The Times Magazine 41with my peers never recovered. None of it was
ever addressed in an adequate way.”
The only friend who stood by her eventually
told her, “I really like you, but I can’t walk
to school with you any more. I’m going to go
with somebody else.”
A boy she met aged 17, while in the sixth
form, suddenly dumped her. He appears on
the documentary revealing how his friends
had found out “she was that slag who sent the
picture”. He apologises to her. “Everyone just
thought I was this ‘easy’ girl,” she says sadly.
Ten years on, McDermott is as beautiful as
you would expect of a model, with long lean
limbs, dark features and long natural hair.
Her manner is unassuming and sweet. Given
that she has a contract with Storm Models
(the agency that discovered Kate Moss), there
is very little vitriol towards her bullies now,
except to admit, “I suppose I have felt at
times that I can be successful when all those
people made me feel like I couldn’t be. So
many people made me feel like I wasn’t good
enough during my teenage years. Now I feel
I can be successful; I can do these things. But
most importantly, I am happy now and that’s
enough revenge for me, if that makes sense?”
The anger runs much deeper about
the behaviour of her alma mater, theCoopers’ Company and Coborn School
in Upminster, Essex. Its statement in response
to the documentary reads:
“The leadership at Coopers’ Coborn is
saddened to hear about Zara’s experience. We
have considerably different senior leadership
and safeguarding teams in place now. We now
have specific policies for peer on peer abuse
and clear procedures for sexting incidents.
We can outline in the strongest possible
terms that if the situation occurred in 2020
or beyond, it would be handled differently.”
As McDermott rightly points out, the
statement is more about the school’s attempt
to preserve its reputation than a genuine
apology for actions that shamed and
criminalised a 14-year-old, whose mental
health drove her to contemplate suicide. The
word “sorry” is conspicuous in its absence.
“They didn’t even apologise in that
statement,” says McDermott. “It made
me angry.”
McDermott rebuilt her life at 18, when she
began working in the civil service and founda new friendship group away from Upminster.
In 2018, she was scouted by Love Island
programme-makers, who’d seen photographs
she put on her Instagram feed in which
she wore lingerie and bikinis – images of her
body, she is at pains to point out, that were
controlled by her rather than stolen from her.
In the past two and a half years, she has
reached 1.5 million Instagram followers. She
has been a regular on Made in Chelsea with
her boyfriend, Sam Thompson. Their recent
temporary break-up provided drama for MIC’s
fans, but they are happy now, living together
in Fulham. McDermott is an ambassador for
the fashion company Missguided.
McDermott recognises the value of her
social media platform. Many of her followers
are younger girls (which is not to say young
boys should not learn her lessons too).
Sexting is far more prevalent now than
ten years ago. For teens to get a Snapchat
message saying “Send nudes”, “Send pics”,
“What are you wearing?” or just “Send” is
not a shock. It’s a recognised language.
The dangers of obliging are now taught in
PSHE (personal, social, health and economic)
lessons, but to what effect? “The intention of
these lessons is right,” McDermott says, “but
I think [girls] need to hear it from the right
person, in the right way. Teenagers will be
teenagers so the only powerful way to educate
them is getting people like me to go intoONE IN SEVEN YOUNG
WOMEN HAS EXPERIENCED
‘THREATS TO SHARE’