Joey Essex joked fame has allowed him to woo women with more than a sparkling water and a mushroom rice at his local Indian restaurant.
The former TOWIE star said he used to beg his father for money to impress love interests when he was a teenager, but said he’s now able to wine and dine at London hotspots including Novikov and Nobu.
Speaking to A-list he said: “I used to go to an Indian down the end of my road and I used to run to my dad at 18 and say ‘dad I’m going down to the Indian’ and he used to borrow me £20. The meal I used to order was one sparkling water, one chicken tikka, one mushroom rice and one korma sauce and it would always come to £19.80. Now you’ll probably find me in Novikov or Nobu nowadays.”
Essex, who has dated stars including Samantha Faiers and Stephanie Pratt, is currently single and looking for “the One” on Celebrity First Dates for Stand Up To Cancer.
He said he is open about his feelings and not a fan of game playing, saying his biggest turn off is women pretending to not know who he is.
“People saying ‘are you Joey Essex?’ is really off-putting,” he said. “They embarrass themselves. I like honest humble people. I was seeing this girl and I said ‘the more honest you are the more I’ll like you and I know you’ve been lying and it’s cringing me out’. She said she’d never watched TOWIE before, it’s so cringe.”
Celebrity First Dates for Stand Up To Cancer is on Channel 4, tonight at 9pm
