Made In Chelsea's Jamie Laing says he has always worked for his money
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Jamie Laing is trying to squash rumours he has inherited millions of pounds, saying he has always worked to earn his own money since university.
Speaking to Kate Thornton on White Wine Question Time the Made In Chelsea star said: "I've never been given any inheritance. I got given enough money to put a small deposit on a house. A really small deposit on a house.
"And my dad kindly paid for my university and paid for my schooling. But after university finished that was it. You have to go to work and you have to earn money and you have to pay rent and all these different things, like most people have to do.
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"And there's an idea that I had all these millions and trillions and could do whatever I wanted. And that just wasn't the case."
He said that people's perception of having money wasn't a reality. He had heard that €72,000 a year was the perfect amount to earn to be financially content.
He said: "People think that you want to earn these millions and trillions. And all that does is, you can buy a bigger house or you can fly first class. That's what you can do with it.
"Probably you can't do much else. People are obsessed with this idea that we want to earn all this money, but actually being rich in love and friendship and stuff like that is far more important than being rich in wealth."
He continued: "People have an idea that I inherited his billions and trillions, and I chucked it into this business – no way! I wish that was true. So I get the stigma of being this rich kid without any of the cash which is great!"
He talked to Thornton about his Candy Kittens sweet range, which is vegetarian and vegan and has recently gone carbon neutral.
He said: "We can proudly say we're the fastest growing sweet business in the UK, which is very exciting. And that's down to not me, but down to our team that we have.
"[It's] a tricky industry to make it big in, especially confectionery. Confectionery margins are so tight. So that's why no one has ever challenged the big guns because you can't challenge the Haribos, the Maynards and the Rowntrees and things like that but we are challenging them and that's pretty exciting."
He explained to Thornton that his stepfather is chairman of the business, and he has been working with his business partner, Ed Williams, for 11 years. He remembered one particular meeting with his stepfather.
He said: "We had a meeting with him and he said: 'Look, this business isn't working, you're not making profit, you're not selling enough, you're gonna have to fold it.' And I remember walking away from there with my business partner.
"We had put everything on interest and I was 24 or 25 at the time. I remember going: 'Oh God, please don't leave me.' And he said: 'Don't worry, if I have to to sell sweets in my bedroom, I'll do it.'
"It was this amazing moment and we've had this rollercoaster ride, we're still on this rollercoaster ride, but we've got to a point in the business where we are profitable and it is doing very well, and it's a lot of hard work.
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"The problem that we had is that no one believed Candy Kittens would survive without me being at the helm of it and being the face of it. We had to prove to all these supermarkets that no, it was a great product.
"It was a good brand and it had longevity without me and we've grown. Over the past 11 years we managed to do that. And that's pretty exciting."
Buy it: I Can Explain by Jamie Laing | £10 (Was £18.99) from Amazon
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