thinking, \'oh my gosh. I\'m never going to be the same again.\'
"I felt a pressure to look good really quick and I think that made me go the other way and I just felt like, no way and I dieting. No way am I getting on an exercise machine."
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The former \'X Factor\' contestant - who is dating former \'EastEnders\' actor Joe Swash - became famous when she had her five-year-old son Leighton and said it was the "weirdest" and "messed up" thing having people judge her body.
She said: "When I had Leighton I was then in the public eye so I felt really aware that people would be looking at my body after giving birth, which I think is just the weirdest most messed up thing ever.
"I had just literally pushed a human being out of my vagina."
11 March 2026 - 3:14 AM
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