You have to find your light – and let it shine…
Melanie Sykes has lived most of her life in the public eye. But after a lifetime of being seen – as model, chat show host and broadcaster, Melanie walked away from that career to spend her time helping others be heard, as a campaigner for women's rights and an advocate for neurodiversity.
Then, at 52, Melanie got her own diagnosis of autism and it flicked a switch in her own life. It cast a new light on her own journey – from her Lancashire childhood, growing up in a musical mixed-race family, to her modelling career and ringside seat on celebrity culture as she became a star of TV and radio. But it also illuminated the other side of her story – her struggle to be heard, her heartbreaks and challenges, her self-medicating and trauma.
Finally unmasking has given Melanie the courage to tell her story in her own words for the first time – as a woman in the media, as a mother of autistic children, as a neurodivergent person speaking up in a neurotypical world. It is a story not just of breakdown, but of breakthrough. A celebration of embracing yourself, and finding joy, power and freedom in being who you really are.
