Piper goes on to explain that, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, her goals were not to get married, or become a writer, or even to set up her own charity foundation; instead, she was focused on more immediate and pressing matters.

“[I was worried about] things like wanting to be able to swallow again, to see, or not walking out the front door and having such severe PTSD that I thought people were going to lunge at me,” she says.

It was a far cry from her life before the attack, which saw her living a “hand-to-mouth existence” as an aspiring model and TV presenter.

“I’ll never know what direction my life would have taken if I hadn’t been attacked. Who knows, I might have ended up on QVC, or opening my own salon? I always wanted to write [though], and today it’s the thing I most enjoy. I’m very grateful to have the platform I have to do that.”

Katie Piper is tired of people writing about her ‘happy ending’