Bullies wont stop me being Posh

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Bullies wont stop me being Posh

Monday 26 January 2009

When mum-of-two esther Adams landed work as a Victoria Beckham lookalike, she thought it would be a fun job. She was soon earning up to £500 a time for imitating the Spice Girl’s famous pout and attending glitzy parties.

But months later, when news of Esther’s new career spread through her hometown of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, locals started abusing her in the street, calling her “Imposhter.” She was accused of having an eating disorder, her children Lewis, now 13, and Katie, 11, were teased and taunted at school, and she had a lit cigarette thrown at her.

But Esther is determined not to let the bullies force her to quit.

“When you’ve got young children, it’s hard to find a job with fairly flexible hours and good money,” she says. “So, despite the abuse I’ve suffered, I’ve got no plans to stop.”

Esther, 31, first looked into becoming a Victoria Beckham lookalike four years ago, when she was working as a dancer in a nightclub.
090126_posh_lookalike4

She says: “Customers started telling me how much I looked like Posh, and that I should become a lookalike. At the time, I was a single mum and struggling financially, so I contacted some agents and was soon being booked to open clubs and appear in magazines. I could earn between £18,000 and £20,000 a year doing a few hours’ work a month.”

It wasn’t until two years later that things soured. “In June 2006, I appeared in my local paper, opening a charity dance in Clacton,” says Esther. “The next day, I found out dozens of readers had posted spiteful comments about me on the newspaper’s website. They read: ‘Who does she think she is?’ and ‘She’s a joker! She’s a wannabe!’

Understandably, Esther was hurt. “To me, it’s just a job – a way to earn money to raise my children,” she says. “I wouldn’t want to be famous, and I don’t think I’m better than anyone else.”

Esther was also devastated by nasty digs about her naturally slim size 8 figure.

“People accused me of having an eating disorder,” she says. “One person wrote:
‘I knew she was starving herself to look like Posh, how sad. Does she not realise she looks hideous?’”

090126_posh_lookalike

In fact, Esther, who weighs 9st and is 5ft 5 tall, eats a healthy, balanced diet and says she wouldn’t dream of following a faddy diet – unlike Posh, who is famed for her bizarre eating habits.

“When I read the comments, I shook with anger,” Esther recalls.

But the abuse soon got worse. “People started shouting at me in the street,” she says. “I felt hurt and humiliated, but I just ignored them. My friends were horrified when I told them about the grief I was getting over my job, but they encouraged me to stick at it.”

Esther says she would wear dresses and high heels when she was in “Posh” mode, but when she wasn’t working, she made sure she dressed down in a tracksuit in an effort not to be noticed.

“The abuse died down for a bit, and I hoped it was over,” she says.

But when Esther did a photo shoot in the town in July 2007 for the local paper, the hostility resurfaced.

090126_posh_lookalike2

She says: “I was nervous, but I couldn’t afford to turn the work down. I didn’t have another job. I was dressed up like Posh and driven through town in a convertible.

“At first, I think people really thought I was Posh, but when they realised it was just me, they started shouting: ‘Imposhter! Who do you think you are?’ One woman threw a lit cigarette at me and it bounced off my jacket.”

Esther says it’s only women who seem to be offended by her work as a lookalike. Her husband Brett, 29, a personal trainer who she met three years ago, doesn’t object to her job, but Esther points out that he doesn’t think she looks like Posh.

“He says he thinks I’m prettier,” she laughs. “I don’t think so, though – in fact, I don’t think I look much like Posh either.

“Brett knows I get abuse from local people, but he doesn’t let it wind him up.”

At the end of 2007, things took a more worrying turn when her children, Lewis and Katie, started to suffer.

“One day, Lewis came home from school sulking and angry,” Esther says sadly.

“Other kids had called him Brooklyn [the name of Victoria Beckham’s eldest son] and labelled him ‘Imposhter’s son.’

“Katie then confessed that she was being teased. Her classmates were saying to her that I had to be thick to be a lookalike.”

Then Lewis got into a fight at school. “It was with a lad who was slagging me off,”

Esther says. “His face was cut and bruised. I don’t condone fighting, but I knew he’d just been sticking up for his mum.

“I felt so guilty that my job was causing so much trouble, but the children urged me not to quit – they said that if I gave it up, it meant the bullies had won.”

Esther hasn’t yet confronted the people who’ve hurled abuse at her, as she doesn’t want to antagonise them.

She adds: “I’ve been tempted to call my agents and resign, but at the end of the day it’s such a great job. I only have to do a couple of days’ work to earn what someone else might earn in a month, and I can spend the rest of my time with Lewis and Katie.

“The people who’ve had a go at me don’t even know me,” adds Esther. “I think most of the insults are due to jealousy. As my children keep telling me, we can’t let them win.”

By Louisa Gregson