Stacey Solomon’s struggling nurse sister and the query many at the moment are quietly asking, as OLIVIA KEMP is informed of star’s behavior for ‘rubbing individuals the flawed approach’ and why neighbours concern repercussions for talking out on the Solomons

Growing up in their small house in Dagenham, they shared everything: clothes; a bedroom; and dreams of a better life than they had been born into.

Just 18 months apart, Stacey Solomon and her older sister, Jemma, were both ambitious from a young age, thriving on their natural sibling rivalry and joint desire for a career in show business.

For a while, it looked as if it would be Jemma who was destined for a life on the stage – studying performing arts and dance – while Stacey found herself pregnant at 17 and living on benefits.

But the latter’s decision to take a punt on her future and audition for The X Factor in 2009 paid off when, as a new mum and still just a teenager, she was propelled into the spotlight and became famous overnight.

Jemma, meanwhile, could only look on as her little sister embarked on the career that she had dreamt of for herself.

Some 16 years later and the tussle for fame between the Solomon sisters rages on, the Daily Mail can reveal, with Stacey, 36, a firmly established television and social media star while Jemma, 37, is hot on her heels.

Being Stacey’s elder sister has never been incidental for Jemma. It appears to have shaped her ambitions, her reinventions and, increasingly, the quiet tension between her aspirational image and reality.

For a long time, Jemma believed the spotlight was meant for her. Years before Stacey stepped onto The X Factor audition stage, it was she who was chasing a life in the public eye.

‘I did performing arts in college, I did dance, I did media studies,’ she told influencer Emily Norris in a YouTube video filmed over the summer. ‘I wanted to do something theatrical.’

A keen performer, she spent her weekends at a local stage school and went on to appear in West End shows, convinced that a future in theatre lay ahead.

But when she realised it wasn’t going to happen, she had to pivot, sources tell me.

And while Jemma was coming to terms with her stalled ambitions, her younger sister was about to eclipse her entirely.

The fact she didn’t win The X Factor, finishing third behind Joe McElderry and Olly Murs, didn’t matter for Stacey as her celebrity had already been cemented.

Television appearances turned into presenting roles, panel slots and, eventually, a seat on Loose Women. Reality shows followed, including a victory on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and lucrative brand deals.

Today, Stacey, who presents BBC’s Sort Your Life Out, is worth an estimated £7.3million thanks, in part, to being on talent agency YMU’s books – the firm behind the likes of Ant and Dec and Davina McCall.

It has been a stratospheric rise for a single mother who was first catapulted to fame as a teenager.

And it’s a trajectory Jemma could seemingly only have dreamt of.

For years, Stacey’s older sister followed a very different path. She trained as a paediatric nurse and worked on the haemoglobinopathy team at Queen’s Hospital in Romford – a demanding role far removed from celebrity life.

But when her husband, Lee, lost his job as a tradesman in March 2020, it marked what Jemma has publicly described as a deeply worrying moment for the family.

Lee had been in the same line of work since he was 15. Suddenly, she said, she was faced with the fear of keeping the mortgage paid and her children fed.

That same year, Jemma quit nursing and launched her home-organisation business, The Label Lady, which makes custom labels – a bold gamble at a time when many were clinging to security rather than abandoning it.

She and Lee, who first met in 2008 and married a decade later, are understood to have thrown themselves into the venture together.

Jemma even went so far as to email business magnate Lord Sugar for advice and, remarkably, secured his backing. In 2021, the billionaire tycoon invested in the business and became a director.

But despite her ambition, the numbers tell a more complicated story. Companies House filings show The Label Lady’s net assets have fallen for three consecutive years – and the most recent accounts reveal cash reserves have dropped sharply from £630,000 to £342,000.

Stock levels, however, have ballooned to more than 100,000 units – a figure that suggests overproduction and sluggish sales.

And Jemma herself has acknowledged the strain. ‘It’s the hardest time right now for small businesses,’ she said earlier this year. ‘This is going to be my biggest struggle of a year.

‘I don’t necessarily have it in me to be a multi-billion pound corporation business,’ she added. ‘It’s actually really tricky, really tough.’

So why, some quietly ask, has Stacey’s extraordinary success not translated into greater support for Jemma’s business?

Perhaps the answer lies not in a lack of affection but in Stacey’s own approach to business.

The X Factor star-turned-television celebrity has long been known in the industry for her determination to cement her place at the top, although it seems that some have not been so keen to work with her.

‘Stacey has definitely rubbed some people up the wrong way over the years,’ said one former associate. ‘There are many people she left behind along the way who don’t exactly have great things to say about her. She would come expecting a lot and if you couldn’t deliver for her, then you were out.’

Against this backdrop, it is perhaps easier to understand why the dynamic between Stacey and her older sister may have always been more nuanced than their evident warmth in public suggests.

Jemma and Stacey, who share a sprawling blended family, including step-siblings and half-siblings, remain close publicly. Privately, however, the competition appears never to have entirely faded.

On an episode of Loose Women in 2019, when Stacey was pregnant with her son Rex, she revealed that Jemma had ‘stolen’ the name she intended to use for her child. 

At the time, she claimed that it was she who had ‘said the name out loud first,’ but that Jemma still chose the name for one of her own.

And Jemma herself has been candid about the tensions of their childhood. ‘Growing up, Stacey was annoying at times,’ she said on Stacey & Joe, the couple’s fly-on-the-wall documentary.

‘We actually fought quite a lot when we were younger, and she would steal all my stuff and take all my bits and get me in trouble and make the mess and then blame me for it.’

Small anecdotes, perhaps. But together, they paint a picture of rivalry that long pre-dates fame – and one that has only been sharpened by it.

Online, Jemma now presents a life that increasingly mirrors her sister’s: curated domestic scenes; family focused sponsored content; and a relentless push for visibility.

She is now also represented by YMU. To some, it appears to be another attempt to follow the same blueprint in the hope that what worked for her younger sister might finally work for her too.

Jemma and Lee, along with their children Darcy, 12, Mila, ten, and Hudson, seven, recently moved into their ‘forever home’ following a decade in a four-bedroom detached house in Kelvedon Hatch, Essex. The new four-bedroom bungalow is already lined up for extensive renovation.

One neighbour intriguingly tells me there is plenty they could say about life at the Solomons’ – if only they weren’t so worried about the repercussions.

The Kelvedon Hatch property was sold last summer for £690,000, which was £35,000 below its original asking price. Over 11 years, the couple transformed their first property almost beyond recognition.

A two-storey extension was built, the garage converted, and they even dug what Jemma herself described as a ‘moat’.

It was, by any measure, an ambitious project, and one that may perhaps have tested the patience of neighbours in their quiet street.

For Jemma, the ambition remains. It seems that raising her profile is now more important than ever.

Not so long ago, she was openly angling for a coveted blue tick on Instagram (a verification badge which confirms an account belongs to a celebrity or public figure) – a move that raised eyebrows among those who felt her pursuit of validation was becoming overly transparent.

She has also appeared on This Morning, offering tips on crafting and table-laying, further edging into the world of daytime television that has long been Stacey’s domain. The pattern is hard to miss.

Reinventing yourself, after all, is difficult enough without being permanently measured against a younger sister who has become a multi-millionaire household name.

For Jemma, the struggle has seemingly never been just about business. It appears to have been about proving – to herself as much as anyone else – that she can finally step out of Stacey’s shadow.

Whether she ever truly manages to do so, and whether Stacey would allow it, however, is another question entirely.