STRUTTING down Brixton High Street, yells of “Queen Bee” fill the air as Sandra Martin waves at passing Gogglebox fans.
It’s been seven years since the 62-year-old left the hit Channel 4 show and in that time, despite her apparent continued fandom, her fortunes have drastically changed.
The grandmother-of-five has gone from having “everything paid for” by Gogglebox to being jobless, living in temporary accommodation and flogging merchandise to pay for food.
Sandra admits she’s “broke” and lives on £238-a-month Universal Credit, but is still enjoying lavish holidays too – much to the annoyance of online trolls.
Ibiza, Amsterdam and Portugal are among the free trips she has been “gifted” by fans, who, she says, are happy to pay for her company.
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Sandra is speaking to The Sun as part of our new series Money Talks, which documents the financial journeys of celebrities and notable people from the business world.
She tells us: “I’ve been on five holidays since Christmas Day and I’m going to Malta too, it’s all because of Gogglebox.
“I’ve been to Amsterdam, Portugal, Benidorm and lots of other places. Soon I’m going to Skegness. People love me and I give them entertainment so they pay for my trips.
“It’s because I’ve got such a large platform, I’m on social media every day and talk to my fans. People are bored and I cheer them up.
“I get a lot of hate for it because I’m always on planes but people gift these trips to me. It’s a miracle really, they must have spent thousands of pounds on me.”
Chance encounter
It was a chance encounter with a producer, while out boozing in a Brixton pub with pal Sandi Bogle, that led larger-than-life Sandra to become one of the nation’s most famous couch potatoes.
She recalls: “I was tipsy because I’d been on the brandy and the bartender told him ‘Go to Queen Bee’ and it was the best thing that happened to me.”
Previously on benefits, Sandra’s life was transformed and she claims that from 2013 Gogglebox “paid for everything”, including her rent and utilities.
She says: “I got paid more than anyone else, more than any of the other families because they were working and I had to come off benefits to appear on the show.
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“All the bills that you have to pay for in life they dealt with for me and left me around £300 to £500 a week on top of that to get my hair and nails done and other expenses.
“I could have bought a house with all the money I made but I gave it away, I took care of my family and friends. I filled their fridges, took them shopping to buy clothes and paid for meals.
“I also didn’t like wearing the same clothes twice, I thought I was the Queen. I saw that she did it and decided to do the same.
“I ate good, got my hair done and got taxis everywhere, I love calling for cabs. I didn’t know how to be a celebrity and while I could have spent more wisely I didn’t want to be a miser and tight.”
On top of her Gogglebox earnings, she claimed to have landed an advert to promote a Chinese TV show that paid £10,000 - and left her with £6,000 after tax.
She explains: “I really struggled because I’m loud. I can’t keep quiet and kept laughing and smiling, it must have taken two hours to film.”
Famous faces
The exposure from her four-year stint on the show led to amusing encounters with a member of the Royal Family and David Beckham, who she jokes she “overshadowed” at his book signing.
Sandra said: “I was waiting in the queue and everyone was coming up to me asking for selfies. Then I went upstairs and someone yelled, ‘Oh my god, there she is’.
“The book signing came to a halt and fans surrounded me. I had to be taken away by security, who brought me to the front of the queue to meet David Beckham.
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“I was laughing hysterically and whispered to him, ‘It’s alright David, I’m Sandra from Gogglebox’ and said sorry for disrupting his event.”
In 2016, she also met Prince Philip during a public function in Windsor to mark the late Queen’s 90th birthday.
“I bought the Queen a present,” she recalls. “It was a purple £20 note handbag, so it had her face on it. All of the soldiers were killing themselves with laughter when they saw it.
“I was waving at Prince Philip. He came over and asked me ‘Do you live here in Windsor?’ I told him people watch me on telly and he spat, ‘Me? Watching you?’ before walking off.”
Change of fortunes
Sandra’s time on Gogglebox came to an end in 2017 - one year after her co-star Sandi left the show to appear on Celebrity Big Brother and a brief stint on the couch with daughter Chanchez.
On her show departure, she said: “I didn’t want to sit and watch shows about sex with my daughter. I’m old-fashioned.”
While Sandra is no longer a TV fixture, some of her habits from the show have lingered from the show - including regularly scoffing takeaways. She says stars were treated to fast food on filming days.
“Gogglebox spoiled me rotten,” she says. “Even now I’m affected by it, I don’t cook anymore. I haven’t for six years, I eat takeaways because that’s how I lived on the show.
“It’s not that I can’t cook, it’s that I don’t want to. I’m still living my Gogglebox life.
“Sometimes fans send me food too, I once received £25 worth of Chinese on UberEats. I’ll also go to cafes and restaurants, when I take a selfie with them they give me food for free.”
Before fame, Sandra had a chequered past. She was involved with a shoplifting gang from the age of 14 and progressed to committing fraud, which led to a six-month prison stint in 1984.
She said: “We were a big gang, there were six of us in trenchcoats and trilby hats, we used to go shoplifting in the West End in places like [department store] Swan & Edgar.
“My biggest job was for £36,000 and it involved cheque books. I got caught bang to rights. It wasn’t the right way to earn money and I’ve turned my life around since.”
The TV star says she was imprisoned three times in total - serving time in Drake Hall Prison, HMP Holloway Prison and HMP Bullwood Hall - all for fraud before turning away from crime at the age of 31.
'Too famous to work in Tesco'
Currently, Sandra is out of work due to struggling with ill health and suggests ‘normal’ jobs are off-limits due to her fame.
“I get stopped every day,” she says, laughing: “If I got a job in Tesco the queue would be out of the door due to my fans, they wouldn’t be able to cope.”
Previously Sandra has been a postwoman, a chambermaid and a market seller, where she flogged second-hand clothing.
Her last job in 2022 was as a cleaner at a train station, which she landed after taking a selfie with a worker, but quit after refusing to clean toilets.
She said: “During the interview, they told me ‘Because of who you are we won’t be able to have you on the platform’ so they put me in the executive offices.
“When people working there saw me they said, ‘Oh god, aren’t you Sandra? What are you doing here?’ I told them ‘I got a job, innit’ and every morning would take selfies with them.
“One day, I saw Judge Rinder, I had my big orange uniform on and he jokingly said, ‘What are you doing, community service?’
“I was there until they asked me to clean the toilets in the trains and I quit on the spot because I knew it would look bad.
“I told them ‘No, no, no, no. You want the newspapers to say Sandra has left Gogglebox and is cleaning s***? Do you know who I am?"
Despite being jobless, Sandra is “booked up until next year” with free holidays and celeb events - in recent months she has mingled with Christopher Biggins and Katie Price.
She also documents her daily life on Instagram and interviews strangers on the street with a glittery pink microphone to keep her fans happy.
Sandra says. “I’ve gone from Brixton to the BAFTAs to benefits and now I’m broke but at least I’m happy and busy even though I’m technically homeless, have no money or anything."
She admits the perks of fame help keep her going and she plans to commemorate the show that made her a household name when she dies.
“Gogglebox had made my life, it made me a celebrity and to have people watching me from all over the world,” she says.
“So I’ve decided I want a Gogglebox funeral, I want my coffin to have the show’s logo on it and to be lowered into the grave to the theme ‘In A Perfect World’.”
“My daughter said she wanted to cremate me but I was like, ‘Are you dumb? I’ve got Gogglebox fans - where would they go when they want to visit my grave and lay down flowers?’”
