Gemma Collins’ gut-punch documentary couldn’t have come at a worse time

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video There was a strange silence in the room after watching the first two episodes of Gemma Collins: Everything All At Once with The GC herself. ‘Everyone’s in shock,’ she bellows, looking across the faces who don’t quite know how to respond. ‘I can feel it by the energy.’ When Gemma invited cameras into her life for a new documentary, she wouldn’t know quite what extraordinary timing it was. Initially, the show was called Gemma Collins: Four Weddings and a Baby, following the reality TV star as she gets her only wish: to marry and have a child. But that wasn’t to be – at least not yet. Instead, the cameras were there to watch Gemma discover getting pregnant would be far more difficult than she imagined; she’s being hounded by an obsessed stalker sending letters with wild accusations and unthinkably cruel comments; her fiancé Rami’s destructive relationship with alcohol is threatening to tear them apart; and then the single worst nightmare comes true: her mother Joan dies aged 70 from pneumonia. It’s since transpired that she died the day before Gemma and Rami were due to marry. Gemma Collins’ new show is unflinchingly honest (Picture: Sky UK / NavyBee) Everything All At Once is a rare, if not completely unique, glimpse into what it’s really like when life hits you hardest; the inescapable truth that grief is coming for all of us, and it doesn’t wait until you’ve said ‘I do’, welcomed your first child, or sent the camera crews home. Gemma has begun distancing herself from ‘The GC’, the extreme personality that made her so enormously popular on The Only Way Is Essex. She swiftly climbed the ranks from making supportive cameo appearances to becoming one of its main characters. She is now, without a doubt, its most successful and most enduring star. She’s since gone on to become a defining figure of reality television; her inclusion in any line-up is almost guaranteed to make it a success. Everything All At Once begins with her jetting off to South Africa to film I’m A Celebrity, her long-awaited comeback to the show she famously quit all those years ago and hasn’t been able to live down since. We see her suffering panic attacks before jetting off to the bush, leaving her fiancé behind and a mother whose health is severely deteriorating. She’s had to navigate several tough moments (Picture: Sky UK / NavyBee) She returns in the highest spirits. When everyone assumed the odds were stacked against her, Gemma didn’t give up; she gave every challenge a shot and began her path of moving The GC aside so the real Gemma Collins could shine through. Anyone who has followed Gemma’s career as closely as I have will always have read between the lines of The GC to see the woman at the centre of this series instead. She’s every bit the diva she’s quite rightly celebrated for, but ultimately she’s a vulnerable, kind, generous woman, much smarter than she’d perhaps have you believe, who is just looking for love and a family of her own. Everything All At Once is a painful watch that shows, with astonishingly raw and unfiltered insight, how unbearably difficult that wish can be. There are moments so uncomfortable to watch that I’m amazed they were kept in the show. At one point, Gemma excitedly makes Rami a slap-up meal for a romantic night in. She’s elated, serving up what she calls a ‘shoo-shoo-terie’ (charcuterie) to start, when she notices he’s drunk. Unlike Towie, where fights were often rehearsed and manipulated for camera, this was clearly not the plan. Gemma leaves to stay at the hospital with her mum. There’s highs and lows throughout (Picture: Sky UK / NavyBee) Another morning, she quietly vents to the camera that Rami is still in bed while she holds up a bottle of whiskey that’s almost been polished off. ‘He says this is normal,’ she whispers to camera. ‘But I can’t tell if this is normal or not.’ She’s rattled, desperate and hurt. There is, however, plenty of light relief too, with classic quotes and memeable moments that made me belly-laugh. ‘I love anything to do with China; I love K-Pop,’ she says without a hint of humour or irony. But perhaps the Gemma that even her most ardent fans are yet to have met is Gemma the stepmum to Rami’s eight-year-old son, Tristan. We’re all familiar with the GC who broke down in the Diary Room because the Celebrity Big Brother house only provided straighteners and not heated curlers, who refused to peel 50 potatoes on MasterChef without roping in already-stretched kitchen staff; but few will have really seen the tenderness of Gemma with this little boy. This is the Gemma reserved for home; everything we imagine her to be behind closed doors is so far removed from the soft, effortlessly maternal woman who pours her entire heart into this wonderful little boy, managing his tantrums with such calm and care. There will always be a place for The GC, but it’s genuinely quite moving getting to meet the real Gemma Collins. You get to meet the real Gemma Collins (Picture: Sky UK) But as Gemma said herself at the screening, this was just ‘the nicest two eps, and then it just gets… yeah.’ Everything All At Once captures the hardest moments of Gemma’s life: the unbearable pain of losing a parent, and potentially the dream of having children of her own, at the same time. It’s a wonder she allowed the cameras to capture so much of it, and while I obviously wouldn’t wish this much pain on anyone, Everything All At Once is in many ways what every celebrity documentary should be: so unflinchingly honest, a true portrayal of the person behind the persona – their best, their worst, and completely unpolished self I’m not sure there’s ever been a series quite like Everything All At Once, but hopefully it could really mark the beginning of a desperately needed new chapter in the celebrity documentary. Everything All At Once is available to stream on NOW. 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