I don’t blame hairdressers for banning toxic gossip mags after Caroline Flack’s death – we need a detox

We need a break from nasty coverage. Try it, you’ll be surprised how much lighter you feel, writes Jenny Eclair

Businesses are removing publications that prey on vulnerable women and celebrities (Getty)

“Guilty pleasure reading” at the hairdressers has long been a habit for many of us. Obviously, we wouldn’t buy that rubbish ordinarily, but if you’re sitting with a plastic bag on your head while the bleach takes for an hour, then it can be quite tempting to flick through a pile of gossip magazines.

Only in light of the appalling and seemingly avoidable death of Caroline Flack, hairdressers up and down the country are telling their clients that they will no longer be giving shelf space to what has essentially become a toxic pile of spite.

Ok, before we all get too self-righteous here, not all women’s magazines are horrid. There are actually quite a lot of fashion, health and beauty publications, both weekly and monthly that are great for an occasional browse. Personally, I adore looking at fantasy fashion spreads and checking out handbags which cost more than I paid for my car. And as a one-time cover girl for Woman’s Weekly, I’m all for being reminded about interesting things I can do with mince.

I don’t think anyone can really take that much exception to the magazines that started the whole gossip trend either. Hello and OK! are still pretty innocuous, although these days, they seem more content rummaging around the shiny kitchens of soap stars than the European Royalty they used to be obsessed with.

Women’s magazines can be a force for good, they tackle gynae and mental health issues, review books and films and even occasionally (not often enough, imo) shine a light on some of the new and exciting faces of female comedy.

The magazines I have an issue with are those right down at the gutter end of the market, the cheap tittle-tattle rags that take delight in featuring a haggard, tired, drunk or fat-looking celebrity on the front cover, complete with headlines that sensationalise personal problems such as issues with drink, money, men, weight... The list goes on.

These are not the kind of magazines that you welcome into your home for an in-depth interview, complete with a nice polite photographer who takes his shoes off in the hall and minds how he lights you. These are the kind of magazines that employ men armed with long-lense cameras whose sole purpose is to catch you coming out of the off license, or an AA meeting, or getting out of a car with your knickers on show. These are the magazines that want to expose celebs at their most vulnerable, preferably without any make up and wearing something that suggests imminent homelessness.

When I was a panelist on Loose Women for a year, I started appearing in some of these magazines and it always amazed me how ugly I looked. Fortunately, once they realized that I lived a life of utter dullness in an unfashionable part of southeast London, the paparazzi soon got bored of taking unflattering snaps and turned their cameras elsewhere. I don’t think I was ever “prey” enough for them. Sometimes, being neither beautiful nor particularly troubled can let a girl massively off the hook.

But some women aren’t allowed to wriggle off the hook that easily, and immediately I think of Caroline, Diana and Paula Yates, without doubt, one of the prettiest, wittiest women that I ever met in real life, who was hung out to dry by the media.

What’s really upsetting about these tragic endings is how we seem to learn our lesson and then as soon as the tributes are done and the flowers have faded, it’s back to the bitching again. We live in a society that pretends to care about mental health but really doesn’t, it’s all just talk and hashtags.

What’s even more dangerous is that we are told that help is readily available when it truly isn’t. There is no funding, there aren’t any resources, people from all walks of life are falling through the cracks. And while you can’t blame these pathetic magazines entirely, they’re not doing us much good are they?

Personally, I’m all for these salons deciding to offer alternative reading material, including in some cases, adult colouring books (this doesn’t mean porn by the way) because celebrity magazines that do nothing but slag people off are insidious and damaging.

How can schools operate a zero-tolerance bullying policy when extreme nastiness is all over these front covers for every child to see? Get rid of them and good riddance.

Obviously, no one expects anyone to suddenly take to reading Zola and Proust while having their split ends snipped, but you’ll feel a whole deal better if you don’t spend your time at the hairdressers soiling yourself with other people’s misery. And no, just because they’ve removed that rubbish from the salon, there is no excuse to disappear behind your phone and check it all out online.

Give yourself a toxic press detox, I promise you’ll be surprised by how much cleaner you feel. Seriously, we all have to make an effort now because if we don’t, we are all complicit in this mess.