The night Mark Wright desperately tried to pull me while working at infamous TOWIE club where 1D star was booted out ...Middle East

IT was the legendary TOWIE haunt that hosted wannabe gangsters, X-rated fancy dress nights… and even superstars like One Direction, Pharrell Williams and Lindsay Lohan.

Faces Nightclub, in Gants Hill, Essex, was “a golden ticket” for TV show Z-listers, who were able to mingle with the unlikely mob of Hollywood actors and Premier League footballers who graced its halls.

And the boozy antics there were legendary, with scandal-hit TV host Jermaine Jenas pictured receiving a lapdance, Zayn Malik seen being escorted off the premises and WAG Danielle Lloyd hosting scores of lingerie-clad parties.

Former owner Tony Bee boasted it was “probably the most quoted club on TV and in the press” and for good reason, according to former Faces dancer Kayla Wild, 37. 

Reflecting on its wild heyday, she dubs it “a knock-off Wolf of Wall Street” and “plastic gangsters’ paradise”, where drugs were rife and uninhibited TOWIE stars went wild.

Among them, she claims, was Mark Wright, who desperately tried to woo her after she was dispatched to their table to perform and encourage them to down trays of black Sambuca shots. 

“I was told to hype them up, basically be attractive and have a bit of flirty chat,” Kayla, now an OnlyFans model, tells The Sun. 

“It’s because that’s how VIPs liked you to behave. You’d dance on the table so that the money flowed and the men were happy, drunk and whatnot.

“I remember Mark whispering into my ear, ‘What are you doing after?’ and said, ‘Come back with me, there’s a back door, they’ll let you out there. Come back with me.’

“But a friend of mine was having a house party elsewhere that night, so I left out the front door instead and didn’t go with him. 

“The TOWIE lot were always there and you’d get looks off them, like ‘I’m more special than anyone else’. 

“They obviously viewed themselves as celebrities, whereas I was the dancer so was looked down upon, even though I knew Fern McCann, Sam and Billie Faiers, and others from the show.

“I used to work with Fern as a waitress, she even came to one of my birthdays. But the TOWIE lot pretended they didn’t know me.”

Kayla, who spent three years working there until 2013, was paid £150 a night as a dancer to entertain the VIPs, encourage them to get drunk and splash their cash.

The TOWIE gang were regulars, with Gemma Collins admitting getting in was “like having a golden ticket”. 

“It was very much the scene to be in… it had a VIP guest list from the world of TV, fashion and sport,” she recalled in her autobiography.

“It was most talked about club outside of the West End… You literally could rub shoulders with Premier League footballers and many girls went just to try to snare themselves a rich player.”

Club snaps show James Argent glugging from a giant bottle of Grey Goose vodka, Sam Faiers downing shots with then-boyfriend Mark Wright and Joey Essex regularly leaving with different women.

Sophie Kasaei, Lauren Goodger and Billie Faiers often entered dolled up to the nines, only to emerge considerably less groomed in the early hours after one too many tipples.

You literally could rub shoulders with Premier League footballers and many girls went just to try to snare themselves a rich player

Footballers from across the spectrum showed up, including ex superstars like Teddy Sheringham, Jamie Redknapp and Sol Campbell.

Regulars like WAG Danielle Lloyd threw birthday bashes, including one with a ‘pimps and tarts’ theme and for her 25th, donned raunchy Cinderella-inspired lingerie.

X Factor party animal Frankie Cocozza partied there and schmoozer Calum Best was a regular. 

Even huge US celebs like Pharrell entered accompanied by an entourage and hellraiser Lindsay Lohan “looked terrified”, considering it “a bit of a comedown from her usual glam nights”, according to Kayla.

Darkest days

These days, the nightclub appears to be rebuilding its reputation after a string of scandals, which eventually saw its celeb appeal fade away.

The venue has faced multiple closures since its 1993 launch – including once due to a big drug raid – and eventually relaunched in 2021 after shutting sing down for a year.

Recalling its infamous heyday, Kayla says: “It had this dodgy air to it, like ‘God this is risky’. Drugs were rife, there were fights and once I remember there was a stabbing. 

“It had the rowdy essence that’s sugarcoated in Essex glamour, while everyone’s competing over who’s got the most money and whose dad is the richest.

“They loved it. It was full of these rowdy fellas, all Essex city boys who were wannabe gangsters. That sort of vibe.”

This drunk girl grabbed my friend’s hair, pulled her to the floor. I had to get security. It was quite scary, they had to drag the other girl out and ban her.

The darker side to Faces was well-known amongst its celebrity clientelle too.

In 2003, ex-Chelsea defender Ashley Cole had his £25,000 Rolex and gold chain stolen while he sat drinking champagne with two girls.

In 2007, Faces was forced to close for a month after a drugs raid saw 11 people arrested for possession of cocaine and ecstasy, which could be bought “quite openly”.

And a year later, a mass brawl broke out when Spurs man Ledley King tried to force his way into the club after being evicted for being too drunk after the club’s Carling Cup win. 

In 2018, amid a rise in rowdy teens attending, horrifying footage emerged showing a thug punching a woman unconscious on the pavement outside the Essex hotspot. 

It would lead to the club being rebranded “Faeces” by locals due to the squalor and regular scenes of violence. 

Kayla recalls that less glamorous side to the club, revealing their dressing rooms where they changed into saucy lingerie was “a shabby kitchen where the washing-up boys worked”.

“I’d enter wearing UGG boots and joggers and leave in these skimpy outfits – leopard-print bikinis, everything was minuscule and booby with stockings and hold-ups and six-inch high heels,” she says. 

Dancers like Kayla were the main entertainment, performing four 20-minute slots between 10pm and 2am.

And most of the time, they were in the firing line.

Kayla recalls: “This drunk girl grabbed my friend’s hair, pulled her to the floor. I had to get security. It was quite scary, they had to drag the other girl out and ban her.”

“Girls there had an issue because of how we looked and dressed, we’d get mugged off in the sense that they would mouth ‘She’s ugly’ or pick at your appearance.

“There was a lot of jealousy because all the men’s eyes, including their boyfriends’, were always on us, not them.

“Then on the pole, you had people touching you, pulling at you, trying to come up on the poll. Lots of letchy men, but that was the norm. 

“It was absolutely iconic and a definite era, but it was a paradox too. While there was extravagance, money and sexiness, it felt like it was a bit risky and you were quite vulnerable too.”

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