A vicar’s wife has shocked parishioners by revealing her past as a stripper – because she was fed up with them failing to recognise her “in her own right”. Diane Stephenson said she was increasingly annoyed at being introduced as "the vicar’s wife" and not seen as an individual. So she took the unusual step of baring all about her saucy secret in the parish magazine.
Mrs Stephenson, 44, who is married to Rev David Stevenson of St Mary's, Church, Eastwood, Notts, said: "People would introduce themselves to me and say what they did straight away as if that would affect my opinion of them so I started doing it back.
"Now I say I'm Diane and I used to be a stripper. I love seeing the looks on people's faces. I was fed up of being introduced to people as the vicar's wife, I'm a person in my own right.”
In the magazine, called Focus, Mrs Stephenson tells how after struggling to find work in Nottingham in the late 1980s she got a job as a stripper and worked in a club for almost two years.
She and Rev Stephenson have been married for 14 years. They met in church years after she had ended her stripping. She added: "I would do it again now if I had the body for it but five kids have taken their toll."
Rev Stevenson said: "I can't remember when it was she told me but I wasn't bothered. "Jesus worked with all sorts of people, no one should judge anyone's past. It's all about seeing people for who they are."
No comments:
Post a Comment