Rebecca Humphries on Millennial Love: ‘Gaslighting is being misused a lot’

‘It can happen at work or within family and friendship groups,’ says author and actor

Rebecca Humphries has spoken about how the term “gaslighting” is often misused.

While appearing on this week’s episode of The Independent’s Millennial Love podcast, the actor and author explained what the term means to her.

“I do think that ‘gaslighting’ is now finding its way into really watery moments that are completely disstilled down and it’s being misused quite a lot,” she said.

“For me, gaslighting, I would define it as someone else calling into question your mental state in order to facilitate their own bad behaviour.”

The Ten Percent star continued: “And that bad behaviour can take whatever form, whether it’s cheating on you with other people, or just wanting to undermine you, or needing control or whatever it is.

“But if they say to you there’s something wrong with your brain, and they carry on doing what they’re doing as if nothing has happened, then that to me is gaslighting.

“And that doesn’t have to be a romantic partner either, that can be at work or within family and friendship groups.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Humphries spoke about her book, Why Did You Stay? A Memoir About Self-Worth.

The book details what happened after the actor’s boyfriend was caught kissing his Strictly Come Dancing partner and how she later reclaimed the narrative, posting a powerful statement about gaslighting on social media that swiftly went viral.

Humphries discusses how she found her voice, why emotional abuse is so complicated, and the truth about men who call women “mental”.

The episode also features a discussion on love bombing, female rage, and softbois. Listen now here.