Gogglebox star Mary Killen has revealed that she has become ‘addicted’ to vaping in her 60s as a lifelong non-smoker.
The 67-year-old TV personality appears on the Channel 4 reality show with her husband Giles, with the pair amusing the nation with their upper class aesthetic and, occasionally, out-of-touch commentary on the hottest cultural topics.
They’ve been dubbed everything from ‘posh’ to ‘eccentric’ with their unique brand of humour and have been a staple on the show for a decade, after joining in 2015.
For the most part, casual viewers have pieced together an image of their cottage-dwelling life from snippets they’ve revealed on the show and Mary’s past as an author, Spectator columnist and etiquette expert.
Now, she has opened up about a vice that has haunted her in her later years – vaping, in a new column for Mail Online.
The media star explained that she only picked up the habit ‘a couple of years ago’ after having a puff from a Juul offered by her 22-year-old son of a friend.
Mary revealed that she had ‘never been interested in normal cigarettes’ and would even ‘decline’ smoking them during her younger years when all her peers were, somewhat influenced by the fact that her father was a doctor.
She doesn’t even ‘drink alcohol’.
As for the appeal of the vape (which her son’s friend casually gifted to her), she explained: ‘I loved inhaling the odourless air and blowing it out again. It just looked so chic and felt cooling in the palm of the hand.’
Soon enough, she found herself buying ‘replacement pods’, reasoning that it would ‘be good if I were to appear to have at least one addiction’ and allow her most social acceptability in ‘drinking circles’.
There is currently no long-term research on the health effects of vaping, with the NHS cautioning against taking up the vice if you do not smoke, while Mary herself cited one UK health website which even advocated for the benefits of nicotine as a ‘stimulant’.
Is vaping harmful?
According to the NHS website, ‘nicotine vaping is less harmful than smoking’ and is used as a tool for those looking to quit cigarettes.
The website stipulates, however: ‘Vaping is not completely harmless and we don’t know yet what the long-term effects may be.
Children and non-smokers should never vape.’
She added, however: ‘Nicotine is highly addictive and I now waste about £14 a week on four Juul replacement pods, each one delivering roughly the same amount of nicotine as 20 cigarettes.’
‘And the addiction is a problem, because if I run out of replacement pods I become self-pitying and argumentative.’
All this (as well as new studies on the impact on children’s health) has prompted her to make a new resolve to quit vaping, although she joked she would ‘probably kill or be killed’ by family members is she went ‘cold turkey’.
Ultimately, she called the habit ‘very enjoyable’ with no especially scary health risks, and there was easy access to ‘feed’ her addiction.
On the screen, Mary and her husband remain a controversial inclusion to the Gogglebox line-up.
In February, they faced backlash from viewers after they commiserated about a by-election in which there had been a massive swing against the Conservative party with fans calling them ‘insufferable’ and ‘utterly unbearable’
Then, in March, Mary got into hot water after calling Stephen Graham ‘that actor who always plays short northerners’ during the height of Adolescence’s popularity.
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