Someone posted a link to this article (apologies to whoever it was, I didn't get your user name), and it's a really interesting read.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...kins-interview

Not sure if it answers any questions about whether her nasty persona is a façade or not - the interviewer describes her as great company - but some of her views are extraordinary and seem to be her own. I'd be interested to know if anyone agrees, e.g. with her views on social mobility and survival of the fittest?

It's also interesting to read about her background. Lots of context. I assumed, watching her cry last night that she might have had a tough time in her earlier years. I felt sympathy for her, and particularly having to deal with her epilepsy. But it turns out she had a very sloaney, jolly hockeysticks upbringing followed by a great blast in the military. Both environments don't seem to have shaped her so much as been a classic fit for her.

Someone in the comments below calls her a "functioning sociopath". And much as I don't like hyperbole, that really is how she comes across in the interview. Even sociopaths have some feelings, and can be charming and friendly. But is even this apparently frank interview really who she is?

Thoughts?

I think she definitely comes over as a functioning sociopath.

I found the article very interesting, if a little sad. Her views on social mobility belong in the dark ages - they are sadly how things do seem to work often but not how the should work, in my book. In general terms, her attitude seems to be that those who are afforded a private education deserve to be at the top as they have cost the state nothing, that's a little scary!

Her attitude to her kids inability to understand something she thinks is logical, that's a bit worrying!

She obviously loved being in the military and sees her epilepsy as a weakness that she doesn't want to talk about. It's a shame as she could be a good advocate for causes related to epilepsy awareness. Her epilepsy certainly sounds more severe than she implies to those around her.

It's an interesting article, it certainly doesn't go any further in endearing me to her!

It was me..

I too don't think that article even scratches the surface of who Katie H is.

After reading it I viewed her differently, but since watching her on the show I have viewed her in a an even newer way. She appears quite likeable an far less strident than in her column or that article. To have had to attend hospital 26 times in 9 months for what is incredibly painful is no joke. I had a friend with a similar condition and he had had to have operations on both shoulders to keep them from falling out.

Makes you understand why she would need to hang on to certainties and black and white opinions after such an unpredictable and disturbing illness.

bib - really? I would have thought that having such a condition, and all that goes with it, would give her more of an understanding of others, help her feel some empathy, rather than the other way around.

The onset of her epilepsy dashing all hopes of her chosen career path is a very sad one, similar to a budding professional ballet dancer being crippled before the debut performance.

I can't help but think that the military would have been the right environment for her.

That was an interesting read. She really is an enigma to me TBH. Yes, she has had her fair share of knock backs and she has picked herself up and got on with it. I suppose (similar to something the interviewer said) being born into 'towards the top of the pecking order' has something to do with it. She has been fortunate in many ways.

What I can't get my head round is her absolutely stone cold heart. The last sentence of that interview just makes me grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

"I really don't have an answer for it," she admits. "But if you're the sort of parent who can't give a toss, then I can't give a toss about your child either."

No, it didn't endear me either. It just confirmed a suspicion that she herself admits in the interview, that she doesn't experience empathy. And that's a trait of a sociopath. And that she's a snob. Anyone who wants to argue with that, really needs to read the interview. It's all there in her own words. She freely admits it.

The views on social mobility are bizarre even if they accurately describe the status quo. Even Tories, whose ideology promotes this kind of thing, have policies to widen access to education and progression. The most charitable thing I could say is that she's a selfish pragmatist. But when she claims not to understand why social mobility is even important, (note to Katie: because someone's experience of life and all the fullness it has to offer should NOT be restricted or advantaged simply because of the family they're born into), I knew she's got something missing in her emotional or cognitive make-up. If that really is what she thinks, then I'm really saying she's got something missing. And I'm saying that while acknowledging that if she'd been born on the wrong side of the tracks, she may well still have the same viewpoint.

Here's an extract for those who haven't read the full article....

I cringe at a lot of her comments generally but she does say a lot of things I, and many others, agree with but don't have the guts to say. Sometimes she has a good point to make but it is the nasty way she says it that upset people.

In some ways I get Katie. I don't think she is a sociopath or anywhere near it, but has a strong ability in her thinking to detach from emotion and see things in the cold light of day. Perhaps this trait would be more acceptable to more emotionally driven souls if she sugar coated it but I find it appealing because you know exactly where you stand with Katie.

Ordinarily, yes. What it seems to have done is endorsed her view that if she can deal with stuff, everyone can deal with stuff.

It's so small-minded though... the idea that dealing with one (admittedly difficult) illness or enjoying the insults of a drill sergeant is proof that people can be tough in the face of adversity, without ever having walked in the uniquely different shoes of the people she derides.

*** Round of applause and standing ovation***

Very well put.

I think there are probably very few people from any social class who've led completely gilded lives. We've all had crosses to bear or obstacles to overcome. So as difficult as her epilepsy was and particularly because it cut short her army career, she does seem to have led an otherwise fortunate life. She admits as much.

I find her attitudes towards 'nicking other people's husbands' quite intriguing. She's done this a few times and there's not even a trace of regret or remorse there. I had a friend who exclusively went out with blokes who were already spoken for. Literally one after the other. I had to cut her loose because it was like a big elephant in the room whenever she wanted to discuss her love life. It's the only time I've ever walked away from a friendship because of someone's ethical choices but it skewed my whole perception of her... I couldn't isolate her lack of empathy towards the poor cow sat at home with small children from the other parts of her personality. There was other stuff too, like I noticed that she'd never ever give me compliments like I would her. And there'd be little putdowns. It dawned on me that she was insecure and competitive and this is what drove her love life. Plus I wouldn't have trusted her around my own boyfriend either. I wonder if this is similar with Katie's choices of men, e.g. it's more fun/validating/challenging if you have to steal them from someone else.

Interesting article. Point surely is that sociopaths mask their lack of empathy by mirroring other people's behaviour? In other words they feign behaviour to appear normal and just like everyone else.

Hopkins unabashedly displays her lack of empathy when others might expect some modicum of sympathy for those less endowed with the good qualities she believes she possesses - her work ethic and discipline is stressed particularly.

Having just watched My Fat Story I was surprised to see her break down and cry when confronted with what really motivates her drive and ambition and it is linked to the epileptic fits and her fear that she could die during one of them - leaving her children without the foundation that she has taken for granted as her god-given privilege of social class and connection. So there lurks within Hopkins a human person with fears like everyone else but she works harder to disguise her vulnerabilities seeing them as weaknesses. She seems to be driven more by a belief in social darwinism's survival of the fittest than something like sociopathy, in my opinion.

She needs therapy. Has a huge hang up about any sort of perceived weakness in herself or others - that's the core of her issues.

She is certainly a snob but her own social background seems average. Her father an engineer, her mother a housewife and she went to a convent school (because they were practicing catholics, I presume). Her chance for social mobility was Sandhurst and that failed, so now she lords over other people to make herself feel better.

Katie is obviously playing a role of "saying it how is is" , she is just doing what all bullies do picking on the housemates she doesn't like or the ones she perceives as weak, she claims she hates tattoos but she won't tell Cami that because she has a group to back her up, but she will pick on Alicia because she looks weak and vulnerable, she hides behind a keyboard and in the house she is hiding behind the loud mouths Cami and Michelle

Her epilepsy explains a lot.

The only way to get her to change is to give her what she needs, which is pity.

Good points. It's also worth emphasising, that epilepsy (to put it crudely) is a form of brain damage. This can have many different manifestations in terms of pcognition and processing.

A dollop of Ayn Rand, a dash of sadomasochism - I would feel very unfortunate to have to endure her company for more than 5 minutes.

Not all sociopaths mask their lack of empathy. In fact, studies have shown they can switch empathy on and off at will. And they also experience love, regret and fear (although in lower doses), and a need to BE loved and cared for. I'm speaking generally now and not about Katie, although I would say that whether she is or isn't disordered, does or doesn't feel empathy, it's not in Katie's best interest career-wise to express it.

I also want to stress that I'm not saying she IS a sociopath. I'm saying she comes over like one with some of her traits and it's entirely plausible that she's a bit higher on the spectrum than, say, Cheggars.

It's interesting that Katie has described seeing a piece of her brain missing because abnormalities in the temporal lobe or amygdala have been studied in sociopaths. So maybe there's a physiological reason behind some of her behaviours. I kind of hope so, because then I'd have a lot of sympathy.

This made me laugh... didnt she think of the little hearts she was helping to break with her married man..





"If you aren’t happy with your partner, an affair can be liberating," she added.

"In my first affair with a married man, I offered him the opposite of the life he had with his wife.

"I was young, carefree, childless and spontaneous. I didn’t want to talk about the mortgage, the gas bills or the dry rot in the loft. I just wanted to have fun.

"In my life, I’d far rather regret something I’ve done than regret not doing it.

"For me to cheat or not to cheat is simply a question of how much you’ve got to lose."

But Katie says her cheating days are behind her because she has three young children.

She continued: "I would never cheat on my husband now.

"There’s too much at stake. When you have a family, you can’t think like a single person any more.

"There are too many little hearts to look after. I couldn’t look at my kids if I’d let them down like this. It would be too big a price to pay."

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013...n_3711079.html

I think that you may well be right - and this would have been ingrained in her at Sandhurst. Likewise, the type of school that she describes tends to instill a sense of superiority and entitlement - often together with a tendency towards promiscuity.

Only two paragraphs in and I am gob smacked. I knew nothing of this woman before Bb (heard the name in association with controversy) so this is ..well... gobsmacking.

Question. - Is she from aristocratic stock? _ Now answered in same article,
Last edited by An Thropologist : 17-01-2015 at 12:30

So I suppose her husband will now be looking for another young childless spontaneous person to have sex with in a field

Epilepsy is not a form of brain damage, it's a neurological condition. It can be caused by some damage to the brain, but other types of epilepsy are not. There are many epileptics with undiagnosed causes.

Examples - my daughter has cerebral palsy, 1/3rd of her brain's missing, she is also epileptic and will always be, it's just a matter of controlling it (in her case she had brain surgery 3 years ago, but still has small seizures and absences and takes medication religiously).

My younger brother has had no brain trauma, but developed severe epilepsy in his mid-20's. Last year he spent a year weaning off his medication, he is now medication-free and seizure-free, but he will always be an epileptic on his records.

Many children grow out of childhood epilepsy. If you are seizure-free for 2 years you can try weaning off the medication, as my brother did.