For this episode of Finding My User Manual, I sat down with Chastity Belt, one of the UK’s most beloved performers. Commanding the spotlight as a host, cabaret artiste, chanteuse, West End actress, and immersive theatre director, she has been captivating audiences across the country and beyond for nearly a decade. Known for her infectious energy, razor-sharp wit, and unmistakable stage presence, Chastity is the perfect blend of powerful and poised.

I was trying to remember the last time we’d been in a room together, and I think we were looking at years rather than months. For Chastity Belt, it was the post-pandemic emergency stress photo shoot: “I don’t look like that anymore. I need to go and see Tigz.”

During our conversation Chastity talks about how she has learned that the things she was told to tone down as a child have become her greatest strengths.

Here’s what she shared.

It’s Not That Deep

When asked what would be on page one of her user manual, Chastity said she’s been through quite a big period of change in the last four or five years. “I feel like probably the same as everybody because having a big old period of societal change is always going to get into yourself.”

Somewhere along the line, “it’s not that deep” became a helpful statement for her. “I don’t know if you can tell, but I can be a little bit dramatic.” Finding a way through where you choose to be okay rather than have a complete meltdown about something is actually super helpful.

“But figuring out that having a big, dramatic personality on the flip side of that coin is actually not the worst thing in the world, that I think has been my big learning curve.”

A Precocious Kid

As a child, Chastity was very theatrical. “I’m gonna commit to it. I was precocious as a child.”

“I wasn’t quite like stage school kid which you might think I really wasn’t. I didn’t actually get into like performing properly and acting until I was maybe like 13, 14. And I didn’t even sing until I was about 15…But I was a precocious kid. I was confident and I was loud.”

She moved schools a lot, which was “quite formative”. But Chastity Belt describes herself as a “yapper”, which helped. Her dad said something years ago that stuck with her. “He was like, we’ve never worried about you. Every time you’ve moved somewhere, you’ve just made friends.”

“Maybe that’s my little superpower, being able to get to know people. Somehow finding a way to use the power of the yap for good has probably been my way of just being comfortable with myself. Because I probably am a bit much for some people and that’s okay. Go find less.”

A “Bubbly Girl”

There’s a meme going around about proving your teacher wrong because, actually, you do have a job where you get to talk all day. That’s exactly it for Chastity.

“Every parents’ evening, my mum will laugh because every parents’ evening, without fail, it was Emma is a bubbly girl, which is code for plus size. Emma is a bubbly girl who talks too much. And if she could find a way to stop that, then she’ll go far.”

“Being bubbly and confident and talking too much is essentially my job. I’ve made a fair old living out of just kind of being bubbly and talking on stage. The minute that I figured out that that wasn’t a criticism is actually quite powerful.”

There wasn’t any one lightbulb moment. “I think it’s just been a gentle, slow unpicking. And listen, those teachers meant well. I just think it’s a bit of an old-fashioned way of looking at personalities.”

We talked about the word “bubbly” and how people only call plus-size people bubbly. When discussing the word,  Chastity Belt said, “It’s boring. And it feels like it’s like, they’re plus size, but they’re actually quite nice. They’re not one of the weird, horrible plus-size people that we demonise. Like they’re a nice one.”

“I think it’s a loaded word, which as an adult I resent now a little bit. I get a bit cross with that because I’m so many more things than bubbly. And I think it leads into good girl behaviour. It teaches you to be a good girl rather than to be maybe sometimes cross or maybe sometimes angry or maybe sometimes any multitude of things.”

Typecasting

From quite an early age in drama classes, Chastity says, you get shoved towards what role you might play in the industry. “I’m like, oh, okay, I’m going to be a funny best friend for the rest of my life. Am I?”

“If you’re doing that to an eight-year-old, what does that do to the 36-year-old? Or actually, let’s call it the 28-year-old because that was when I had a problem with it. Now I’m like, oh, just do whatever because it’s not that deep.”

An amazing drama teacher gave her advice when she was about 15: train as an actor, don’t go to MT (Musical Theatre), otherwise you’ll struggle. “Honestly, great advice because they were absolutely right.” She’s so grateful she went to drama school as an actor because it was the making of her.

“I think I would have had a nightmare if I’d gone to an MT because then you’re just going to be doing the same thing of probably playing the kind of funny part that doesn’t dance.”

Writing Her Own Part

The transition from acting to cabaret was where Chastity Belt realised she could write her own part. “And I’m going to be the lead, which is gross, but it’s true. Because you don’t often get the chance to do that if you don’t look like a leading actress when you’re at drama school.”

“What do I look like? What am I going to be pigeonholed in? How do I play this to my advantage? But eventually, how do I get out of that and do the thing that I actually want?”

She has friends who are similar body types who are performers, and she says they end up going for the same stuff all the time. “We don’t act, sing or perform in anywhere near the same way, but because we’re the same body type, we’re up for the same stuff. I think it is changing very, very slowly. But I think it’s boring.”

The Screen Acting Class

There’s a pivotal memory from drama school that everyone in her year still talks about. In one of their first screen acting classes, they all sat in a circle, and the group had to discuss what they could see you playing.

“It was just like an exercise in essentially just being offended.”

“Everyone was trying to be nice, but they were like, okay, so Emma, who is my real name, Emma could play, she’d probably play a nurse. Which I have done…Young Mother was one, which I have also played. They were right.”

She was a nurse on Casualty who accidentally poisoned somebody with motor neuron disease. And a young mother on Call the Midwife. “It’s the same stuff.”

The Crown

Chastity was in The Crown, thanks to movement director Polly Bennett who was given the task of building a cabaret club. “So she went and got real cabaret performers.”

“At no point did she think, what does the singer of a cabaret club look like? If that was cast by a traditional casting director, a traditional look in the industry would be a very glamorous, very tall, very beautiful woman. Whereas Polly came and found me, who is all of those things, but just not tall. In real life rather than, yeah.”

“I don’t think I would have ever got the access to that job had it not been for somebody like Polly kind of fighting the good fight.”

It was filmed in a cabaret club she does work in. “That day was one of those cool days where I was like, this is proper. This is like one to be proud of.”

Just Build It

The costume department on The Crown went the extra mile. “They just built a costume. They were like, what do you like to wear? And they built a beautiful costume and gave it to me afterwards.”

They wanted full-length opera gloves, which Chastity says, “Is quite hard to find for plus-size bodies. So they just built them. They just made them.”

“There is beauty in doing things properly. Because as a performer, you don’t on set feel like you’re like, oh, I’ve put people out by being outside the norm. They’re just like, yep, all good.”

“If we can make things just gently accessible and not make people feel like they’re weird, then they’re going to perform better. That’s like easy.”

Aligning Chastity and Emma

How close or far is Chastity from Emma? “I would love to pretend that there has been some kind of long-term, you know, dramaturgical written approach. It’s absolutely not. I essentially fell into it and then just kept going.”

“For about eight years, I was more me on stage than I am off. And then very slowly it has sort of just given me the confidence to be like me me. In real life me me. That’s not a character, that’s me me.”

“Somewhere along the line, I slightly realised that cabaret and performance and show business in that respect was just an outlet for too much personality that didn’t find a way to figure it out offstage.”

These days, she’s actually quite quiet in her real life. “I can definitely remember across my 20s being the sort of person, you know, laughing too loud and getting too drunk to try and figure it out.”

“I don’t quite necessarily have to have the fifth cocktail to feel like I fit in anymore.”

Loving You Barbie

Chastity had a Barbie as a kid called Loving You Barbie with a red velvet bodice and a white skirt with little velvet hearts. “I thought she was just the most glamorous, beautiful thing ever.”

For years, she’d said one day she was going to make herself into Loving You Barbie. They could never find the tulle with the right velvet hearts. Then her costume designer texted out of the blue: “I’m in Walthamstow. It’s time.”

“I now have Loving You Barbie as a big floofy red dress that I can sort of put on and it does heal a bit of my inner child somewhere along the line. What I thought was glamorous, maybe I didn’t as a little dumpy loud kid really think that I could be that. And now I’m like, well, I’m now dumpy glamorous Loving You Barbie and that’s a beautiful thing.”

Sexy Looks Different On Everyone

What Chastity found through cabaret is that “sexy and sensual and sassy and saucy looks different on everyone. And you can kind of do it and you don’t have to apologise for it just because you’re plus size.”

She never felt sensual or sexy or glamorous at drama school. Then in middle of second year, an amazing Shakespeare teacher said, “You know, you are quite sexy when you want to be…He wasn’t weird…Just a constructive thought that you could play that if you wanted to.”

“That actually sexy and sensual and sassy and saucy looks different on everyone.”

JUST BE REALLY GOOD AT YOUR JOB

“Half of it’s all in our head. I think that’s the other part of what I’ve learned over the last 10 or so years of being in this job. No one’s thinking about you as much as you’re thinking about you.”

She had a big injury a year ago and hasn’t been able to wear heels on stage since. She’s been wearing sparkly trainers. “Oh god, what if people think this, what if people don’t know that it’s an injury.” Then she stopped. “If they’re looking at your feet then you’re not doing it right. It’s the same with the pants. If you’re doing burlesque and they’re focusing on your pants, you’ve lost. Just be really good at your job.”

The Before And The After

Chastity read something that said in your life there’ll be a before and an after. “I think for now, this event will be the before and the after.”

She was in hospital for five weeks. “Honestly the most healing experience I’ve ever had in my life. Not the leg aside.”

“I’ve spent a lot of my life having a sneaking suspicion I might be the worst. But I was in hospital for five weeks and there wasn’t a day when somebody didn’t come and visit. I was humbled by that in a way that I think I’m honestly still dealing with.”

You Don’t Have To Be Good At Hospital

Her best friend Charlotte, who she’s been best friends with since she was 11, sat next to her on the hospital bed and said, “You know, you don’t have to be good at hospital.”

“And I think that was a really big change where I was like, oh, you actually don’t have to show off here. You don’t have to be the best patient. You don’t have to heal quicker. You actually don’t have to do anything.”

I Don’t Owe Anyone Perfection

“There was a period of time where I really felt like I had to be the best at my job and doing the best gig or the best thing. Whereas actually now I’m like, oh, what’s the best thing for me?”

She used to have a little character called Peabody who was the voice saying, “If you have a birthday party, nobody’s going to come. And if they do come, they’re probably only going to come because they feel bad for you.” All this insane talk.

“Now I’m very gratefully entering my mid-30s. I’ve now sort of, I’m in my mid-30s going, oh, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion I’m not a piece of shit. I’m actually all right.”

“I don’t owe anyone perfection. All I owe the world is moving through it the best you can. Just the best you can on whatever day.”

Shut Out The Noise

For anyone with a similar page on their user manual, Chastity’s advice is this:

“Shut out the noise a little bit. I think actually just checking in with yourself, figuring out what you want rather than what other people want for you is quite key.”

“Figuring out what is good for you as opposed to what feels right might be the answer, I think.”

 

Listen to the full episode:

Connect with Chastity Belt

Website: www.chastitybeltcabaret.com

Instagram: @chastitybeltcabaret

Facebook: @ChastityBeltCabaret

TikTok: @chastitybeltcabaret