My name is Kelly Waite BCA. I’m from Trimdon in County Durham. Some may call me a local celebrity, as I have appeared in many TV shows and films over the years, as well as being a former regional and national beauty queen. However, most people will know me from the hit TV shows Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners and Country House Cleaners.
I advocate for invisible illness, mental health, bullying awareness and wheelchair accessibility. I have won national awards for my community, charity and ambassador work, including a British Citizen Medal, Most Inspirational Woman, alongside Rio Ferdinand, who won Most Inspirational Man, and a US Invisible Hero Award.
I have been published in many national and international publications, including the Times of India, The New York Times, HuffPost, BBC News, The Times of Indonesia, Radio Times, The Sun and the Daily Mail. I have also appeared on German TV show taff.
I have been a celebrity ambassador for BulliesOut, Worth Living and the Ugandan children’s charity The Dream Foundation of Uganda since 2016. I am also the manager of a celebrity football team, which includes former professional footballers, soap stars, boxers and TV stars.
Over the past two decades, I have helped raise more than £400,000 for various charities, including Mind, Cancer Research UK, Thyroid Cancer Support, Balls to Cancer, Macmillan Cancer Support, Children in Need, Red Nose Day and various local organisations and charities.
I also organise my own annual Christmas present donations for local children, donations and presents for local women and child refugees, Christmas hampers for homeless and elderly people, and support for local animal shelters.
Last year, I was contacted on social media by a BAFTA award-winning production company to be featured in an OCD documentary they were making. I have suffered from OCD all my life. OCD has been recognised as one of the most debilitating mental illnesses, and this time I was given full control of the context and narrative.
I wanted to show just how much this illness affects my life. It has never just been about having to clean. It is rituals, intrusive thoughts, loss of control and debilitating anxiety that stops me driving and even leaving my house some days. It is absolutely horrendous, and to be given this huge opportunity and platform to portray it well is something I am so thankful for.
My partner appeared in the documentary with me, which meant so much. He was my first love, and he became paraplegic after a motorbike accident. He also lives with BPD and ADHD, so mental and physical health is something we have to battle together on a daily basis.
The documentary is airing now on Channel 5 and is called Do You Have OCD?
I also made my own short film about the struggles of OCD in 2019, which won various awards at film festivals and was also screened on streaming devices including Roku, Samsung TV and Amazon Fire Stick.
Living every day with OCD, as well as my other illnesses, is extremely hard because many people do not realise just how debilitating it can be. I have contamination OCD, along with health anxiety and social anxiety, so I will take any opportunity I can to spread awareness of illnesses and disabilities.
I also have Asperger’s and suffer from the autoimmune disease Hashimoto’s, alopecia and various chronic illnesses, including diverticulitis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, ME, optical neuralgia, bilateral foraminal cervical stenosis and degenerative disc disease.
We have been through so much health-wise, and being able to share part of our experience with people who may have no one, and to inspire others, is an amazing thing to be able to do.
Kelly has more than 170,000 followers on social media, with her Facebook, TikTok and YouTube videos and photos regularly gaining hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of views.
It still astounds me that I can post a photo or video and receive two, four or even six million views. I’m just a girl from a little village in County Durham who had a dream and tried to make a little bit of a difference.
Written by Kelly Waite
