S1 EP4: I tried to hide it but he caught me…

So, my client who had just come in today generally comes in every eight months for an anti-wrinkle treatment.

That’s far too long between visits. We generally see clients every three to four months.

I actually asked her, “Why do I only see you once a year, basically?” And she said, “Because I have to do it when my boyfriend isn’t here.” And I am so fed up hearing this. I have a lot of opinions about it. I know it’s going to be quite controversial because people have their own opinions, which is fine.

So I asked, “Okay, why are you coming in now?” And she said, “Well, he went away hunting, so I had the perfect time to come in and get it done. By the time he’s back, he won’t know.” Then I asked why he doesn’t know, and she said, “Because he doesn’t believe in anti-wrinkle treatments and filler.” And I just… I don’t get it. What do you mean he doesn’t believe in it?

I think there is a lot to debunk on why a partner feels they have the right to have an opinion on your body and how you present yourself.

How often do we have clients come in and say, “I need to dissolve my whole face”? That’s where our world stops. Because their boyfriend or fiance has decided he wants them “natural.” And the question we always ask is: did he meet you with filler already in your face?

That’s such a valid point, and the answer is almost always yes. Or he had no problem with it in the beginning, and now all of a sudden he has a problem. But every single day, there is at least one client hiding their treatments from their partner. There’s always more than one.

It’s just so bizarre. When clients say, “He doesn’t like me doing this, so I’m booking my lip treatments or my anti-wrinkle appointments when he goes away on a hunting trip or work trip,” there’s one question we always come back to: does he ask you before he goes and gets his veneers done, or goes and gets a tattoo? It has to be fair, and unfortunately it’s not always the case.

I highly doubt any man is sitting down and saying, “Honey, I’m about to jump on a cycle of whatever you want to call it.” I don’t think anyone is having that conversation.

Most of our clients who bring their partners in are saying, “Please, we want him to know, we want to get started” which is so great. We are all about ageing gracefully. But does he ask you before he does any of these things? Ninety-eight per cent of the time, the answer is a solid no.

And you know where it gets even more interesting? When the wife comes in and says the husband doesn’t know she’s here, and then the husband comes in and says the wife doesn’t know he’s here. Those are the best situations. And then the side chick also comes in, because the husband has said, “You can’t tell my wife my girlfriend is coming.” The husband doesn’t generally know the wife comes here either. It’s just chaos. We’re totally off topic, but it’s a full love triangle.

When we hear someone say, “My boyfriend doesn’t want me to,” the first thing we think is: why doesn’t he want you to? If it’s genuinely about health and safety, or he’s truly concerned you’ll look different, that’s a conversation to have with your injector about achieving natural results. But comparing anti-wrinkle treatments and dermal filler is like comparing apples and oranges. A lot of men just go online, scroll through TikTok and Instagram, and make the wrong connections entirely.

And the women with filler that these men are scrolling past and liking photos of, who is giving them all their views and likes? The men. That is exactly the point. Clients are always saying, “I’ve caught him following girls who’ve had all their aesthetic treatments done, but when it comes to me, he won’t let me do it.”

That is a controlling person who wants to keep a woman from feeling her best. Once you let a partner control you about having a cosmetic treatment done, you’re opening the door to him controlling everything. You’re not allowed to wear this, you’re not allowed to go there, you’re not allowed to do that, and then you just feel trapped.

Because manipulative men, you won’t notice it in the beginning. They start off as, “Baby, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, you don’t need it, I love the way you look.” And then one slip-up in the relationship and she’s going through his phone, down a rabbit hole of every girl he’s followed and every photo he’s ever liked. And she calls the next day and says, “Book me in right now.”

And we roll out the red carpet for you, queens, when you do that. Because ain’t nobody telling you what to do with that body of yours. That is your temple. Do as you please.

Our favourite thing is when a client dissolves everything at her boyfriend’s request, then breaks up with him two months later and says, “I just wasted all this money dissolving my filler and now I have to pay to get it put back in.” And the answer is always: you could have just told him you dissolved it and he genuinely would not have known either way. Or, you could have just broken up with him and stayed fabulous.

You are nobody’s child other than your parents’. And your parents have no problem with how you look, so it is nobody else’s business.

I am going to get so much hate for this. The first comment will be, “No wonder you have no man.” It’s fine, we don’t want one. Men are the easiest things to get in the world. They are easier to get than an appointment with me, girls and guys. So make sure you pick correctly.

Speaking of controlling relationships, have you ever experienced being controlled in any of your past relationships?

In my marriage, I wouldn’t say I was controlled in terms of my appearance. I could do whatever I wanted with my face. I actually hadn’t even started anti-wrinkle treatments yet, I was that young at the time. Not that age matters, by the way, we’ll get into that later.

So in my marriage, it wasn’t about my face, my hair, my skin, or my body. It was a different kind of control. The devil wears a lot of hats, you guys.

It was control disguised as care, making me believe he had everything under control so I never needed to worry about a bill, a bank statement, a credit card, the mortgage, anything. I never had to deal with any of it.

For example, when I got injured nursing, it went under workers’ compensation, and every month you need to update your certificate with your doctor to confirm you’re still not fit to return. I remember one day it was a day past the due date, and I told him we forgot to renew the certificate. He said, “You don’t need to worry. I called the doctor’s practice yesterday, spoke to the receptionist, the doctor printed a certificate, I went and picked it up, I scanned it, I emailed it to your nursing unit manager, your case manager, the insurer, and the lawyers, and I’ve filed it in the cabinet.”

That sounds sweet at first. But when someone manages absolutely everything around you and you can’t see what they’re actually doing, they’re controlling the entire world around you.

Cut to getting divorced. Moving back home and having to sort out all my own paperwork. Trying to register my new car the day after the divorce, calling the insurer and saying, “Can I have a slip? A pink slip? A green slip? I had no idea.” He said, “Which one?” And I said, “I don’t know.” And he said, “Why are you calling?” And I just broke down crying. “I don’t know how to do any of this.” And he said, “But you’ve been driving since you were 17.”

And at that moment, it clicked. When you’re managed into not knowing how to do anything on your own, you become completely dependent on that person. It’s all portrayed as love, as “I care about you, I want to help you,” but then they pull the rug out from under your feet and you’re left unable to function.

That really opens your eyes to how many different forms of control there actually are. We all used to think he was amazing because he had everything under control. But in the end, it’s all set up for failure on your end.

And you know what? There was never any real anger through the whole divorce. The mindset was always: whatever happens is a life experience that’s going to teach me something. So the attitude was: great, now I’m going to learn how to register my own car. Genuinely something to be happy about.

I briefly saw someone once, and near what turned out to be the end of it, we were in McDonald’s. You know how McDonald’s has that harsh downlighting? He noticed something on my forehead and said, “Raise your eyebrows.”

And the thought was: who exactly do you think you’re talking to? And also, what if I can’t raise my brows? I don’t want to raise my brows. You’ve stressed me enough. And what he said was, “I cannot believe you’ve done this. You’ve ruined yourself.”

He was so narcissistic, so evil looking back. He made her believe she’d literally ended the world because she had an anti-wrinkle treatment done. He went on about it for days, weeks, months. It was just crazy.

And then there was the time she liked a photo of The Rock on Instagram. Back when you could see the activity page and who’d liked what, he saw it and didn’t speak to her for weeks. He called her thirsty. For liking a celebrity’s photo. And we literally never spoke again after that. That was always going to end. It ended before it even started.

Has your partner ever made you feel controlled throughout your relationship?

No, never really. There are moments, like sometimes he’ll see an outfit and say, “Maybe change the top.” But honestly, I instigate that. I deliberately wear something I know he’s going to react to. One time I went into Biba’s wardrobe at her apartment and put on a see-through top just to wind him up, then walked out saying, “Yep, we’re leaving.” His face went completely white.

But besides moments like that, where it’s more about the occasion than actual control, he’s never been controlling about anything. He’s never had a problem with cosmetic injectables either. We did have a conversation after my last treatment where we agreed, no more cheeks, but honestly, I already knew that. I didn’t need to be told. I’m a professional, I know what suits me.

And I am genuinely the worst person to be told what to do. Even when I don’t know something, I’ll act like I do. I think it comes from something deep. When someone tells me I should have known better, it makes me feel like I’m not good enough.

It’s more that being such a perfectionist and a major overachiever since childhood, someone opens a door confidently and she’ll break that door down to prove she can do it better. And she can, to be fair.

Do you remember the client, early on after opening the clinic, who had quite a significant amount of work done across her mid and lower face and chin? The transformation was astounding. She was messaging all night: “Thank you so much, I love my face, I feel so confident, I feel so amazing, you’ve changed my life.” We had all the messages to prove it.

And then the next day she called, and she had black eyes out to here. It was major domestic violence. And then she turned around and said, “Look what you’ve done to me. I want to sue you.” Mind you, she had been in the clinic talking about how terrible her relationship was.

As awful as the position that put us in, if you put yourself in her shoes, what do you actually do? Your partner is hurting you. You’ve had treatments done to feel beautiful again, and then he makes you feel worse than ever. She cried when she saw her face. She said she had never felt so beautiful.

She had a feeling he was cheating on her. She didn’t feel beautiful anymore. He would sit next to her scrolling his phone, making horrible comments about other women to tear her down. She thought maybe if she did this, he would appreciate her. And instead he hurt her. That level of control is genuinely frightening.

We really hope she left that relationship. And that’s what we keep coming back to: you cannot open the door to control, because that is unfortunately where it can lead. Pick up on these patterns early. Love yourself enough to leave. The moment a partner starts limiting you from anything that makes you feel amazing in your own body, that is where it ends.

All of the drama around It Ends With Us has been fascinating to follow. The whole situation has been such an eye-opener for how manipulative people can be, even those who present themselves publicly as champions for women and human rights. Blake tried to be smarter than Ryan, but they are, arguably, a perfect match in terms of the toxicity on both sides. And tying an assault allegation to Justin is the most effective way to strip him of the rights to the film and the series. It is calculated.

Do we think Blake and Justin actually had something going on? It seems entirely possible. There’s only so much time you can spend with someone, pretending to be in love with them on screen, before something real develops. The Vampire Diaries cast is a perfect example. Eight years together on set every day, and so many of them ended up in real relationships. It just happens. Brad and Angelina is the classic case too. He was with Jennifer Aniston, they were the perfect couple, and then Mr and Mrs Smith happened and his whole marriage fell apart.

We’ve actually talked about this in our own lives. If we weren’t doing what we’re doing now, acting would have been tempting because of the ability to just switch into a character like that. But then the conversation came up: would it be comfortable watching your partner kiss someone else on screen?

And honestly, there’s a valid point there. Chemistry on set is real. At what point does it become something more? Personally, watching a partner kiss someone else on screen would be very hard to sit through.

The strongest people for that, genuinely, are those in relationships with partners in the adult entertainment industry. It takes a very particular kind of trust that most people don’t have. What’s mine is mine. Not everyone is a sharer, and that’s completely valid.

On the threesome topic, there’s always a twosome and a one happening in that situation. It’s a no. Moral of the story: it’s a no to sharing.

So, would you let your partner go to a strip club?

When my ex was going to New York with his brothers, I said to him, “As if you’re going to New York and not go to a strip club.” He said, “Oh, I’d never do that.” And I said, “Please.” I pulled out my phone and found him a list of the best strip clubs closest to where they were staying. Go live a little.

My boyfriend is actually in the States right now, and one of the people he’s travelling with tried to wind me up before they left by saying they were going to a strip club. And honestly, I don’t care. Strip clubs aren’t the biggest problem in the world. Just being in that environment doesn’t phase me. A lap dance is perhaps pushing it a little, and anything beyond that obviously, but the environment itself? No.

At the end of the day, the job is to perform, look amazing, and make a living. It’s a form of entertainment. It’s a very different thing to a brothel. And no one is ever going to come home and say, “Babe, I went to a brothel with the boys.” But they might say they went to the strip club. So there’s that.

[Hydie calls her boyfriend live on the podcast]

Hi babe! Just recording the podcast and needed to make sure you’re not at a strip club.

“Hi guys! We’re on the way, not there yet.”

Oh my God! Can you video call us when you get there? We want to show the fans!

“Okay!”

(hangs up) So… no strip club tonight. She says you can go.

You are not saying that! I take it back. Enjoy babe! Love you, bye!

Why are you sad? You miss him! She cries at everything, you guys. We could be sitting on the lounge having a completely normal chat, nothing is wrong, just chilling, and she’ll start crying. Ask what’s wrong and she says, “I just love him so much. I just love our love so much.” And you just sit there scratching your head wondering why there are tears.

I’m a big crier! I love love! And he’s away. But Biba has been coming over every single day, which is very unlike her. She does not leave her house on a weekend, maybe once every three months for dinner.

She travels a lot. That’s the social life sorted.

Wait until the next person has me, though. I am going to treat him like a prince. He will be a very happy man.

Let us know in the comments below: would you let your partner go to a strip club? And would you allow your partner to have a say over your cosmetic injectable treatments? We want to know!

It was so lovely to sit and chat with you all. We’ll see you next Wednesday for another episode. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and follow. We cannot wait for you guys to hear everything. Bye!