‘I’ve always liked making money’: Every revelation from Lydia Millen’s podcast interview

It’s just recently turned one year on since controversial influencer Lydia Millen, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, booked into The Savoy, a boujee five-star hotel after her heating broke and was called out for being incredibly out of touch.

Since then, Lydia Millen has been involved in several other controversies, written a book, grown in followers and now has a net worth of over £1.6 million.

But this week she appeared on the Working Hard, Hardly Working podcast with Grace Beverley, an influencer who has also recently come under fire for her use of ad practices as well as for asking her followers to buy her products to fund her wedding.

As is common with Grace’s podcasts, her guest Lydia fails to actually address the controversies head-on, and don’t expect an apology. Throughout the interview, they discuss a range of things, including Lydia’s upbringing, her thirst for making money, and they touch briefly on her controversies. Here’s what she had to say:

Her parents broke up when she was young she she lived with her Grandma

Lydia said that her upbringing is one of the things she’s “struggled the most with communicating online”. Her parents broke up when she was five and she said it was “almost like two worlds happened” when her mum moved into a rented council house and her dad moved into “a really luxurious man pad in Northwood” (London).

She said she had a lovely “first five years” of childhood but it began to get “really confusing” after this.

She then talked about going to uni, where she studied retail marketing at Northampton. But after uni, she moved in with her grandma following a breakup with a boyfriend who she was initially living with. She described her as “the mum that I hadn’t had”.

Her Ibiza girlie summers

Very different to what she’s like now, back in the day between her years at uni, Lydia spoke about how she was an Ibiza girlie and spent every summer there, where she worked three jobs. She said: I was there to work because I loved it. I was like a Duracell bunny.”

“I had a job at Ibiza Rocks, Plastic, Eden, loads of different places and I’d go from one job to the next then I’d go out and I’d party and I’d get up the next day, go to the beach for a little bit, go to work go to the next job and just do it like that all the time.”

‘Fun to me was making money’

Still talking about her time in Ibiza, Lydia Millen admits that fun to her is “making money”. She said: “I knew I wanted to have fun but fun to me was making money. I’ve always liked making money.”

She goes on to explain that when she went back to uni for the rest of the year she worked at a bar as well as Topshop. “I liked to go out and do student stuff but that wasn’t why I was there,” she said.

She also talks about how much she enjoys making money: “I enjoyed making money, it gave me a lot of purpose, it gave me a lot of focus.”

Grace then asks “Where do you think that desire or enjoyment of earning money came from?” and Lydia says it’s due to not wanting to depend on anyone.

She wanted to be the ‘sweetheart of the internet’

Obviously, Lydia has been involved in a number of controversies as an influencer and Grace addresses this: “As you’ve said you’ve had a few controversies online” to which Lydia jokes: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Without naming any of the specific times she’s been under fire on the internet, including for her trip to the Savoy amidst a cost of living crisis, Lydia said that before she became an influencer, “I always envisioned that I’d be the sweetheart of the internet, but that’s definitely not me.”

Instead, she said: “I’ve found myself in a number of situations where I’ve been on the receiving end of cancel culture honestly I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve experienced it and I’ve really studied this.”

She said that cancel culture is “out of hand” and becomes very destructive and disproportionate to the “silly comment” or mistake made.

‘I’ve never felt able to talk about my monetary wins’

Recently, Grace Beverley has come under fire after alleged “lack of sustainability” in her company TALA following celebrating one million pounds worth of sales in an hour. Lydia congratulates this and says: ‘I know I’ve never felt able to talk about my monetary wins, I’ve never felt comfortable.” Lydia is believed to have a net worth of over £1.6 billion.

She said in the past she “used to be so scared that people would find out how much we charge. I lived in fear that we were gonna get an email from someone posing as a brand and that people were going to find out how much we charge. I don’t wanna live like that.”

‘My Achilles heel is people not thinking I’m a nice person’

Lydia Millen said her biggest flaw was the need for people to think she’s a nice person. She told Grace: “I’m like unexpectedly funny when I do things and it doesn’t translate well onto other platforms I would say”. She admits she is much better perceived on her YouTube channel.

But she adds: “I never mean any harm to anyone and I think that’s something I always want to underline. My content is very vanilla.”

“I struggle with people thinking I’m not a good person. My Achilles heel is people not thinking I’m a nice person.”

“But I’m not about to feel sorry for myself about it.”

‘This is the only job I could have done’

Finishing up the podcast, Grace asks Lydia if she could go back to being 18, she would “110 per cent” be an influencer again.

She said: “I’m also one of those people who are not very talented so I was always going to do something like this let’s be honest.

“This is the only job I could have done.”

The podcast episode has had mixed responses. There are a lot of people commenting admiring Lydia’s journey. One comment reads: “I admire Lydia immensely. She has worked hard for what she has (you cannot deny that). She is poised, elegant and herself. I think much of the hate she receives is from a place of judgment and jealousy. Thank you for having her!!

However, another comment adds: “I think this is the worst episode so far and I have an absolute avid viewer who loves what you do. Lydia is so staged and comes across very very badly. She didn’t really address her disgusting behaviour. So very disappointing x”

For all the latest viral memes, music and reality TV and entertainment news and gossip, like Pop Culture Shrine on Facebook.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Inside the life of Lydia Millen and how she makes all her money to splash at The Savoy

• Inside the life of Lydia Millen before money, fame and staying at The Savoy

• One year on from The Savoy scandal, this is what Lydia Millen is up to now

Featured image via YouTube.