Millie Gibson: 'The stories about me were horrific - I wasn't able to speak up'
In fact, the comparisons were so blatant that Davies insisted Gibson chop her hair into a short bob, lest she look “a bit too much like Billie”. You can spot the similarities in the characters: two young, blonde women from working-class backgrounds. Still, it’s easy to forget that Piper, also a former teen star, was 23 during her first series. Even with her experience, handling this increased scrutiny as a just-turned-19-year-old was a whole other ball game, Gibson learned, when a tabloid report emerged in the summer of 2023 claiming that she had been acting like a “diva” behind the scenes.
She didn’t comment on the claims at the time – not when the allegations first emerged, nor when new reports half a year later claimed that she’d been “dropped” from the show before her first series could even air. That wasn’t the case: Gibson had known that she was coming back for series two when the “diva” reports came out.
Unfortunately, revealing this would have jeopardised the series’ tightly wrapped plots, putting her in a “tough” position where she wasn’t “able to speak up” and defend herself. “I couldn’t be like, ‘It’s a lie!’ [because] they’d be like, ‘Well, that’s spoilers,’” she says. “It was quite hard to stand up for myself without ruining the show. I was like, ‘Oh, this is horrific because it just looks like it’s true.’”
It must have been pretty unpleasant, reading this about herself at such a young age. “Oh, it was awful,” she says, an obvious pang of pain in her voice. “What was frustrating was the amount of people that were like, ‘Oh, sorry, this has happened mate,’” – referring to her inaccurately reported removal from the show – “and I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s not [happened], but thank you.’”
If she took anything away from the experience, it was the way those close to her rallied in private. Gatwa – who faced his own negative attention when he was cast as the Doctor – was a particular comfort. “He’s had his time with that, and it’s just about just being able to try and shut it out,” she says.
I always figured the rumors about her were false but I'm sorry she wasn't even allowed to defend herself in the face of internet opinion. The BBC hung her out to dry, all for their almighty secrecy bullshit, and that's a disgrace.