After what has been three intensely challenging years for Yazmin Oukhellou, the former TOWIE regular is finally finding her feet again – but life is not without its difficult days. In 2022, the reality star was seriously injured as the passenger in a horror car accident in Turkey.
Yazmin was taken to hospital after the incident, which saw the car take a 70ft fall off a cliff, and the smash claimed the life of her on/off boyfriend, Jake McLean, who was driving at the time. Yazmin, 31, may have physically recovered, but as she tells OK!, the mental scars have been much harder to heal from.
“After my accident, I kind of felt like, ‘Why am I here?’ It’s a weird feeling to have because you feel like you should have died,” she says. “It really made me look at myself and think, ‘Oh my God, what am I here for?’ It was really traumatic and it put me into a dark place – I fell into a deep depression.”
Upon returning home from Turkey, Yazmin moved in with her mum, Lisa, and dad Hamid, whoo she describes as her “rocks”. “I don’t think I could have survived without them, or without living with them,” she says.
“I remember saying to my mum, ‘Do you think I’ll ever be normal again?’ During that time after the crash, I was living for the weekends to go out and party, so people would think I’m having the best time of my life. But I was doing that to escape – I’d come home and just cry and be depressed.” Taking a pause, Yazmin continues, “You know, there were times when I when I felt super suicidal, which is a scary place to be in.”
In addition to the grief over Jake’s death and her PTSD, Yazmin was facing public backlash after the accident, something she admits made things even harder to deal with. “I had a lot of trolling,” she says. “People were judging me for trying to move on with my life, as if I’m supposed to just sit in the house and be depressed and not leave. So that was really difficult.”
Yazmin says she finally has the ability to think positively again, something she had not been able to do for a long time. “Therapy has definitely helped, but I think not having a victim mentality is what has helped me the most,” she says. “In the beginning I kept thinking, ‘Why me?’ But you need to turn it around and think, ‘What was I supposed to learn from this? How can I be better?’ rather than sitting around feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t want to be a victim any more.”
Yazmin first found fame on The Only Way Is Essex in 2017, staying on the show until 2023 – a year after the crash. Last year, she appeared in Ex On The Beach, which she describes as the catalyst she needed to walk away from reality TV.
“I left TOWIE because my mental health just wasn’t great, being on the show wasn’t good for me – I’m an over-thinker anyway, so that environment doesn’t help that. Then I went on Ex On The Beach and that was even more intense! So, that was the turning point for me, I just felt like this wasn’t my avenue any more. I felt really lost as a person, I’d hit 30 and thought you should have it all figured out by then, but I didn’t.”
Yazmin says she finally has a reason to get out of bed in the morning now. Set to open new beauty salon, Show Off, In Hertford next month, it’s clear she has a newfound fire in her belly.
“I realised that I’d always loved beauty, but that there’s not really a salon where you can go in, spend the day and get everything done. Show Off is a place where people can be in a safe environment and get therapy, healing workshops and luxury beauty treatments. I want people to leave feeling the best version of themselves.”
Yazmin is also set to offer financial education courses in the salon, after her own struggles with managing money. “I’m not going to lie, when I came off of TOWIE, I was left in such a bad situation financially where I was like, ‘How am I going to pay rent now?’ TV was all I’d done for seven years, so when you stop, you really don’t know what to do.
“I want to empower women about money. It’s great to go on Love Island and get loads of fame and money for five minutes, but that wears off. It’s why we have so many mental health issues going on, people don’t know what to do afterwards.”
It sounds like Yazmin is going to be a busy lady. “Yeah, I don’t think I realised how stressful this would be. But also, I feel like it has given me a routine again. Before, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I was just so, so depressed and I feel like now, this has given me a sense of worth. I didn’t know what I had to offer before, but now I do.”
“My mum actually sent me a message the other day saying how proud of me she is. Because, I think I’ve scared her a few times, definitely…” says Yazmin as she trails off, her voice thick with emotion.
As for love, Yazmin says that despite still having “good and bad days”, she’s gaining confidence that had temporarily lost. Once the business is up and running, she hopes to find someone to have a relationship with.
“I’m probably just going to be a workaholic for a while. But I am single, so if someone could help me find a man, that would be great!,” she says with a laugh. “I won’t be doing shows like TOWIE or Ex On The Beach again, but maybe I’d do Celebs Go Dating. I’d like to find someone before I’m 40, please.”
