June 2, 2025 • 34 mins
Sarah’s Day has slammed her son Fox’s school after they denied him leave to attend a family trip to Fiji. Despite the decision from the school, the self-proclaimed holistic health princess still pulled the six-year-old out of class for the vacation.
Steph Claire Smith and her husband Josh Miller announced the arrival of their baby daughter on Friday night. The fitness influencer and model, struck up a deal with Vogue Magazine, releasing exclusive photos from her birthing suite.
AND Em Davies and Lucy Jackson have shocked their followers by revealing how many times they’ve ordered Uber Eats.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Sophie Torba and coming up on today's show, Sarah's Day
slams her Son's school over holiday debacle and Steph Claire
Smith's Baby Bonanza. But first, m Davies and Lucy Jackson
have shocked their followers by revealing how many times they've
(00:24):
ordered Uber eats. Now, this is all part of a
TikTok trend called the uber Eats Challenge, and it is
all over my fore page at the moment. But for
those who haven't seen it, there's a setting in the
uber Eats app that tells you how many times you've ordered.
I want to know is this a new feature that
uber Eats is trying to promote or has someone just
stumbled across it, because either way it seems like good
(00:46):
pr for uber Eats. Well, it's great pr because Nicki
and Lucy ended up sharing this video that's had over
three hundred and ten thousand views and in it they
expose their order numbers. So to make it more entertaining,
they guessed their numbers before they were revealed, so Nicki
gets two hundred and she was pretty close. She ordered
one hundred and forty seven times. As for Lucy, she
(01:09):
shocked everyone by revealing she had ordered uber eats five
hundred and forty five times. I want to know, is
this over the past year or is this the lifetime
of them having the app? Well, when I originally saw it,
I thought it was over a year, and I was like,
oh my god, has she been ordering uber eats twice
a day? However, the figure is a summary of the
lifetime of the app, so thank god. Yeah, but even so,
(01:31):
that is a lot of orders. Uber Eats even commented
on the video, writing, doll, that's outrageous. The fact that
uber eats is commenting and getting in on this makes
me feel like it's part of an over arching marketing strategy. See,
I actually don't think that's the case, because a lot
of the conversations around it is that people are ashamed
about how many times you're ordering from the app and
that they need to cut back. Yeah, I suppose. It
(01:51):
was quite interesting because m Davies also got in on
the action, so she filmed a video with Nicki and
M guessed that she had ordered Uber eats nine hundred
and fifty times, and even though that sounds like an
outrageous number, she had actually underestimated just how many times
she'd ordered. Let's have a listen to what she said.
It's gonna be bad. I'm scard.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
You have ordered uber eat one two hundred and seventy
seven times.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
That's why my financial advice is like stun what.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Stretch?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I love how Nikky audibly gore so. I mean, I
thought Lucy's was ridiculous, and then I heard m Davies.
Isn't this just typical of influences though they're the ones
who have disposable income, even though they've probably got more
time than any of us to cook, They're like, nah,
fuck it, I'll order it. I mean, I love the
concept of Uber Eats and the ease of just being
able to get something delivered. But I haven't looked at
(02:55):
what my number is. I would think that it's probably
a handful of times I've actually ordered from there because
I don't want to pay for delivery, and I also
find that when it's delivered it's often very cold. See
I use it more. I actually did look at my number,
and I have ordered it over the eight years I've
had it eleven times. I know that's not a huge amount,
that's not very many. But my husband also uses his
(03:16):
app and he is the one that usually orders our takeaway,
and he had two hundred times. See, I would rather
just jump in my car, go down the road and
make sure that the food is hot. Like, I think
it takes a particularly lazy person to want to order
on there that many times. Yeah, I think it's a
pretty brave thing to do to expose your number, particularly
if you're m Davies or Lucy Jackson, because I think
(03:37):
it does say a lot about you as a person.
Because when I heard their numbers, I immediately started making
assumptions about their financial situation. You know, if the number
is really high, You're like, oh, they must be earning
so much money they don't even have to think about
spending money or takeaway. And I also began to question
their priorities and whether they should just be making their
food at home. I think there's also a lazy connotation
(03:58):
to it, But then there's all that's a lot of
people that have been wearing it as a badge of honor.
Do you not really irritates me when I'm down at
a takeaway store, I just say Zambreros, for instance, and
I have to wait for them to make the Uber
Eats people's orders, and I'm like, I'm fucking in the store.
I've bothered to get myself out on a winter night
stand in the store order, and I'm having to wait
(04:19):
for these people at home who are being lazy. Oh
it pisses me off too. It has really screwed over
how quick takeaway places are in terms of m davies.
She ended up sharing a follow up video to explain
herself a little bit further. This is what she said.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I think I generally need to be put in rehab
for Uber Eats. I have been looking at everyone else's
on TikTok, and the worst part is Joel pretty much
cooks for me every night on the barbecue. So I
really don't have any excuse apart from the fact that
(04:55):
I'm a mum. I reckon like, yeah, yeah, it's a
serious problem, man, it's probably your house to close it.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Now, and went on to say that seventy percent of
Uber Eats orders were from Nando's, which is something that
she could easily make it home. Now. A lot of
people were trying to let her off the hook and said, look,
you're a mum. Nikki Westcott waged in though and said
ha ha. Joel said, you'd order a packet of chips
from the survey if the mood's striped and coffees most
days to be fair. Someone else pointed out that m
(05:25):
Davies has had the app for around eight years, but
it's only been a mum for less than ones. Well,
it's quite interesting because when you crunch the numbers, so
she's been on the app, as you say, for around
eight years, that works out to one hundred and seventy
orders a year. So she is ordering from uber Eats
roughly two to three times a week. That is a lot.
I mean, even her financial advisor has got involved and
(05:46):
said that she needs to stop ordering from uber Eats.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Honestly, I wasn't even going to bring this back up
because I'm just like ugh, erasing it from my mind,
and I also know that it's going.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
To ruffle Oh thank you a few people's feathers. Sarah's
Day has slammed her son Fox School after they denied
him leave to attend a family trip to Fiji. Despite
the decision from the school, the self proclaimed holistic health.
Princess still pulled the six year old out of class
for the vacation, So can you tell us more well.
Sarah and her family have been in Fiji celebrating her
(06:15):
mum's sixtieth and also her sister's thirtieth, and it's actually
the first time that Sarah has been overseas with her
parents and sisters, but it is one of many of
her trips with her husband and kids over the past
few years. They feel like they've been to Fiji quite
a few times in the last five years and Hawaii,
Hawaii is one of their favorite places to go to.
And whilst over the past week we've seen a lot
(06:37):
of happy snaps and vision of the extended family having
the time of their lives on this holiday, we have
since discovered that the trip got off to a pretty
sour note because while Sarah and her family were at
the airport waiting to board their flight, Sarah got an
email from her son, Fox's school, saying that his leave
had not been approved and it was important for him
(06:58):
to be at school learning. Now. Fox turned six in
March and that's actually the same month he started school.
Because it's compulsory and new South Wales for a child
to start school by the time they're six years old, However,
it's normal for them to actually start when they're five
years old. Yeah, most parents try and get their kids
into school as early as they can and start that education.
(07:19):
But I mean, I wonder if it's due to flexibility.
She wanted him at home more to lead more of
a flexible lifestyle with him. I'm really not sure. I
suppose it's her personal decision. But despite knowing that this
news about the school would ruffle feathers, she decided to
share this update with her one point two million followers anyway.
She jumped on her Instagram stories while she was walking
on a beach in Fiji and explained that as it's
(07:41):
her son's first year of school, she was unaware of
the school's policy for leave. Now. She prefaced that Fox
didn't go to a special school AKA, she wanted everyone
to know that he's at a public school and not
a fancy private school, and she was quite surprised by
the depth of the application process. Now. The school's rules
stated that she had to apply for leave because her
(08:04):
son was going to be away for longer than three days.
They were actually spending a week in Fiji. Let's have
a listen to some of what Sarah said.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I basically feel in this like extended le form.
I talked to the receptionist girl and she's like, yeah,
all good. You just have to send us now, like proof.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Of your flights. And I was like, okay, cool. So
I sent him proof of my flights.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
They responded by an email saying, sweet, We've got everything
we need for this like getaway or whatever. And I said, obviously,
like this is his Grandma's sixtieth trip, it's really important.
Where he's only missing five days of school anyway, So
day one of the trip, I get an email back
like we're at the airport and basically it says that
Foxes leave hasn't been approved. Yeah, anyway, I just I
(08:46):
could go on and on about it, and I think, like,
if you know, if you're a mom like me, like
you get it. Yes, I want him to learn how
to read and write and like be.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
In the classroom and everything.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
But I'm not, like I haven't pulled him out of
school for like a month, and it's not like he's
not anyway whatever whatever. But I responded and I was like, Okay,
we'll we're at the airport, like, thanks, I guess.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Anyway, whatever, whatever, well school. The fact that she referred
to the receptionist as that receptionist girl like that just
shows the amount of respect that was going on. It
was quite patronizing. It's clear that she knew that this
was going to be a controversial take, because she prefaced
the post by saying that she was likely going to
ruffle some feathers. I just am at a loss as
(09:30):
to why you would take a potshot at your child's school.
It's easily something that she could have just kept private.
I mean, there's no question in my mind that this
is getting back to the school, either through the parents
or the staff who may follow her. Yeah, and it
seems like she maybe wanted it to get back there,
because why else would you put this out. She was
clearly pissed off about it, and I mean, you can
(09:51):
already see where the school stands on this. There's going
to be a bit of animosity when she goes back
into the classroom because they've made the decision that it's
in his best intro that he be at school learning.
Yet she's just been like, no, he's going to miss
the whole week. I mean, that's going to put him behind.
I mean, as someone whose parents are both teachers, maybe
I look at this from a different perspective, but I
(10:11):
feel for the teacher in this situation because not only
is the teacher now going to have to invest more
time in Fox, they're gonna have to take time away
from the other kids in the class to make sure
that he is then up to speed with what's going on,
and that would not only be stressful for the teacher
in the class, but also Fox. I'm interested to know
what the ramifications are for ignoring the school, because I personally,
(10:33):
I didn't know that a school could actually say no,
you can't take your kid on a holiday. I understand
why they have that process in place, though, because it's
very disruptive for the child and also the class. As
you were saying, yeah, I was talking about it to
my husband, his dad is also a teacher, and we
were like, I'd never really heard about this happening when
we were kids, And it's because at school you get
(10:55):
so many holidays, like every ten weeks, you then get
two weeks of holidays. At the end of the year
get five weeks of holidays. Most everyday. People also have
to lodge holidays with their own work, so generally you
try and fit around those school holiday times, even though
it can be more expensive to go away. But I
suppose from our family's perspective too, with our parents being teachers,
(11:15):
we went on holidays because they had the break then,
So it is more difficult for parents who aren't teachers
to align their holidays with the school holidays. Yeah, and
that's why there's generally more planning. In this instance, it
felt like a bit of a last minute decision. It
seemed like this form was lodged very late, which is
why the school only got back to her when they
were at the airport. It also really demonstrates the different
(11:36):
lifestyle the influencers lead. I mean, if you look at Sarah,
she is used to locking in a trip whenever she
pleases due to the flexibility of her working for herself,
and she's also got a disposable income. I mean, we
saw it recently with Molly May. She decided to book
a family trip with Tommy and Bambi to Dubai and
they booked it in a day before they left. So
(11:56):
they don't have the confines of the real world like us.
Like they can just book whenever they want. So it's
kind of interesting when people then send their kids to
school and they have to abide by someone else's rules
that they have a problem with it. Yeah, it makes
me wonder whether she held back in rolling Fox into
school for this very reason that she didn't want to
have to abide by their rules. You know what I
also found confusing. She seemed to be pleading a lot
(12:17):
of ignorance in this case about the school's policies. But
many people who have listened to Our Sarah's Day Deep
Dive episode will know that she actually studied to become
a primary school teacher before her YouTube took off. I
think she only had a semester or so to go,
but she was doing pracks within school, so surely she
would have some understanding of the policies in place for leave.
(12:38):
I also thought maybe she would have a different stance
on the importance of education as well, all some respect
for teachers. I have seen some people say, oh, well,
he's probably learning more on this trip than he would
be back at school, because obviously people learn about different
cultures and through experiences. What do you think about that theory? Well,
I think that is a pretty good point, But he
has been to Fiji fairly recently, I think maybe within
(13:00):
the last year to six months, so I'm not sure
how much more beneficial it would be going again. But also,
when you go to a place like Fiji, typically you
are stuck in a resort. It was a tourist bubble,
and I understand that obviously they have some traditional dances
that come into the resort and those sort of things,
but I'd hardly say it's the same as going to Europe,
where you're going to be going on different excursions and
(13:21):
learning about history and that sort of thing. I think
age also comes into it as well, with Fox being
six and being a little bit delayed at primary school.
The hope probably was from his teachers that he would
do a couple of terms of reception and then go
into year one. However, this holiday may have delayed that
process a little bit. Also think that it sends a
bad message to him that you can just leave school
(13:43):
whenever you want to on a holiday. And I mean
reception in year one. They're really fundamental years where you
are learning the absolute basics that you need to then
progress into the next years. I just don't understand why
she's publicly put it out there that the school isn't
happy with her decision, as well the fact that she's
been in the business for ten years, she is savvy
enough to know that her critics and even the media,
(14:05):
they had to create a narrative about this self important
influencer who has pulled their son out of school to
go on a lavish holiday, which is exactly what the
Daily Mail did. And I just wonder if maybe she's
so out of touch and was so mad that the
school scolded her in this way, that she just wanted
that instant affirmation from her supporters and wanted reassurance from
other mums that maybe she made the right decision. Because
(14:27):
she kept saying, oh, the mums will get it, I
felt it saying I don't actually think they will. I
think she's probably just surrounded by yes people and this
is the first time in a long time someone has
said no to her. Yeah. I also wonder if she's
trying to get a bit of engagement. She hasn't created
much controversy for a while now, and that is reflected
in her viewcount. I mean, obviously she's still getting okay views,
(14:48):
but it's nowhere near to the engagement she used to get.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
So I realized I kind of shot myself in the
foot with the whole wait count down to the baby coming,
because now it's making the anticipation.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Of so Steph gles Smith and her husband Josh Miller
announced the arrival of their baby daughter on Friday night.
The finness influencer and models struck up a deal with
Vogue magazine, releasing exclusive photos from her birthing suite. Sophie,
We've been on baby watch for a while now. Yeah,
this feels like one of the longest pregnancies, and I
don't know if it's because I've been experiencing it alongside
(15:21):
Steph clear Smith in a parasocial way, because I think
that you have this special connection with influencers when you're
pregnant around the same time as them. She's only a
few weeks ahead of me, and I keep looking at
her as to what I'm expecting next. That influencer for
me was jar Da Tuni, So we've spoken about it recently,
but when she's gone for round two, I was like, honey,
(15:41):
I'm not up to that yet. I think there was
also more anticipation around this pregnancy because Steph les Smith
and her husband. They decided to keep the gender a secret.
That made it really exciting for us playing at home,
and you can tell Steph was absolutely over the moon
when she found out that she had a little girl. Yeah, well,
it looked like she had some sort of professional photographer
(16:03):
in the birthing suite, because she shared this carousel of
very beautiful black and white photos of the moment she
discovered the gender. And in one of the photos she
is literally screaming in excitement, and then she burst into tears.
So she shared these on social media and wrote, one
of the most euphoric feelings in the world. These snaps
are raw moments of us finding out our little one's gender.
(16:26):
And my gosh, the surprise was so so special. It
was you in there all along the way. You came
out so calm, so alert, just looking straight into my eyes.
I fell in love instantly, So grateful to have another
little being to love like this now. She dubbed these
photos as their gender reveal. Is this going to be
a new thing. We've got cakes, We've got the glitter guns.
(16:48):
Is this now going to be a thing where people
who decide to have the surprise have a professional photographer
in there to capture the moments that the parents discover
the gender. Well, maybe just for influencers. I mean it
did get me thinking because I found out the gender
of my baby, and if I were to have a
second one, seeing this photo, I was like, maybe it
would be nice to find out in the I think
that's something special about not finding out the second time,
(17:11):
because there can be a bit of gender disappointment if
you're really gunning for a particular gender. And then I
think in the moment, obviously, birth is so beautiful and
exciting that whatever you get you're gonna be happy with.
If I was to have another boy, I'd be like, oh,
that's amazing, brothers, because I do think that there is
a special connection that same sex siblings have. And then
if it was a girl, I'd be so excited because
(17:32):
I'd have one of each. So I think when it
gets to the point where you'd be excited about both,
that's when maybe you're like, Okay, we'll have it as
a surprise. Yeah, we got to talk about the name.
So they have called their baby girl Billy Claire Miller,
and I thought it was pretty iconic that they put
the Claire in there. Yeah, I like that nod to
her name because she's become known as Steph cles Smith.
(17:53):
Claire is obviously her middle name. It's a brand, isn't it. Yeah,
not a lot of us go by our full name
with our middle name. I think it was an instrum
thing where Steph Smith would have been taken. Olivia Rogers
does it as well. She a lot of people know
her as Olivia Molly Rogers. I don't know if it
was just Instagram. I mean, I think it's the fact
that Steph Smith sounds pretty shit like it doesn't It
sounds pretty plain, Steph Clay Smith. That sounds good exactly.
(18:15):
You've got to throw the middle name in there. I
am just predicting that we're going to have an onslaught
of baby girls called Billy. Well, it's been a popular
name for a while, like Bet Judd's daughter is called
Billy and she's about eight years old. Actually, I checked
the charts and it ranks at number sixty three in Australia,
so it's not as popular as what I thought it was.
I think it was a while ago, so maybe she's
bringing it back. Well, Steph said that when it came
(18:37):
to girls' names, they had been set on Billy for
quite a while, but they were struggling to come up
with boys' names. She said they had around three boys'
names that they liked, but they weren't in love with
any of them, so it was quite a relief that
they had a girl. It's hard when you already have
a boy and you've picked your favorite name, So it
does seem like, oh, I don't really know. When asked
why she gave her daughter the same middle name, Steph
(18:58):
explained that they all shared Josh's family name and she
loves it. It allows her to have this other identity
outside of her work as Steph Claire Smith. But she
still wanted her daughter to have a connection to her
Smith family name, and as soon as she said Billy Claire,
she said the decision was done. It just flowed and
sounded really lovely. See when the name was first revealed,
I was like, doesn't Josh have a sister called Billy.
(19:21):
His sister is actually called Bailey, So they've got a
Bailey Miller and now a Billy Miller. I feel like
they're different enough, though, but there's a lot of eyes
and elks going on, Like it's a very matchy matchy name,
but when you stick Claire in there, it kind of
I mean, Claire's got Elleen and I in as well.
Maybe Billy will have to just been known as Billy
Claire the whole time. Yeah, I actually think she probably
will be. It probably shouldn't have been surprising to me
(19:43):
that there was this professional photographer in the birthing suite
because Steph had lined up an exclusive deal with Vogue magazine,
which I think surprised some people because we've seen Vogue
covering a lot of influencer's weddings. I haven't seen them
covering influencers berths. I'm wondering if will get printed in
the monthly edition or if this is just an online thing,
(20:03):
because I think there's a lot of prestige around being
featured in Vogue, particularly weddings. I mean, we've seen Tammy
Hembro m Davies podcast of Victoria Devine, but I don't
know if they're actually printed in the magazine. I think
when you're printed in the magazine it's a different level.
I think these will just be online versions. I'm really
curious to how this deal actually works, because, as you said,
(20:25):
there's a lot of prestige involved in being in Vogue,
even if it's just the online edition, and there's a
lot of influencers who will agree to be in there
for free, just for the exposure. In some instances, I've
actually heard of lesser known influencers trying to buy their
way into Vogue, particularly when it comes to weddings. Apparently,
if you see an influencer wedding in UK Vogue, they've
(20:46):
definitely paid for it. Oh okay, But in this case,
I wonder if Vogue agreed to sprook her fitness app
Kick in exchange for the exposure, or if there was
money exchange. It was a little bit different this time
around because with the web, normally the influencers will hold
off sharing their photos until they share them concurrently with Vogue. However,
(21:07):
Steph announced the arrival of her baby before the Vogue
spread went out. Well that's what made me think that
potentially this article was just a bit of extra exposure
for Kick and for Steph Claire Smith as a brand.
She wasn't getting paid. Well, I suppose Vogue did get
a lot out of it because they got a bunch
of exclusive photos and Steph also wrote the article herself,
so she was writing about different parts of motherhood. It
(21:30):
was clear she wrote it before actually giving birth. Oh yeah,
I mean I was expecting a bit more from the article.
It was quite short, didn't really give that much away.
Something that has sparked debate is the so called body
checking that people think she's been doing after birth. It
is something that fitness influences like Sarah's Day and Tammy
Hembro were also accused of. I feel like the term
(21:52):
body checking gets thrown around a lot, but sometimes there's
confusion as to what it actually is. In terms of influencers,
it's when they'll generally film themselves examining certain parts of
their body in the mirror. So when it comes to
a postpart and body check, they will show how their
body looks straight after giving birth. So they focus on
touching their star miach or showing certain areas that have changed.
(22:13):
And I feel like on TikTok in particular, body checking
has become so normalized, not just with postpart and women,
but with a lot of lifestyle influencers. I mean, if
you reflect, we'll see food influences sharing what I eat
in the day video and they flash us their stomachs
or we'll see influences in the gym showing us their muscles.
(22:33):
I feel like these happen a lot in fitchecks as well,
because it's an excuse for a creator to show you
a number of different angles of their bodies and for
them to focus on certain parts. But it's all in
the guise of showing you the outfit, when in reality
they're trying to show you how skinny they are. Yeah,
but I think we have seen the shift on TikTok
in particular with everyday women coming online and showing what
(22:54):
their real postpart and body looks like, and it's been
really helpful for a lot of mums that are like,
oh wow, I can see myself within that person, because
there was a time where a lot of influencers and
celebrities would just show how quickly they quote bounced back
and you wouldn't see this in between things, and I
think that's what Steph has been trying to do well.
(23:15):
That's what can be dangerous though, is that often fitness
influencers can disguise this as being innocent content. So a
lot of the time, postpart and body checks are generally
shared by fitness influencers who are keen to show us
their starting point after having a baby, and a lot
of the time they are trying to spook a fitness
plan afterwards, it feels very much like this is my before.
(23:37):
And that's why they're being so open because they know
that they're after is going to impress everyone. And that's
the thing. It triggers a lot of women because there's
a lot of comparison because for those fitness influencers, they
think that they're being super relatable by showing their stomach
after birth because for them, they're used to having a
flat stomach and abs, so a little bit of a
pouch for them is like, oh my goodness, this is
(23:59):
it extreme. But a lot of women would see that
image and be like, wow, I didn't even have that
before I gave birth. Yeah, And as you touched on earlier,
Sophie Tammy Hembro also copped flak after showing off her
postpartum body. So after she gave birth to her daughter, Posey,
she shared a bunch of mirror selfies showing her body
at different angles and you could see that she still
(24:20):
had abs and a very flat looking stomach. And while
she acknowledged that people should never compare themselves, she said
that she wanted to motivate and inspire, and then went
into detail about how she stayed as active as possible
before and during her pregnancy, of course, using her Tammy
Fit app. She then prefaced that she couldn't wait to
get back into the fitness program once she was twelve
(24:42):
weeks postpartum, and Tammy Hembro of course got so many
followers to begin with on Instagram for sharing her fitness
journey when she was pregnant with her first son. WUK, Yeah,
it just felt like a bit of a marketing exercise.
As for Steph, I think that she has been a
lot more mindful about how she's sharing about her postpartum body.
I mean, with her fitness empire Kick, her and a
(25:02):
team would have thought very strategically about this, and I
think that's why a lot of people do have a
problem with it, because we know that she's trying to
promote something to us under the guise of body positivity.
I mean, Kick the fitness app has actually got a
little bit of a problematic background because originally it was
called keep It Cleaner. They have always tried to be
body positive and say it's not about diet, it's not
(25:24):
about before and afters. But then Steph and her co
founder Laura Henshaw are the faces of the program and
are both models who are very skinny. Yeah, but I
think they're trying to do better, And I actually have
quite liked the way that Steph has shared about her
postpart and body. I know I've had a bit of
a joke that Steph Claire Smith has poo bared it
through her whole pregnancy. She has had her bump out
(25:44):
for the whole nine months. Basically, I don't think I've
seen her in one outfit that doesn't reveal her bump.
And it's quite interesting because she's continued that. So even
days after birth, she's been wearing a lot of middrift tops.
She's been showing off what her stomach actually realistically looks
like after giving birth. But there was this, it's one
Instagram story where she was standing in front of a
open fire holding her baby Billy, and she had her
(26:07):
top rolled up to show her stomach, and then she
purposely moved from side to side so you could see
every angle. It felt like a body check that she
was trying to pass off as being incidental. That's the thing, though,
I feel like body checks are almost allowed if the
person's body is deemed as being relatable, which is very
complex and quite wrong in itself as well. I've been
(26:28):
really grappling with myself as to why I have found
her body checks uncomfortable because she's doing all the right things.
I normally enjoiceing people on TikTok show what their real
life postpart and body looks like at every angle, not
just what you look like with leggings up to your
middrift and you know you're only showing part of your stomach.
She has shown it all. I think what I'm having
(26:49):
difficulty with is the fact that I feel like something
is coming. It's being used as promotion. It might be
being used as promotion for a positive postpartum fitness, but
it's still being used as promotion to earn money. Maybe
that's why I'm feeling uncomfortable. She's actually received a lot
of praise for the way that she's been doing it
because she shared on TikTok a video which she entitled
(27:12):
two Days Postpartum, and in it she was wearing disposable
maternity underwear, and she showed again a number of different
angles of her stomach as she pulled on compression tights
and she captured the post the female body is insane,
and the overwhelming feedback was that people were impressed that
she was showing herself basically essentially in a maternity nappy.
(27:33):
One user wrote, maternity nappies were a god send for
mums too, You're amazing. Another said love you normalizing the
reality of it, whilst another said good on you for
making it real. And she's been very open about how
her pelvic floor has struggled after giving birth, and she's
going to be wearing these nappies and pads for the
foreseeable future. So I think people have loved that she
(27:53):
has opened up about this because normally women don't talk
about it. I just had a light, bold moment when
you were talking Sophie. I think I feel uncomfortable about it.
Is even though she's wearing an appy and she's showing
off her stomach. That has kind of deflated a little bit.
It's because she still looks fucking good. She's looked good
throughout this whole pregnancy. She looks good with a bump,
she looks good with abs, she looks good anytime. But
(28:14):
I mean I have to defend her. I feel happy
as seeing these types of posts than the one where
Tammy's flexing in a mirror and sucking in and contorting
to all these different angles. I think it's relatable to
see the deflated stomach and see that. You know, your
uterus takes quite a number of days, months, whatever it
takes week, It takes probably six to eight weeks for
(28:35):
your uterus to contract. I think the thing that I
do find troubling though, is that these body checks, whether
they're relatable or not, all they're there to do is
to spark comparison, and I don't think comparison is always
helpful in these situations. And the body checks are this
underlying part of the fitness world. You do a body check,
you do before and after. So while Laura and Steph
(28:56):
have always said we don't do before and after, this
is essentially what we have been. She also feel like
there's a bit of a tone like, wow, that's brave
to share that. I just find it all very performative,
even though she's doing the right thing. The thing that
makes me feel uncomfortable, though, is I feel like women
are damned if they do damned if they don't. For Steph,
she shares a lot about her life, And I think
if she suddenly disappeared from her TikTok and her Instagram
(29:19):
and only appeared when she was back to how she was,
we'd also criticize her for it. But I think people
would be like, oh, she's taken time off to be
with her baby. Like the fact that we've had this
influx of content, I wasn't really expecting it. And if
we only saw her return with her stomach looking flat
and her abs back, we'd be like, Gee, she's been
in hiding. She's only wanted to return when she's back
(29:40):
to how she was. True. I mean, I don't know
in this day and age, if there is a right
way to do it or not. In Steph's Vogue article,
she touched on bounce back culture, and she admitted during
her first pregnancy that she did feel the pressure and
expectation to get back to her pre baby body. She
said it infuriated her that after years of rebuilding her
relationship with food, exercise, and body image, the postpartum period
(30:02):
rocked how she felt about herself. That was quite relatable
because we're always told that bounce back is a dirty word,
which it is, but it's really hard you know, being pregnant.
Of course I would love to look exactly the same
after giving birth. In reality, that's not going to happen.
But is it wrong for someone to think that. I
think that there's a lot of these conversations that happen
(30:23):
behind the scenes between friends where people are like, oh
my god, I really want to feel good again and
I want to feel like myself again. But then there's
this sort of fakery where you're not allowed to, you know,
it's like, oh no, no, no, I'll just be happy. Yeah.
I think maybe because I've heard Steph talk about this before,
that that's why I'm leaning towards feeling like this whole
body checking thing has been a little bit performative, or
(30:44):
maybe it's been our exercise, or maybe it has been
for her own mental health to go, Okay, I'm going
to put this out there and share this with everyone,
and maybe she needed the positive feedback from others.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
I think it's also the fact that she has worked
out quite I don't want to say sessively, but she
shared a lot of workout content during her pregnancy. It's
her job. Well again, it's her job, and she obviously
loves it and there's nothing wrong with working out during pregnancy.
It's actually so good for a lot of pregnant women
to do so. But it's also good if you don't
want to work out exactly. I mean, I think I haven't. No,
(31:17):
I didn't do any workouts, and I thought maybe I would.
I did walk in the first trimester, and somewhat into
the second I was doing some of the kick bump exercises,
and I was quite enjoying it, but then just as
I got further in, I was like, I don't think
I could do this anymore. I've tried to stay active
on walks. I found that really good, because I do
also think it's really terrible if you just don't do anything.
(31:37):
There's a lot of benefits for actually staying active. I mean,
each of their own people also experience pregnancy very differently.
So you have some women who have HG and can't
get out of bed and can't keep any food down,
and then you have others that really aren't affected by
it that much. I did like the way that Steph
said in the Vogue article that she thinks it's unfair
how women's bodies are really celebrated during pregnant, But then
(32:01):
how quickly they're scrutinized and compared once the baby has arrived,
which is why I think she's making that effort to
still have her stomach on display afterwards. Yeah. Well, she
did do a lot of pregnancy photo shoots as well,
so maybe she will be doing more postpartum photoshop. Yeah. Well,
you wouldn't have liked this, Kate, though, because I did
notice in the Vogue article she did plug that if
she's feeling better in six weeks, she would do her
(32:23):
kick Bump post natal program. And of course I'm sure
she'd be taking us along for the ride now away
from the body checking. A lot of people were interested
to see whether Steph would show her newborn's face, because
she did show her first son, Harvey's face, when he
was a newborn. She's only recently stopped showing him online,
and she and Josh basically explained that they felt comfortable
(32:45):
to show Harvey's face because newborn's and babies they changed
so much until upwards of about three or four. Yeah,
so people weren't sure if she was going to show
Billy's face or not, and I think she was a
bit unsure as well. Yeah, well, it turns out that
they have been trying to hide her face. So there's
been a lot of photos of Billy from different angles,
but none of her face front on. Oh there was
(33:07):
a front on one, but she put a whole bunch
of text over it, so you couldn't really see. There
have been some questions as to whether Billy looks like Harvey,
and Steph said there are some similarities. But she did
want to say that Billy is definitely a Smith. Yeah,
she definitely has Smith jeans. Yeah. She said that those
Smith jeans were strong. This is going to be a
gorgeous child. I did notice that Harvey had a little
(33:29):
white squiggle over his face in the Vogue spread. I
thought that they might have covered his face in a
little bit more of a sophisticated way, pixelated or like
he's on bloody witness protection or something. Yeah, but maybe
just not use that photo or It's a tough one
because in the future, I'm sure they don't want their
whole photo albums full of pictures of their son's face
concealed in a weird way. Those are special moments. Just
(33:51):
don't give it to Vogue to share. Well, that's where
we're going to wrap things. Up today. Thank you again
for listening to Outspoken. If you do enjoy the show,
we would really appreciate it if you could leave us
a review and make sure you are subscribed on Apple
and Spotify. This episode was recorded on the traditional land
of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains. We pay
respect to elders past and present.
Hello, and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Sophie Torba and coming up on today's show, Sarah's Day
slams her Son's school over holiday debacle and Steph Claire
Smith's Baby Bonanza. But first, m Davies and Lucy Jackson
have shocked their followers by revealing how many times they've
(00:24):
ordered Uber eats. Now, this is all part of a
TikTok trend called the uber Eats Challenge, and it is
all over my fore page at the moment. But for
those who haven't seen it, there's a setting in the
uber Eats app that tells you how many times you've ordered.
I want to know is this a new feature that
uber Eats is trying to promote or has someone just
stumbled across it, because either way it seems like good
(00:46):
pr for uber Eats. Well, it's great pr because Nicki
and Lucy ended up sharing this video that's had over
three hundred and ten thousand views and in it they
expose their order numbers. So to make it more entertaining,
they guessed their numbers before they were revealed, so Nicki
gets two hundred and she was pretty close. She ordered
one hundred and forty seven times. As for Lucy, she
(01:09):
shocked everyone by revealing she had ordered uber eats five
hundred and forty five times. I want to know, is
this over the past year or is this the lifetime
of them having the app? Well, when I originally saw it,
I thought it was over a year, and I was like,
oh my god, has she been ordering uber eats twice
a day? However, the figure is a summary of the
lifetime of the app, so thank god. Yeah, but even so,
(01:31):
that is a lot of orders. Uber Eats even commented
on the video, writing, doll, that's outrageous. The fact that
uber eats is commenting and getting in on this makes
me feel like it's part of an over arching marketing strategy. See,
I actually don't think that's the case, because a lot
of the conversations around it is that people are ashamed
about how many times you're ordering from the app and
that they need to cut back. Yeah, I suppose. It
(01:51):
was quite interesting because m Davies also got in on
the action, so she filmed a video with Nicki and
M guessed that she had ordered Uber eats nine hundred
and fifty times, and even though that sounds like an
outrageous number, she had actually underestimated just how many times
she'd ordered. Let's have a listen to what she said.
It's gonna be bad. I'm scard.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
You have ordered uber eat one two hundred and seventy
seven times.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
That's why my financial advice is like stun what.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Stretch?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
I love how Nikky audibly gore so. I mean, I
thought Lucy's was ridiculous, and then I heard m Davies.
Isn't this just typical of influences though they're the ones
who have disposable income, even though they've probably got more
time than any of us to cook, They're like, nah,
fuck it, I'll order it. I mean, I love the
concept of Uber Eats and the ease of just being
able to get something delivered. But I haven't looked at
(02:55):
what my number is. I would think that it's probably
a handful of times I've actually ordered from there because
I don't want to pay for delivery, and I also
find that when it's delivered it's often very cold. See
I use it more. I actually did look at my number,
and I have ordered it over the eight years I've
had it eleven times. I know that's not a huge amount,
that's not very many. But my husband also uses his
(03:16):
app and he is the one that usually orders our takeaway,
and he had two hundred times. See, I would rather
just jump in my car, go down the road and
make sure that the food is hot. Like, I think
it takes a particularly lazy person to want to order
on there that many times. Yeah, I think it's a
pretty brave thing to do to expose your number, particularly
if you're m Davies or Lucy Jackson, because I think
(03:37):
it does say a lot about you as a person.
Because when I heard their numbers, I immediately started making
assumptions about their financial situation. You know, if the number
is really high, You're like, oh, they must be earning
so much money they don't even have to think about
spending money or takeaway. And I also began to question
their priorities and whether they should just be making their
food at home. I think there's also a lazy connotation
(03:58):
to it, But then there's all that's a lot of
people that have been wearing it as a badge of honor.
Do you not really irritates me when I'm down at
a takeaway store, I just say Zambreros, for instance, and
I have to wait for them to make the Uber
Eats people's orders, and I'm like, I'm fucking in the store.
I've bothered to get myself out on a winter night
stand in the store order, and I'm having to wait
(04:19):
for these people at home who are being lazy. Oh
it pisses me off too. It has really screwed over
how quick takeaway places are in terms of m davies.
She ended up sharing a follow up video to explain
herself a little bit further. This is what she said.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I think I generally need to be put in rehab
for Uber Eats. I have been looking at everyone else's
on TikTok, and the worst part is Joel pretty much
cooks for me every night on the barbecue. So I
really don't have any excuse apart from the fact that
(04:55):
I'm a mum. I reckon like, yeah, yeah, it's a
serious problem, man, it's probably your house to close it.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Now, and went on to say that seventy percent of
Uber Eats orders were from Nando's, which is something that
she could easily make it home. Now. A lot of
people were trying to let her off the hook and said, look,
you're a mum. Nikki Westcott waged in though and said
ha ha. Joel said, you'd order a packet of chips
from the survey if the mood's striped and coffees most
days to be fair. Someone else pointed out that m
(05:25):
Davies has had the app for around eight years, but
it's only been a mum for less than ones. Well,
it's quite interesting because when you crunch the numbers, so
she's been on the app, as you say, for around
eight years, that works out to one hundred and seventy
orders a year. So she is ordering from uber Eats
roughly two to three times a week. That is a lot.
I mean, even her financial advisor has got involved and
(05:46):
said that she needs to stop ordering from uber Eats.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Honestly, I wasn't even going to bring this back up
because I'm just like ugh, erasing it from my mind,
and I also know that it's going.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
To ruffle Oh thank you a few people's feathers. Sarah's
Day has slammed her son Fox School after they denied
him leave to attend a family trip to Fiji. Despite
the decision from the school, the self proclaimed holistic health.
Princess still pulled the six year old out of class
for the vacation, So can you tell us more well.
Sarah and her family have been in Fiji celebrating her
(06:15):
mum's sixtieth and also her sister's thirtieth, and it's actually
the first time that Sarah has been overseas with her
parents and sisters, but it is one of many of
her trips with her husband and kids over the past
few years. They feel like they've been to Fiji quite
a few times in the last five years and Hawaii,
Hawaii is one of their favorite places to go to.
And whilst over the past week we've seen a lot
(06:37):
of happy snaps and vision of the extended family having
the time of their lives on this holiday, we have
since discovered that the trip got off to a pretty
sour note because while Sarah and her family were at
the airport waiting to board their flight, Sarah got an
email from her son, Fox's school, saying that his leave
had not been approved and it was important for him
(06:58):
to be at school learning. Now. Fox turned six in
March and that's actually the same month he started school.
Because it's compulsory and new South Wales for a child
to start school by the time they're six years old, However,
it's normal for them to actually start when they're five
years old. Yeah, most parents try and get their kids
into school as early as they can and start that education.
(07:19):
But I mean, I wonder if it's due to flexibility.
She wanted him at home more to lead more of
a flexible lifestyle with him. I'm really not sure. I
suppose it's her personal decision. But despite knowing that this
news about the school would ruffle feathers, she decided to
share this update with her one point two million followers anyway.
She jumped on her Instagram stories while she was walking
on a beach in Fiji and explained that as it's
(07:41):
her son's first year of school, she was unaware of
the school's policy for leave. Now. She prefaced that Fox
didn't go to a special school AKA, she wanted everyone
to know that he's at a public school and not
a fancy private school, and she was quite surprised by
the depth of the application process. Now. The school's rules
stated that she had to apply for leave because her
(08:04):
son was going to be away for longer than three days.
They were actually spending a week in Fiji. Let's have
a listen to some of what Sarah said.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So I basically feel in this like extended le form.
I talked to the receptionist girl and she's like, yeah,
all good. You just have to send us now, like proof.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Of your flights. And I was like, okay, cool. So
I sent him proof of my flights.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
They responded by an email saying, sweet, We've got everything
we need for this like getaway or whatever. And I said, obviously,
like this is his Grandma's sixtieth trip, it's really important.
Where he's only missing five days of school anyway, So
day one of the trip, I get an email back
like we're at the airport and basically it says that
Foxes leave hasn't been approved. Yeah, anyway, I just I
(08:46):
could go on and on about it, and I think, like,
if you know, if you're a mom like me, like
you get it. Yes, I want him to learn how
to read and write and like be.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
In the classroom and everything.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
But I'm not, like I haven't pulled him out of
school for like a month, and it's not like he's
not anyway whatever whatever. But I responded and I was like, Okay,
we'll we're at the airport, like, thanks, I guess.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Anyway, whatever, whatever, well school. The fact that she referred
to the receptionist as that receptionist girl like that just
shows the amount of respect that was going on. It
was quite patronizing. It's clear that she knew that this
was going to be a controversial take, because she prefaced
the post by saying that she was likely going to
ruffle some feathers. I just am at a loss as
(09:30):
to why you would take a potshot at your child's school.
It's easily something that she could have just kept private.
I mean, there's no question in my mind that this
is getting back to the school, either through the parents
or the staff who may follow her. Yeah, and it
seems like she maybe wanted it to get back there,
because why else would you put this out. She was
clearly pissed off about it, and I mean, you can
(09:51):
already see where the school stands on this. There's going
to be a bit of animosity when she goes back
into the classroom because they've made the decision that it's
in his best intro that he be at school learning.
Yet she's just been like, no, he's going to miss
the whole week. I mean, that's going to put him behind.
I mean, as someone whose parents are both teachers, maybe
I look at this from a different perspective, but I
(10:11):
feel for the teacher in this situation because not only
is the teacher now going to have to invest more
time in Fox, they're gonna have to take time away
from the other kids in the class to make sure
that he is then up to speed with what's going on,
and that would not only be stressful for the teacher
in the class, but also Fox. I'm interested to know
what the ramifications are for ignoring the school, because I personally,
(10:33):
I didn't know that a school could actually say no,
you can't take your kid on a holiday. I understand
why they have that process in place, though, because it's
very disruptive for the child and also the class. As
you were saying, yeah, I was talking about it to
my husband, his dad is also a teacher, and we
were like, I'd never really heard about this happening when
we were kids, And it's because at school you get
(10:55):
so many holidays, like every ten weeks, you then get
two weeks of holidays. At the end of the year
get five weeks of holidays. Most everyday. People also have
to lodge holidays with their own work, so generally you
try and fit around those school holiday times, even though
it can be more expensive to go away. But I
suppose from our family's perspective too, with our parents being teachers,
(11:15):
we went on holidays because they had the break then,
So it is more difficult for parents who aren't teachers
to align their holidays with the school holidays. Yeah, and
that's why there's generally more planning. In this instance, it
felt like a bit of a last minute decision. It
seemed like this form was lodged very late, which is
why the school only got back to her when they
were at the airport. It also really demonstrates the different
(11:36):
lifestyle the influencers lead. I mean, if you look at Sarah,
she is used to locking in a trip whenever she
pleases due to the flexibility of her working for herself,
and she's also got a disposable income. I mean, we
saw it recently with Molly May. She decided to book
a family trip with Tommy and Bambi to Dubai and
they booked it in a day before they left. So
(11:56):
they don't have the confines of the real world like us.
Like they can just book whenever they want. So it's
kind of interesting when people then send their kids to
school and they have to abide by someone else's rules
that they have a problem with it. Yeah, it makes
me wonder whether she held back in rolling Fox into
school for this very reason that she didn't want to
have to abide by their rules. You know what I
also found confusing. She seemed to be pleading a lot
(12:17):
of ignorance in this case about the school's policies. But
many people who have listened to Our Sarah's Day Deep
Dive episode will know that she actually studied to become
a primary school teacher before her YouTube took off. I
think she only had a semester or so to go,
but she was doing pracks within school, so surely she
would have some understanding of the policies in place for leave.
(12:38):
I also thought maybe she would have a different stance
on the importance of education as well, all some respect
for teachers. I have seen some people say, oh, well,
he's probably learning more on this trip than he would
be back at school, because obviously people learn about different
cultures and through experiences. What do you think about that theory? Well,
I think that is a pretty good point, But he
has been to Fiji fairly recently, I think maybe within
(13:00):
the last year to six months, so I'm not sure
how much more beneficial it would be going again. But also,
when you go to a place like Fiji, typically you
are stuck in a resort. It was a tourist bubble,
and I understand that obviously they have some traditional dances
that come into the resort and those sort of things,
but I'd hardly say it's the same as going to Europe,
where you're going to be going on different excursions and
(13:21):
learning about history and that sort of thing. I think
age also comes into it as well, with Fox being
six and being a little bit delayed at primary school.
The hope probably was from his teachers that he would
do a couple of terms of reception and then go
into year one. However, this holiday may have delayed that
process a little bit. Also think that it sends a
bad message to him that you can just leave school
(13:43):
whenever you want to on a holiday. And I mean
reception in year one. They're really fundamental years where you
are learning the absolute basics that you need to then
progress into the next years. I just don't understand why
she's publicly put it out there that the school isn't
happy with her decision, as well the fact that she's
been in the business for ten years, she is savvy
enough to know that her critics and even the media,
(14:05):
they had to create a narrative about this self important
influencer who has pulled their son out of school to
go on a lavish holiday, which is exactly what the
Daily Mail did. And I just wonder if maybe she's
so out of touch and was so mad that the
school scolded her in this way, that she just wanted
that instant affirmation from her supporters and wanted reassurance from
other mums that maybe she made the right decision. Because
(14:27):
she kept saying, oh, the mums will get it, I
felt it saying I don't actually think they will. I
think she's probably just surrounded by yes people and this
is the first time in a long time someone has
said no to her. Yeah. I also wonder if she's
trying to get a bit of engagement. She hasn't created
much controversy for a while now, and that is reflected
in her viewcount. I mean, obviously she's still getting okay views,
(14:48):
but it's nowhere near to the engagement she used to get.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
So I realized I kind of shot myself in the
foot with the whole wait count down to the baby coming,
because now it's making the anticipation.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Of so Steph gles Smith and her husband Josh Miller
announced the arrival of their baby daughter on Friday night.
The finness influencer and models struck up a deal with
Vogue magazine, releasing exclusive photos from her birthing suite. Sophie,
We've been on baby watch for a while now. Yeah,
this feels like one of the longest pregnancies, and I
don't know if it's because I've been experiencing it alongside
(15:21):
Steph clear Smith in a parasocial way, because I think
that you have this special connection with influencers when you're
pregnant around the same time as them. She's only a
few weeks ahead of me, and I keep looking at
her as to what I'm expecting next. That influencer for
me was jar Da Tuni, So we've spoken about it recently,
but when she's gone for round two, I was like, honey,
(15:41):
I'm not up to that yet. I think there was
also more anticipation around this pregnancy because Steph les Smith
and her husband. They decided to keep the gender a secret.
That made it really exciting for us playing at home,
and you can tell Steph was absolutely over the moon
when she found out that she had a little girl. Yeah, well,
it looked like she had some sort of professional photographer
(16:03):
in the birthing suite, because she shared this carousel of
very beautiful black and white photos of the moment she
discovered the gender. And in one of the photos she
is literally screaming in excitement, and then she burst into tears.
So she shared these on social media and wrote, one
of the most euphoric feelings in the world. These snaps
are raw moments of us finding out our little one's gender.
(16:26):
And my gosh, the surprise was so so special. It
was you in there all along the way. You came
out so calm, so alert, just looking straight into my eyes.
I fell in love instantly, So grateful to have another
little being to love like this now. She dubbed these
photos as their gender reveal. Is this going to be
a new thing. We've got cakes, We've got the glitter guns.
(16:48):
Is this now going to be a thing where people
who decide to have the surprise have a professional photographer
in there to capture the moments that the parents discover
the gender. Well, maybe just for influencers. I mean it
did get me thinking because I found out the gender
of my baby, and if I were to have a
second one, seeing this photo, I was like, maybe it
would be nice to find out in the I think
that's something special about not finding out the second time,
(17:11):
because there can be a bit of gender disappointment if
you're really gunning for a particular gender. And then I
think in the moment, obviously, birth is so beautiful and
exciting that whatever you get you're gonna be happy with.
If I was to have another boy, I'd be like, oh,
that's amazing, brothers, because I do think that there is
a special connection that same sex siblings have. And then
if it was a girl, I'd be so excited because
(17:32):
I'd have one of each. So I think when it
gets to the point where you'd be excited about both,
that's when maybe you're like, Okay, we'll have it as
a surprise. Yeah, we got to talk about the name.
So they have called their baby girl Billy Claire Miller,
and I thought it was pretty iconic that they put
the Claire in there. Yeah, I like that nod to
her name because she's become known as Steph cles Smith.
(17:53):
Claire is obviously her middle name. It's a brand, isn't it. Yeah,
not a lot of us go by our full name
with our middle name. I think it was an instrum
thing where Steph Smith would have been taken. Olivia Rogers
does it as well. She a lot of people know
her as Olivia Molly Rogers. I don't know if it
was just Instagram. I mean, I think it's the fact
that Steph Smith sounds pretty shit like it doesn't It
sounds pretty plain, Steph Clay Smith. That sounds good exactly.
(18:15):
You've got to throw the middle name in there. I
am just predicting that we're going to have an onslaught
of baby girls called Billy. Well, it's been a popular
name for a while, like Bet Judd's daughter is called
Billy and she's about eight years old. Actually, I checked
the charts and it ranks at number sixty three in Australia,
so it's not as popular as what I thought it was.
I think it was a while ago, so maybe she's
bringing it back. Well, Steph said that when it came
(18:37):
to girls' names, they had been set on Billy for
quite a while, but they were struggling to come up
with boys' names. She said they had around three boys'
names that they liked, but they weren't in love with
any of them, so it was quite a relief that
they had a girl. It's hard when you already have
a boy and you've picked your favorite name, So it
does seem like, oh, I don't really know. When asked
why she gave her daughter the same middle name, Steph
(18:58):
explained that they all shared Josh's family name and she
loves it. It allows her to have this other identity
outside of her work as Steph Claire Smith. But she
still wanted her daughter to have a connection to her
Smith family name, and as soon as she said Billy Claire,
she said the decision was done. It just flowed and
sounded really lovely. See when the name was first revealed,
I was like, doesn't Josh have a sister called Billy.
(19:21):
His sister is actually called Bailey, So they've got a
Bailey Miller and now a Billy Miller. I feel like
they're different enough, though, but there's a lot of eyes
and elks going on, Like it's a very matchy matchy name,
but when you stick Claire in there, it kind of
I mean, Claire's got Elleen and I in as well.
Maybe Billy will have to just been known as Billy
Claire the whole time. Yeah, I actually think she probably
will be. It probably shouldn't have been surprising to me
(19:43):
that there was this professional photographer in the birthing suite
because Steph had lined up an exclusive deal with Vogue magazine,
which I think surprised some people because we've seen Vogue
covering a lot of influencer's weddings. I haven't seen them
covering influencers berths. I'm wondering if will get printed in
the monthly edition or if this is just an online thing,
(20:03):
because I think there's a lot of prestige around being
featured in Vogue, particularly weddings. I mean, we've seen Tammy
Hembro m Davies podcast of Victoria Devine, but I don't
know if they're actually printed in the magazine. I think
when you're printed in the magazine it's a different level.
I think these will just be online versions. I'm really
curious to how this deal actually works, because, as you said,
(20:25):
there's a lot of prestige involved in being in Vogue,
even if it's just the online edition, and there's a
lot of influencers who will agree to be in there
for free, just for the exposure. In some instances, I've
actually heard of lesser known influencers trying to buy their
way into Vogue, particularly when it comes to weddings. Apparently,
if you see an influencer wedding in UK Vogue, they've
(20:46):
definitely paid for it. Oh okay, But in this case,
I wonder if Vogue agreed to sprook her fitness app
Kick in exchange for the exposure, or if there was
money exchange. It was a little bit different this time
around because with the web, normally the influencers will hold
off sharing their photos until they share them concurrently with Vogue. However,
(21:07):
Steph announced the arrival of her baby before the Vogue
spread went out. Well that's what made me think that
potentially this article was just a bit of extra exposure
for Kick and for Steph Claire Smith as a brand.
She wasn't getting paid. Well, I suppose Vogue did get
a lot out of it because they got a bunch
of exclusive photos and Steph also wrote the article herself,
so she was writing about different parts of motherhood. It
(21:30):
was clear she wrote it before actually giving birth. Oh yeah,
I mean I was expecting a bit more from the article.
It was quite short, didn't really give that much away.
Something that has sparked debate is the so called body
checking that people think she's been doing after birth. It
is something that fitness influences like Sarah's Day and Tammy
Hembro were also accused of. I feel like the term
(21:52):
body checking gets thrown around a lot, but sometimes there's
confusion as to what it actually is. In terms of influencers,
it's when they'll generally film themselves examining certain parts of
their body in the mirror. So when it comes to
a postpart and body check, they will show how their
body looks straight after giving birth. So they focus on
touching their star miach or showing certain areas that have changed.
(22:13):
And I feel like on TikTok in particular, body checking
has become so normalized, not just with postpart and women,
but with a lot of lifestyle influencers. I mean, if
you reflect, we'll see food influences sharing what I eat
in the day video and they flash us their stomachs
or we'll see influences in the gym showing us their muscles.
(22:33):
I feel like these happen a lot in fitchecks as well,
because it's an excuse for a creator to show you
a number of different angles of their bodies and for
them to focus on certain parts. But it's all in
the guise of showing you the outfit, when in reality
they're trying to show you how skinny they are. Yeah,
but I think we have seen the shift on TikTok
in particular with everyday women coming online and showing what
(22:54):
their real postpart and body looks like, and it's been
really helpful for a lot of mums that are like,
oh wow, I can see myself within that person, because
there was a time where a lot of influencers and
celebrities would just show how quickly they quote bounced back
and you wouldn't see this in between things, and I
think that's what Steph has been trying to do well.
(23:15):
That's what can be dangerous though, is that often fitness
influencers can disguise this as being innocent content. So a
lot of the time, postpart and body checks are generally
shared by fitness influencers who are keen to show us
their starting point after having a baby, and a lot
of the time they are trying to spook a fitness
plan afterwards, it feels very much like this is my before.
(23:37):
And that's why they're being so open because they know
that they're after is going to impress everyone. And that's
the thing. It triggers a lot of women because there's
a lot of comparison because for those fitness influencers, they
think that they're being super relatable by showing their stomach
after birth because for them, they're used to having a
flat stomach and abs, so a little bit of a
pouch for them is like, oh my goodness, this is
(23:59):
it extreme. But a lot of women would see that
image and be like, wow, I didn't even have that
before I gave birth. Yeah, And as you touched on earlier,
Sophie Tammy Hembro also copped flak after showing off her
postpartum body. So after she gave birth to her daughter, Posey,
she shared a bunch of mirror selfies showing her body
at different angles and you could see that she still
(24:20):
had abs and a very flat looking stomach. And while
she acknowledged that people should never compare themselves, she said
that she wanted to motivate and inspire, and then went
into detail about how she stayed as active as possible
before and during her pregnancy, of course, using her Tammy
Fit app. She then prefaced that she couldn't wait to
get back into the fitness program once she was twelve
(24:42):
weeks postpartum, and Tammy Hembro of course got so many
followers to begin with on Instagram for sharing her fitness
journey when she was pregnant with her first son. WUK, Yeah,
it just felt like a bit of a marketing exercise.
As for Steph, I think that she has been a
lot more mindful about how she's sharing about her postpartum body.
I mean, with her fitness empire Kick, her and a
(25:02):
team would have thought very strategically about this, and I
think that's why a lot of people do have a
problem with it, because we know that she's trying to
promote something to us under the guise of body positivity.
I mean, Kick the fitness app has actually got a
little bit of a problematic background because originally it was
called keep It Cleaner. They have always tried to be
body positive and say it's not about diet, it's not
(25:24):
about before and afters. But then Steph and her co
founder Laura Henshaw are the faces of the program and
are both models who are very skinny. Yeah, but I
think they're trying to do better, And I actually have
quite liked the way that Steph has shared about her
postpart and body. I know I've had a bit of
a joke that Steph Claire Smith has poo bared it
through her whole pregnancy. She has had her bump out
(25:44):
for the whole nine months. Basically, I don't think I've
seen her in one outfit that doesn't reveal her bump.
And it's quite interesting because she's continued that. So even
days after birth, she's been wearing a lot of middrift tops.
She's been showing off what her stomach actually realistically looks
like after giving birth. But there was this, it's one
Instagram story where she was standing in front of a
open fire holding her baby Billy, and she had her
(26:07):
top rolled up to show her stomach, and then she
purposely moved from side to side so you could see
every angle. It felt like a body check that she
was trying to pass off as being incidental. That's the thing, though,
I feel like body checks are almost allowed if the
person's body is deemed as being relatable, which is very
complex and quite wrong in itself as well. I've been
(26:28):
really grappling with myself as to why I have found
her body checks uncomfortable because she's doing all the right things.
I normally enjoiceing people on TikTok show what their real
life postpart and body looks like at every angle, not
just what you look like with leggings up to your
middrift and you know you're only showing part of your stomach.
She has shown it all. I think what I'm having
(26:49):
difficulty with is the fact that I feel like something
is coming. It's being used as promotion. It might be
being used as promotion for a positive postpartum fitness, but
it's still being used as promotion to earn money. Maybe
that's why I'm feeling uncomfortable. She's actually received a lot
of praise for the way that she's been doing it
because she shared on TikTok a video which she entitled
(27:12):
two Days Postpartum, and in it she was wearing disposable
maternity underwear, and she showed again a number of different
angles of her stomach as she pulled on compression tights
and she captured the post the female body is insane,
and the overwhelming feedback was that people were impressed that
she was showing herself basically essentially in a maternity nappy.
(27:33):
One user wrote, maternity nappies were a god send for
mums too, You're amazing. Another said love you normalizing the
reality of it, whilst another said good on you for
making it real. And she's been very open about how
her pelvic floor has struggled after giving birth, and she's
going to be wearing these nappies and pads for the
foreseeable future. So I think people have loved that she
(27:53):
has opened up about this because normally women don't talk
about it. I just had a light, bold moment when
you were talking Sophie. I think I feel uncomfortable about it.
Is even though she's wearing an appy and she's showing
off her stomach. That has kind of deflated a little bit.
It's because she still looks fucking good. She's looked good
throughout this whole pregnancy. She looks good with a bump,
she looks good with abs, she looks good anytime. But
(28:14):
I mean I have to defend her. I feel happy
as seeing these types of posts than the one where
Tammy's flexing in a mirror and sucking in and contorting
to all these different angles. I think it's relatable to
see the deflated stomach and see that. You know, your
uterus takes quite a number of days, months, whatever it
takes week, It takes probably six to eight weeks for
(28:35):
your uterus to contract. I think the thing that I
do find troubling though, is that these body checks, whether
they're relatable or not, all they're there to do is
to spark comparison, and I don't think comparison is always
helpful in these situations. And the body checks are this
underlying part of the fitness world. You do a body check,
you do before and after. So while Laura and Steph
(28:56):
have always said we don't do before and after, this
is essentially what we have been. She also feel like
there's a bit of a tone like, wow, that's brave
to share that. I just find it all very performative,
even though she's doing the right thing. The thing that
makes me feel uncomfortable, though, is I feel like women
are damned if they do damned if they don't. For Steph,
she shares a lot about her life, And I think
if she suddenly disappeared from her TikTok and her Instagram
(29:19):
and only appeared when she was back to how she was,
we'd also criticize her for it. But I think people
would be like, oh, she's taken time off to be
with her baby. Like the fact that we've had this
influx of content, I wasn't really expecting it. And if
we only saw her return with her stomach looking flat
and her abs back, we'd be like, Gee, she's been
in hiding. She's only wanted to return when she's back
(29:40):
to how she was. True. I mean, I don't know
in this day and age, if there is a right
way to do it or not. In Steph's Vogue article,
she touched on bounce back culture, and she admitted during
her first pregnancy that she did feel the pressure and
expectation to get back to her pre baby body. She
said it infuriated her that after years of rebuilding her
relationship with food, exercise, and body image, the postpartum period
(30:02):
rocked how she felt about herself. That was quite relatable
because we're always told that bounce back is a dirty word,
which it is, but it's really hard you know, being pregnant.
Of course I would love to look exactly the same
after giving birth. In reality, that's not going to happen.
But is it wrong for someone to think that. I
think that there's a lot of these conversations that happen
(30:23):
behind the scenes between friends where people are like, oh
my god, I really want to feel good again and
I want to feel like myself again. But then there's
this sort of fakery where you're not allowed to, you know,
it's like, oh no, no, no, I'll just be happy. Yeah.
I think maybe because I've heard Steph talk about this before,
that that's why I'm leaning towards feeling like this whole
body checking thing has been a little bit performative, or
(30:44):
maybe it's been our exercise, or maybe it has been
for her own mental health to go, Okay, I'm going
to put this out there and share this with everyone,
and maybe she needed the positive feedback from others.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
I think it's also the fact that she has worked
out quite I don't want to say sessively, but she
shared a lot of workout content during her pregnancy. It's
her job. Well again, it's her job, and she obviously
loves it and there's nothing wrong with working out during pregnancy.
It's actually so good for a lot of pregnant women
to do so. But it's also good if you don't
want to work out exactly. I mean, I think I haven't. No,
(31:17):
I didn't do any workouts, and I thought maybe I would.
I did walk in the first trimester, and somewhat into
the second I was doing some of the kick bump exercises,
and I was quite enjoying it, but then just as
I got further in, I was like, I don't think
I could do this anymore. I've tried to stay active
on walks. I found that really good, because I do
also think it's really terrible if you just don't do anything.
(31:37):
There's a lot of benefits for actually staying active. I mean,
each of their own people also experience pregnancy very differently.
So you have some women who have HG and can't
get out of bed and can't keep any food down,
and then you have others that really aren't affected by
it that much. I did like the way that Steph
said in the Vogue article that she thinks it's unfair
how women's bodies are really celebrated during pregnant, But then
(32:01):
how quickly they're scrutinized and compared once the baby has arrived,
which is why I think she's making that effort to
still have her stomach on display afterwards. Yeah. Well, she
did do a lot of pregnancy photo shoots as well,
so maybe she will be doing more postpartum photoshop. Yeah. Well,
you wouldn't have liked this, Kate, though, because I did
notice in the Vogue article she did plug that if
she's feeling better in six weeks, she would do her
(32:23):
kick Bump post natal program. And of course I'm sure
she'd be taking us along for the ride now away
from the body checking. A lot of people were interested
to see whether Steph would show her newborn's face, because
she did show her first son, Harvey's face, when he
was a newborn. She's only recently stopped showing him online,
and she and Josh basically explained that they felt comfortable
(32:45):
to show Harvey's face because newborn's and babies they changed
so much until upwards of about three or four. Yeah,
so people weren't sure if she was going to show
Billy's face or not, and I think she was a
bit unsure as well. Yeah, well, it turns out that
they have been trying to hide her face. So there's
been a lot of photos of Billy from different angles,
but none of her face front on. Oh there was
(33:07):
a front on one, but she put a whole bunch
of text over it, so you couldn't really see. There
have been some questions as to whether Billy looks like Harvey,
and Steph said there are some similarities. But she did
want to say that Billy is definitely a Smith. Yeah,
she definitely has Smith jeans. Yeah. She said that those
Smith jeans were strong. This is going to be a
gorgeous child. I did notice that Harvey had a little
(33:29):
white squiggle over his face in the Vogue spread. I
thought that they might have covered his face in a
little bit more of a sophisticated way, pixelated or like
he's on bloody witness protection or something. Yeah, but maybe
just not use that photo or It's a tough one
because in the future, I'm sure they don't want their
whole photo albums full of pictures of their son's face
concealed in a weird way. Those are special moments. Just
(33:51):
don't give it to Vogue to share. Well, that's where
we're going to wrap things. Up today. Thank you again
for listening to Outspoken. If you do enjoy the show,
we would really appreciate it if you could leave us
a review and make sure you are subscribed on Apple
and Spotify. This episode was recorded on the traditional land
of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains. We pay
respect to elders past and present.
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