YOUNG, loud, and super glam, Trewley-Precious Temple was born to be a reality star. And soon will be.
The 26-year-old traveller from Essex, next week, will be making her television debut in the Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives, which will showcase her glitzy – if somewhat chaotic – life to the British public.
Trewley Precious is the star of The Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives. Credit: Louis Wood
Trewley with sisters Pearl, Ruby, Honey and mum Tina Credit: Jude Edgington / Channel 4 / Opt
Often spotted caked in fake tan, with acrylic nails, false eyelashes and hair extensions – it’s no surprise that Trewley and her sisters have been compared to reality TV royalty, with a few key differences.
“We’re like the Kardashians,” Trewley says. “Except we’re broke, on benefits and a bit fat. Maybe we’re more like the Carb-dashians,” she tells the Jattvibe from her bright pink council house.
Trewley, the youngest of the clan, is the most rebellious and refuses to play by the strict, centuries-old rules that many travellers, including her sisters – Honey Peaches, Pearlygirly, and Ruby Ann – follow.
Still living at home with mum Tina, Trewley has her own bright pink chalet in the garden, which is the same shade as their house, and stands out a mile on a run-down estate.
According to long-standing traveller traditions, women should focus on finding a suitable husband and starting a family young.
Careers are frowned upon, and most girls tend to be settled by their late teens, dreaming of little beyond being a housewife and mother.
But feisty Trewley longs for a different life.
She may have witnessed brawls and even a vicious machete attack there, but she simply laughs at anyone who dares to criticise her, or the estate she lives in on Clacton-on-Sea.
Blonde and busty, she loves walking around barefoot in her dressing gown and with curlers in her hair, whatever the weather. She got her first spray tan at just nine years old and her first set of acrylic nails at the age of eleven.
And although she is celibate, would never dare break her 9.30pm curfew, doesn’t drink, swear or do drugs, Trewley still manages to horrify the rest of her family by flagrantly swimming against the tide.
And preparing her for TV fame, she is already a social media star, having rallied an army of more than a million online followers and a staggering 55 million likes on TikTok.
“I do get comments about my council estate. I should be offended – but they’re so funny.
Trewley lives in a pink chalet in the garden of their pink house Credit: Louis Wood
Trewley’s sister, known as Pearlygirl Credit: Jude Edgington / Channel 4 / Opt
”Someone wrote, ‘Your estate looks like Shameless – I was literally reading it walking to the shop barefoot.”
And in her first interview before the show kicks off on Monday, Trewley reveals her ambitious plans to escape the path mapped out for her.
She says: “I want more. I get a lot of criticism, people call me a pikey and a lesbian because I’m not married, but it’s water off a duck’s back.
“Mum is strict. She kicked me out for a few days when I got a belly button piercing – she’s the boss, especially when it comes to relationships. I’d never dare bring a boy home unless I was going to marry him.
“But I want other girls to see there is another way, I want to change the options for gypsy women, there are more options than being a housewife.
“You don’t have to stay in the box. I want it all.
“Some people hear the word gypsy and make caravan jokes. We don’t all live in caravans, I’ve lived on the same estate my whole life,” she added.
As well as shaking up the traveller community, Trewley is ready to wreak havoc in Westminster too.
Ruby still lives in the family home too Credit: Jude Edgington / Channel 4 / Opt
Honey has followed tradition and started a family Credit: Jude Edgington / Channel 4 / Opt
With her hometown of Clacton currently in the glare of the media spotlight as scandal-hit local MP Nigel Farage has called a by-election, Trewley is ready to give him a run for his money.
“I can’t run at the gym, but I could run to be MP of Clacton. I reckon I’d win easy – I’m an icon,” she insists.
“I want to do anything that makes life better for people around here – that’s my goal.
“I’ve been hustling since I was six years old, and anything I make I share with my family and the community. I represent that struggle. People engage because I’m relatable and real.”
“I never want to leave this estate, I’d rather buy loads of pink houses and give them to my friends and neighbours than move away.
“If you were outside having a fight, they’d back you. If you needed money or food, they’d give you what they have.”
Trewley often whips up meals for her neighbours, including her famous jacket potato and toast with tomatoes, and at Halloween, she dished out 200 hot dogs to local kids.
”I’ll always mention my council estate – because I won’t forget what they’ve done,” she adds.
Trewley and her family on their estate in Clacton on Sea in Essex Credit: Jude Edgington / Channel 4 / Opt
Trewley admits that her late father Sid, who died from cancer three years ago, would be baffled by her desire for fame, and even her sisters have their doubts.
“My dad was an old school gypsy and their ways are completely different to this generation,” she says.
“I couldn’t win with Dad. I’m not blaming him; I know he didn’t know any different.
“Dad was a poor travelling kid, Mum was a poor council estate kid, she only knows these options she was raised with, and I don’t want any of them.
“Why can everyone else have kids, but I can’t even have a piercing? My mum is always going to treat me as a baby.
“My mum ain’t got a clue what I’m doing. My sisters understand a little bit, but it’s a bit foreign to them, and they see me as a fool.”
Worried mum Tina, a “vegetarian” who is partial to the odd bacon sarnie, has lived in the area for 40 years and now fears a vicious backlash.
Having suffered seven miscarriages, Trewley was her twelfth pregnancy.
Trewley wants her family to be like the Kardashians Credit: Hulu
She reckons she’d beat Nigel Farage in an election Credit: Louis Wood
“I’m not rich in monetary ways, but I’m rich in life,” she tells us.
“I’ve got beautiful kids, and I wouldn’t care if I lived in a bin as long as everyone was OK.”
Trewley’s sister Pearlygirl, whose partner is in prison, is concerned too.
“Trewley has no responsibilities, lives at home with Mummy. I have to follow a routine,” she says.
“She’s so unorganised, I just can’t relate. You’re a housewife, and that’s it.”
Honey Peaches agrees: “Me and Trewley are different ends of the spectrum.
“She doesn’t want to get married or be a mum. I could have ten kids; that’s how I was raised.
“I had three kids when I was her age. It’s such a different world to me. If my dad had it his way, we’d all be settled down at a young age, have kids, sorted.”
Mum Tina has lived on the estate for 40 years Credit: Jude Edgington / Channel 4 / Opt
Jamie John is the first in the family to have a full time job Credit: Jude Edgington / Channel 4 / Opt
Now Trewley wants to build an empire. But while other influencers might be seeking lucrative deals with luxury brands, her plans are refreshingly down to earth.
“I want brand partnerships with Poundland or Primark,” says Trewley.
“Girls like me want to be boujee on a budget. In a deprived area, you don’t have big dreams, but I want that really bad.
“A lot of brands don’t want to work with me because I’m from a council estate, but what matters is I’m making change, and it’s all going into that money pot.
“Girls like Kim Kardashian and Venezuela Fury have grafted, but they had a leap from their famous fathers. I’m coming up from the very bottom, but I want to go out working.
Trewley’s brother Jamie John has become the first member of the clan to enter full-time employment, having taken the radical step of becoming manager of a local estate agent, and understands her urge to break away.
He says: “Me and Trewley are unbelievably close. We are on the same wavelength.
“With dad passing, she wants to do things we weren’t allowed to do, but Mum is filling his shoes.
“There was always fallout for me choosing the career I chose; they don’t like you wearing suits and ties.”
Sid was disappointed that Jamie didn’t follow in the ‘family business’, but Jamie points out: “There is no family business. He never had a job.”
The Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives starts on Channel 4 on Monday, 20 July
