Katie Piper says youth is overrated. She makes a powerful case for how life is actually better in your 40s

Katie Piper’s story is one of extraordinary resilience. Once a rising model, her life changed course in 2008 when she survived a brutal acid attack, ordered by her ex-boyfriend, that left her with severe face and body burns at the age of 24.

While others might have retreated from the public eye after such life-changing injuries, Piper, now 41, turned people’s doubts into fuel. In a world that measures women’s worth by their appearance, she was made to feel that her future had been written off.

“I was told the most valuable currency a woman can have is beauty, but I lost those Western beauty standards of symmetry, flawless skin and was told that was it,” the Loose Women panellist says during our conversation for Yahoo UK’s Unapologetically series.

“Those people were wrong,” she says. They certainly were.

Piper raises awareness for burns survivors through her charity, The Katie Piper Foundation and, through her books and TV work, has become a powerful advocate for self-acceptance.

Piper has redefined what resilience looks like, confronted a difficult relationship with alcohol and built a life of purpose, power and love – and she’s not done yet.

Let’s start with the big picture. You’ve done so much – books, TV, activism, parenting. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Continuing. I think it’s the continuation, the longevity, and reinventing yourself to find things that you stay passionate about. Because if you do the same thing for too long, you can lose the kind of ‘why’ or the ‘what’ or the purpose.

It’s not easy in life to find your why, especially as a woman or as a young woman. Finding your place in the world is something I think we’re all trying to do. I feel really grateful to have found it at such a young age, as I did in my 20s.

There are numerous narratives and standards placed on women, probably more so than on men, so I think it’s important, if you have a platform as a female, that you pass the mic, lift others up, and open doors for others as well.

You’ve spoken openly about your relationship with alcohol, stating that you were using it destructively to cope with nerves and flashbacks. What changed after confronting that?

It’s been difficult. I wouldn’t say I had an addiction, but when you look into addiction, we’re all addicted to something. Whether it’s sugar, online shopping, sex, food, drink, drugs, or gambling, some of those things are illegal and taboo, and some are mainstream, and we’re allowed to do them, which can be even harder because they’re socially acceptable.

It’s about recognising when you’re dependent on anything and have a crutch for it; that’s not the problem; there’s something beneath that which is the issue.

I’m always trying to work on myself, whether it’s the obvious things, like therapy, or my own personal therapy, which includes activities like running and sports. However, it’s not something I do, and then I’m better. It’s something I have to keep on doing. And it’s hard. Sometimes you’re just like, “Wow, life is quite exhausting.” However, I think that if you use social media to build a community, you often find that other people are similar.

At least everyone’s life is a mess.

You’ve lived so much of your life in the public eye. How has that changed you?

It’s always been a positive experience for me. It began from the very start, with people stopping me on the street to share their stories of adversity. It was a bit like being a hairdresser, where you go out and everyone tells you their problems and trusts you. In fact, the storytelling has never really stopped.

That storytelling has inspired me to create podcasts, write books and host chat shows. So, it’s inspired my career – that real, organic kind of connection I’ve had with the public. It’s a deep connection with people you’ve never met, which is quite unique.

Also, it’s the normality of, like, everyone does go through some kind of trauma in one way or another. It isn’t always necessarily visible, but things happen to people, and life goes on.

While promoting one of your books, Still Beautiful, earlier this year, you said that ageing felt like a “bereavement“. What did you mean by that?

I wrote the book because I was turning 40, women said to me: “Oh, do you mind if you print your real age?” / “Do you mind talking about it?” / How do you feel about it?”. I thought, “Wow, you know, life expectancy is into my 80s. I’m only halfway through my life. Why am I only allowed to celebrate just 50% of it? Why is the rest downhill from here and doomed?'”

What we’re all doing with our lives is trying to live a good life. So I’m not going to start commiserating, I’m only 50% of the way through my life.

We tell women that they’re in their prime in their 20s. I actually think that’s doing a disservice to women of that age, because then many feel like failures.

What I can tell you now, as a 40-something woman, is that this age is your most stable time, especially financially, because you’ve been working the longest. That’s when you take less crap from people, and you know what you do and don’t want. I think that’s when you become more confident, because it’s more of an inside job.

So, I actually feel that what happens in your 40s, and I would assume in the decades beyond, is that life gets easier, and you know who you are. That’s a much more stable existence than your 20s.

You touched upon society having unrealistic expectations around age and beauty. How do you navigate that while being in the spotlight?

I was told the most valuable currency a woman can have is beauty, but I lost those Western beauty standards of symmetry, flawless skin, and I was told that was it. Everything’s over for me. Those people who told me that were wrong. That wasn’t true.

Now that I’m ageing, again I’m told that the second most powerful currency a woman has is youth. But I don’t think it is. Youth means you’re vulnerable, naive and could be exploited. Those in power can use it against you. You don’t need to be young to be happy, successful or desirable.

I think youth and beauty are both wrapped up to weaponise women who are told that if they don’t have those things, they don’t have any value. It’s completely not my experience, and I am very happy. I’ve done all the things I want to do, and I don’t subscribe to that. It can be very difficult to go alone, but you can pick up people along the way.

You once said: “Among my peers, I’m not the most beautiful or the youngest, but I’m one of the most powerful.” What does power mean to you now?

I don’t think the most powerful person in the room has to be the loudest, the most assertive, or the most prominent. Because sometimes when we see people in power, they’re very dominant figures.

I think power can be quiet and considered, because when you’re confident, you don’t need to prove your worth to everybody. I suppose it comes with understanding that you never stop acquiring knowledge or learning from others. I think it’s about staying open-minded and not being tunnel-visioned, like “This is my view, and it’s stuck like this.”

I’m glad I didn’t have social media when I was younger, because our views change and our experiences become richer and more diverse. It’s OK to be wrong and go back and change, you know? I think it’s best to be malleable with it. I get night sweats thinking about that. That’s where I feel sorry for young people – everything’s documented.

You’re raising two daughters, Belle, 11, and Penelope, seven. What do you try to teach them about self-worth?

They’re young, so we’re not in the thick of social media. But, with the eldest, we’re on the cusp of it, for sure. I don’t think it’ll be easy, and I’m sure they’ll have their own struggles, but I don’t push my lived experiences onto them.

Youth is about finding your own identity, and it’s horrible to have a pushy parent that says, “You’re going to grow up and be this and you’re going to be that and you’re going to be like me or not like me”. That’s not fair.

They need to have their own agency and autonomy, and if I let them do that, then hopefully, when they get older, they will come back and choose me as a friend and confidant. But I can’t force it. There’s a big world out there. Everyone’s going to get hurt and make mistakes, and that’s normal.

I’ve got a good husband [Richard James Sutton, a carpenter] and he’s a brilliant parent to our girls. We parent together, and it’s not all on me. I feel very privileged, because I know a lot of people doing it solo, and that’s another layer. So I’m in a position where I’m in a team in that sense. However, I know that when people become single parents, they often still have a support system of friends or family. You find your community.

You’ve written a new children’s book, Your Greatest Gift, about love. What inspired it?

I was writing numerous adult books, and as my kids grew older, they began asking about them. I wanted to translate the same universal messages into a children’s book.

This is the third instalment in this children’s series, so it’s great that the kids and their parents love it as much as I love writing it. I love working with NSPCC and Leah, the illustrator.

How has love – not just romantic love, but all forms of it – shaped your life?

It’s been so healing, because connection is so important for humans, right? Historically, we grew up thinking of love as romantic and about finding the one; if we don’t, we often feel incomplete. But love is so much broader than that.

You can be loved by people you’ve never met. You can feel a sense of love in community, in groups, where love isn’t necessarily a one-to-one romantic thing, but love is still really important.

With all those clichés about loving yourself, I think if you don’t have high levels of self-esteem, you can’t begin to let other people in. Even if you don’t realise it, you do form a barrier that can leave you quite isolated and lonely.

So it always does – even though it’s cliché – it does start with you.

This has been edited for length and clarity.

3 products Katie Piper uses on repeat

☀️ I love a really good SPF. I wear La Roche Posay SPF 50 every day.

💤 I always sleep with a silk pillowcase for good hair and skin.

⌚ I rarely take my Garmin watch off. Step count is key – health is wealth!