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9 hours ago
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Molly-Mae: Behind It All is a Keep Calm and Carry On poster in the form of a beige, hyperbolic, strangely enthralling documentary. It was supposed to be about Molly-Mae Hague’s wedding to Tommy Fury, the man with whom she won Love Island in 2019, who was her partner for five years, and is the father of their daughter, Bambi. The couple got engaged in the summer of 2023 in Ibiza. You may have seen the video of his proposal; anything they do is tabloid catnip. But in August last year, she posted on Instagram that they had broken up. So instead, this has been repurposed into a documentary about Hague’s new life as a single mother and a businesswoman, about to launch her first fashion brand.
It is not unfair to say that most people will be tuning in to find out the gossip. Such is the fuss around Hague and Fury that episodes for review were released only at the very last minute, under heavy embargo. A photograph of the exes kissing at a New Year’s Eve party hit the headlines, and will be covered in the final block of episodes, which are due later this year. It is clearly having to play catch-up with an online world that is far more immediate than television.
But it does offer Hague’s side of the story, meted out in careful doses. The headlines will be that they clashed over Fury’s drinking habits, that Hague released the statement about their breakup to make sure that she actually broke up with him, and that she still holds out hope of a reconciliation for their family.
Much like The Masked Singer, though, you could skip the first two-thirds of any episode and still see all the bits you need to see. To get to those, you must first learn more mundane details. “I wanna know what Molly-Mae gets at McDonald’s,” says a director, off-screen. Reader, we find out. She loves pyjamas – “a sacred part of life” – and is embarrassed to open a drawer full of belts that does not please her on an aesthetic level. She once worked at a swimming pool and on the perfume counter at Boots. Both her parents admit they sometimes wish she worked there still. She is ambitious. She has always liked to be the centre of attention.
Such details have low stakes. They wash over you, inoffensively, and all of a sudden, three hours have gone by. The business of launching the fashion brand takes up a lot of screen time, as Hague frets about the launch party (the candles aren’t big enough and there is “a situation with the projector”) and worries about not being able to take pictures with all the guests. A montage of selfie requests, to which she replies, “yeah, course you can, yeah”, on repeat, is fascinating and peculiarly bleak. Her office is “girly” and “homely”. She doesn’t love social situations. She loves the Harry Potter films.
It is easy, and lazy, to make this sound dull on paper. Hague is a massive star, with 8 million Instagram followers. This is pointed out not infrequently. Her fans eat up such details of her life. While the socials-to-television road can be a bumpy one – the two formats are less compatible than they appear, despite sharing a screen – this is as carefully produced as Hague’s own posts. It is mostly sympathetic, and reveals just enough to give the impression of intimacy. When Hague was interviewed by British Vogue recently, she was described as “friendly, but guarded”. This series makes it look as if she is being less guarded, but when you play closer attention, I am not sure how true that is.
The only dud note, for me, is what Hague calls “the blazer situation”. Despite a much-hyped sellout launch for the clothing line, one of the first products is heavily criticised for being quick to bobble. This affects Hague’s confidence, we are told, and people can’t see how their comments upset her. If those comments related to her personal life, that would be a fair point to make, but when people are unhappy with products they have paid for, it comes across as a little myopic.
But the blurring of boundaries between the personal and commercial is what drives this particular form of fame. Elsewhere, Hague seems nice, driven and image-focused. There is nothing here that will challenge that brand of hers. “It still shocks me how invested people are in my life and I don’t really understand why they are,” she says at one point. Mmmm. But she does understand what they want, and this is a cosy offering to the gods of publicity.
