The Corinthia’s penthouse suite is London’s most exclusive crash pad - a marble-and-velvet cocoon regularly home to Beyoncé and Mariah Carey. Today, it belongs to Molly-Mae Hague. Hours before the National Television Awards, where her Prime Video series Behind It All went on to win this year’s documentary crown, I meet her here, the room humming with the orchestrated chaos of Britain’s most-watched influencer: hairdryers roaring, her custom high-neck pistachio gown glinting, her glam squad operating like mission control.
For Hague, who first appeared on national television six years ago as a Love Islander, this is a full-circle moment - proof of how far she’s climbed and the ground she’s covered to get here. Even her crowning moment at London’s O2 Arena carried its own drama: a Cinderella shoe slip on the stairs, followed by a heartfelt speech dedicating the win to fellow category nominee Rob Burrow - the rugby league star who died of motor neurone disease. But instead of the victory lap she’d earned, came a torrent of online backlash from those who insisted she didn’t deserve it - despite it being a public vote.
Only this time, she stood unflinching in her acceptance. This is Hague at 26 - not the 20-year-old ingénue who entered Love Island - but a woman hardened by fire, sharpened by scrutiny, and prepared to face whatever comes, head on.
Right now, that means gearing up for the release of the second series of Behind It All - a documentary that was never meant to look like this. Conceived as a wedding special with her then-fiancé, boxer Tommy Fury, it was recast after a painful split into something far rawer: Hague, newly a mother to their daughter Bambi, navigating entrepreneurship and the sudden reconfiguration of her family unit.
Now Hague confirms what we all already know - she is back with 26-year-old Fury, but the picture is far from simple. What was once a glossy love story, beamed into millions of living rooms, fractured under the weight of his alcohol dependency last year and the relentless scrutiny that followed - the kind that saw them photographed kissing on New Year’s Eve, a supposedly private moment turned into public property. Today, the relationship is being rebuilt in real time.
‘We’re back together, and we’re just navigating our way through - forming our relationship again in the public eye and really just figuring it all out, to be honest,’ she says, knees tucked beneath her on the cream sofa in her signature loungewear, her engagement ring still noticeably missing. ‘Nobody’s relationship is perfect, and even though we’re back together, I’ve never shied away from the fact that there are still good days and bad days, like all relationships. I try to keep things as real as I can.’
‘So as much as I’m like, “We’re back together and we’re in such a better place, and I’m probably the happiest I’ve been”, there’s still highs and lows. We are definitely not a perfect couple. We are in such a good place now, but we definitely… I don’t know, like any normal couple might be like, “Who’s going to do the dishwasher?” normal stuff. But also, we’re still in two houses, so it’s a strange dynamic because we’re together, but we’re also living quite separate lives. I’m hoping that will change quite soon.’
She admits she’s not ready to move back in yet. There’s something she can’t quite put her finger on that’s still holding her back. For now, her Manchester home - with its family ties and familiar calm - feels safe. She even hints that if they were ever to head down the aisle again, it would have to start with him getting down on one knee once more.
Like before, Fury doesn’t appear in the flesh on screen - only via FaceTime. Their split was never about a lack of love, Molly explains in Part 2 of her Cosmopolitan cover interview (coming 13 November), but about protecting what mattered most: her baby, her business, and, finally, herself.
Series 2: Part 1 captures that recalibration: Maebe, the fashion label she launched from her bedroom, now expanding into sleek new offices in south Manchester, life at home, where she still lives with her older sister Zoe Rae, and the daily juggle of growing a brand while guiding her daughter through the twos. Across the three episodes, viewers will see her grapple with that familiar tug of mum guilt - the push and pull between ambition and motherhood.
‘For me, it was making sure that whilst growing my business, I was also giving equal amounts of time to my daughter,’ she says. ‘She’s always going to be my priority. But at the same time as being a mum, I also have huge career ambitions and when I knew I was going to become a mum, when I fell pregnant, my biggest goal was that I didn’t want to lose my identity – I didn’t want to lose myself and my goals and my dreams and my business ambitions because I was becoming a mum. I could never have lost that part of myself because I wouldn’t have been happy. I wouldn’t have been a good mum.
‘When Bambi is on the phone now and she can talk and she’s saying that she misses me I do feel guilty,’ she confesses. ‘But equally, I’m doing this for her and for the life I want to give her and my family. So there’s a higher purpose and I feel as long as I’m doing my best in motherhood and I’m giving her my time, and she thinks I’m a good mum, then that’s all I really care about.’
Baby number two is something Hague admits she thinks about a lot. It’s equal parts longing and pressure - wanting Bambi to have the sibling bond she treasures from her own childhood, while wondering when the timing could ever feel right as life speeds up around her.
‘I think about it a lot and it’s something that I feel quite a large pressure around because I’m desperate to give Bambi a sibling,’ she says. ‘My life wouldn’t have been the same without my sister. I was the younger sister, so I benefited even more from having someone to guide me and someone to look up to. I’d want that for Bambi, but I would never want to do it just for her – I’d want to do it also because it’s something I want to do.'
Motherhood, Hague admits, has been a test of her ‘fight or flight’. There’s a moment in the opening episode where she can’t even do Bambi’s hair as her hands are shaking so much.
‘Every day is different with a two-year-old,’ she explains. ‘Some days go slightly smoother than others, some days are a disaster from start to finish. But I feel like the joy of having a toddler is never knowing what they’re going to bring you. You never know what mood they’re going to be in.
'With motherhood I’m just winging it and sort of faking it until I make it – it’s a guessing game. The one thing that’s great is that you know your child better than anyone else. It’s weird, with Bambi there are just so many small little quirks that I know so well. She’s just a little mini person that you know everything about and you’re in charge of. It’s a huge responsibility, but each day is different.’
She talks about the juggle a lot - but also about joy. About how, even in the chaos, there are moments that catch her off guard and remind her what it’s all for. And if there’s a star of the show, (sorry, Molly) it’s Bambi. She’s resistant to toilet training (‘She’s just pooed in the bath - a three-piece turd!’ Hagues laughs), and full of personality, tears, and tantrums. She’s already picking up her dad’s Northern tang, exclaiming, ‘Bloody hell fire, babe!'.
Of course, in Hagues’s world, a moment of bath-time chaos can trend almost as quickly as a controversy. Chief among them: the so-called nanny saga earlier this summer. What began as an offhand comment about having 'a bit of extra help at home' ballooned into a week-long online inquest. Think-pieces multiplied, TikToks dissected her tone, and comment sections filled with armchair ethics on modern motherhood. Had Britain’s most relatable mum been hiding a nanny all along? In the new series, she takes the bold move of addressing some of her biggest controversies head-on, including that viral Beyoncé '24 hours', remark, her chance to own what went wrong, but also to reclaim the story that ran away from her.
Meanwhile, in Cheshire, Maebe is moving into its next chapter. What began as one of three ventures sharing a single roof – alongside her tanning brand Filter and her friends’ label Treats – has now outgrown the space. The team has expanded to eight, and Hague has pushed for a dedicated office, a full renovation under way just outside Manchester. The fit-out has been meticulous: she laughs that she has to remind herself it’s a workplace, not a show home, even as her perfectionism pulls her towards panelling and brass handles. ‘I have to remind myself this is a working space - I’m not sleeping here.'
The process has been a steep education. She recalls once sitting through meetings lost in the jargon, but now she follows every detail. ‘I can sit in meetings now where a year ago they were using terminology I would never have understood, and now I totally know what they’re talking about. I’m so proud I’ve done that, because at 26 you don’t often get to learn things like that.’
As she talks about in a brave and unflinching Part Two of her chat, coming next month, she’s stumbled, grown and transformed in public - even taking her turn on the L’Oréal catwalk - and what comes next may be her boldest chapter yet.
Watch Molly Mae: Behind it all, Series 2, Part 1 on Prime Video on 18 October
Photography: Holly McCandless-Desmond; Styling: Rebecca Jane Hill; Editor in Chief: Claire Hodgson; Art Director: Alex Hambis; Acting Entertainment Director: Nicola Fahey; Make up: Hollie Flynn; Hair: Jack Luckhurst @ The Only Agency; Set Design: Ellie Koslowsky; Fashion Assistants: Angel Cordova-Todd, Charlotte Malley; Photo Assistant: Barney Arthur; Hair Stylist's Assistant: Aisha Harvey; Digi Operator: Francesca Albarosa; Video Lead: Megan Beattie; Video Assistant: Jaaf Shubber-Barton; Production: Beverley Croucher
