In an exclusive, the 32-year-old tells how she was miserable throughout her three-and-a-half-year relationship with the 37-year-old mechanic

'It was a gradual thing. He made me feel bad about myself. He'd say I was a "fatsie",' Gemma tells us.

'If I got dressed up to go out, he'd say: "Let me look at you" and he'd have this sneer on his face and tell me I should put on jeans and a top.

'That's just not me. I may be big, but I'm all about glamour and that's who I am. It would put a complete kibosh on how I was feeling.

'We would row all the time. In the mornings he'd be so sorry and I always forgave him. I was a complete fool.'

At her lowest, Gemma felt she was cracking up.

'I honestly think I went through a nervous breakdown. I felt under such pressure. I was trying to keep all these plates spinning - my business, TOWIE, my relationship - and I was exhausted from it,' she explains.

'I'm naturally a happy person, but particularly towards the end I know my personality changed. I'd blow up over small things at work or on TOWIE, I was comfort eating because I was unhappy and I didn't like going out.

'I ended up putting on about 3st.

'For the past three years it's like I've been hovering on the edge of breakdown.

'I haven't been happy for a very long time.'

Rami strongly denies using Gemma and calling her names, but he refused to comment further

Read the full interview with Gemma Collins in this week's Now magazine dated 10 February 2014 - download the digital edition now

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