A real Emily in Paris! Woman, 19, left heartbroken reveals how she transformed her life with move

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A teenager who was left heartbroken after a breakup has revealed how she gained thousands of followers online after quitting her job and moving to Paris.  

Eden Morrissey, 19, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, was devastated after going through a breakup last summer and decided to move on a whim to move to the French capital as an au pair in October 2020.

Despite moving to Paris and knowing no one on arrival, Eden has managed to make friends and has even met her new partner while working as an au pair in France.

And with young people romanticising the city on social media, following the release of Netflix‘s Emily in Paris, starring Lily Collins, Eden has gained 100,000 followers on TikTok as she documents her real-life adventures in the city. 

Speaking about the move, Eden explained: ‘I was working for Laura Mercier at the time and had a plan to stay with them and work my way up because I really liked my brand.

‘But by September 2020, I became exhausted by the restrictions caused by the pandemic and ended up just stacking shelves rather than doing my job.

‘I also went through a breakup which was the catalyst in me moving away and one day, I went to my sister’s house and started crying to her and she jokingly suggested I should go somewhere new like Paris.

‘I had a friend and I knew his sister was an au pair so I got in touch with her and that’s when I first joined one of the websites.’

Eden joined a free website that allows host families to connect with au pairs from all around the world and managed to find her host family within just two days of joining the site.

She said: ‘I had no idea if I would find a family but I was so hopeful and set on it that I knew I would make it happen and within five days, I was contacted by the host family I now work for.

‘It was a very quick process – I spoke to them in September and moved to Paris a month later’.

Meanwhile she said her parents were initially far from supportive about her decision to move.

She explained: ‘When I first brought the idea up to my parents, they told me absolutely no way but I just went ahead and did it and they had no choice but to go along with it.’ 

After moving to Paris, Eden started her new life as an au pair which involves looking after the families young daughter – picking her up from school, cooking for her, bathing her and even putting her to bed at night. 

Eden added: ‘My main job is to improve the child’s English.

‘When I first came, she didn’t speak any English and now, we have full conversations in English so she’s done really well.

‘I got really lucky and my host family have a separate apartment that used to be part of their apartment and it has it’s own separate entrance so I have my own space but am just next door if they need me.

‘There’s a specific contract you and your host family have to sign when you’re an au pair that states they have a responsibility to feed and house you.

‘You also get ‘pocket money’ from them monthly and that amount is a minimum of Euro 80 [£69] a week in France so it’s not a lot of money but you get everything else paid for.

‘If I need to get groceries, I’ll text my host family and they will send over money.

‘I started off doing three days a week and now I do five but I’m only working 25 hours a week – it’s legally a maximum of 30 hours.

‘I get paid for any extra hours so that’s Euro 10 [£8.50] an hour.

‘They also pay for my Navigo card which gets me around Paris on public transport’.

Despite only getting paid Euro 90 – the equivalent to £77 – per week, Eden gets all of her living expenses paid for including an apartment with a balcony in central Paris, food, bills, medical expenses and even travel. 

Eden’s typical duties vary day to day but she often spends her time playing with the host families child, picking them up from school, feeding them and teaching them English.

She added: ‘I pick her up from school at 11:30am and bring her home for lunch and then take her back at 12:50pm.

‘I pick her up again at 4pm and we go home and have a little snack and play for a while.

‘If she has homework, we’ll do the homework and I’ll bath her after dinner and then send her to bed.

‘In France, the children don’t go to school on a Wednesday so we’ll do some sort of activity for the day’. 

And far from feeling lonely in the city, much like the Netflix character, Eden has managed to surround herself with new friends and even a new boyfriend.  

She said: ‘There’s a lot of au pairs in Paris and you can join Facebook groups where you meet new friends.

‘I arrived on a Wednesday and met someone on the first day – you have to put yourself out there and most au pairs want to make friends with other au pairs.

‘The first night I felt really alone but the host family showed me around the residential area and I quickly got the hang of living in Paris.’

She continued: ‘You have to be confident if you want to be an au pair because it can be easy to get taken advantage of by a host family.

‘You shouldn’t be spending any of the pocket money on things you need as the host family should provide that all for you.

‘Sometimes the host family can forget to pay you and you have to make sure you speak up and remind them because you can’t not be paid.

‘If they are funny about talking about money, that’s normally a big red flag.

‘I have an obsession with thrifting so I typically spend my money on that’.

Eden started a TikTok account where she documented her adventures in Paris and has since gained nearly 100,000 followers on the platform. 

She has no plans to move back to the UK anytime soon, and she hopes to stay in France for the next five years.

She added: ‘You have to sign a year long contract and I just signed my second one early.

‘I would like to eventually move away from being an au pair and work as a freelance makeup artist which is what I initially wanted to do before the pandemic hit.

‘A lot of girls end up getting second jobs to help them save some money. 

‘It’s matured me massively – I wouldn’t have grown up this quickly if I had stayed in the UK because I threw myself out of my comfort zone completely.

‘I try to come back and visit my family as often as possible but it’s been difficult with the restrictions.’