This Morning star and best-selling author, Michelle Elman, opened up about her friendships in her new book, Bad Friend: Why Friendship Breakups Hurt and How to Heal
This Morning star and life coach Michelle Elman formed an immediate rapport with her fans in the first few pages of her newest book as she shared details of the painful friendship breakups she experienced throughout her life. One painful moment saw a long-term friend cut ties with her a day after she publicly announced the end of her engagement.
In early 2024, the best-selling author revealed to her loyal Instagram fans that she got engaged to her partner, whose identity she never revealed, after dating for three years. Her happiness was short-lived when she learned he was cheating on her. She discovered the heart wrenching news from the woman he cheated on her with as the person was actually already following her on social media.
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Michelle said at the time: “She’s a lovely woman, and she didn’t know, and you’ve got to love his taste in women. You’ve got to laugh. We’re laughing and crying a lot over here.”
The woman showed proof of the infidelity, with receipts and emails, and her relationship quickly crumbled before her eyes as she suddenly found herself navigating life as a single woman who was dealing with the aftermath of an unforgivable betrayal.
However, the demise of her engagement wasn’t the only blow to her life at the time as a pal soon popped up to end their friendship despite Michelle already suffering through a turbulent time.
In an exclusive interview with Mirror Online, Michelle opened up about the shock text she received in what she called ‘cruel timing’ from her former friend.
The painful friendship breakup is of the many things Michelle divulged in her new book, Bad Friend: Why Friendship Breakups Hurt and How to Heal, and in her conversation with us she went into further detail on the ‘weird timing’ of her ex friend’s text.
In the second page of her new book, which was five years in the making, Michelle wrote: “I have always said that a friendship breakup can be as painful as a romantic one but I finally have the proof.
“The day after I publicly announced the ending of my engagement online, one of my friends that I have known since we were eleven ended our friendship, and it hurt more than what I was going through romantically.”
When asked to expand on what happened between her and the friend, Michelle told us the mystery person “hadn’t replied to her in six weeks” before she was faced with the unanticipated end to their relationship.
She revealed: “I publicly announced my engagement. I then publicly announced the breakup three weeks later. Even though it happened the day after, I announced it three weeks later, and she sent me a text the next day. It was very weird timing. Very cruel timing.
“It was a very public breakup, and there’s no way she wouldn’t have known about it. I have a private [Instagram] account. Oh, I used to before but the breakup kind of deleted that account. I had a private account and I had a public account. There’s no way she wouldn’t have seen it.
“But choosing this timing, especially when you waited six weeks, is something I can’t understand.” Thankfully, she regained her faith in humanity when former friends reached out to her to check if she was doing okay.
She added:” No matter how things ended, even if, and with some of the friends, it was really bad fights, no matter what hurtful thing had been said, like the love and care you have for a person was still there. Some of these people I’ve not spoken to in five years, and just sent me a text, and they were was like,” hey, just want to check on you. I hope you’re okay”.”
In her new book, Bad Friends, Michelle explores female friendships as she helps readers understand the ups and downs of platonic relationships and how to handle things when it goes wrong.
The author is known for her being a direct person, which is seen in her book, but her honesty didn’t come without hurtful comments from others. She said: “You get penalised for being a direct person, I’m a very direct woman, because I believe that’s the way you should be, and it’s taken many years to be that way.
“But as a result, the names I get called are direct, rude, harsh, aggressive. I’ve even had abusive thrown at me, and I’m not abusive in any means, but I’m also not a person who you can walk all over.”
Michelle first got the idea for Bad Friend in 2019 after struggling through a friendship break up. Throughout the course of working on the book, she saw three friendship end – one of which occurred this year.
“I literally was like, ‘Again?!'” she laughed before explaining how she added a disclaimer in the introduction of her book, telling readers in the very first sentence: “I am not sure I am healed enough to write this book. And yet I am writing it anyway because it needs to be said: friend- ship breakups suck.”
Bad Friend: Why Friendship Breakups Hurt and How to Heal by Michelle Elman is published in hardback at £20 by Renegade Books on 8 May 2025*
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Source: Mirror
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