How did the Brummie blonde who was once Ant and Dec’s kids’ TV co-star make it as America’s hottest talent show host? And why is returning home making her a scaredy-Cat? The mischievous Miss Deeley lets Event in on her purrfect life
She’s coming home – and it’s giving her butterflies. ‘I am nervous,’ admits everybody’s favourite glamorous girl next door, Cat Deeley. ‘I know what I’m doing these days, so I’m not nervous about presenting a new show, but I want it to go down well. I still feel like the UK is my home. So obviously there is a bit of trepidation.’
Ant and Dec’s old sparring partner from the anarchic Saturday morning kids show SM:TV is about to return to British television for the first time in more than a decade, having been away in America making a huge success of herself since 2006. She has been nominated for five Emmy awards as the brilliant, funny and fizzy but super-competent host of the prime-time talent show So You Think You Can Dance? and is reported to be earning $5 million a year, although she laughs at that. ‘Am I? Never! Never! In Monopoly money.’
Cat Deeley is coming home – and it’s giving her butterflies. She says: ‘I still feel like the UK is my home. So obviously there is a bit of trepidation’
Deeley has flown in from Los Angeles to present a new series for Sky called Sing, in which singing groups battle it out for the chance to make an album and a Christmas single. ‘It’s a real a cappella show,’ she says. ‘There are no backing tracks, no instruments. It’s about finding people who do incredible things with their voices, things that you and I couldn’t do. I had a go at beatboxing last night and it’s so hard.’
I ask her to try again but she laughs, says no and shakes her long, bronze mane. Deeley is tanned and skinny in jeans, a white lacy blouse and a green canvas military-style jacket. She listens and laughs a lot with the gift of immediate intimacy that has made her such a success on screen, chatting away and messing about with contestants or superstars alike.
We’re sitting in a quiet corner of The Ned, a members’ club in the City of London, but her home is a house on a hill near LA with a pool and a view of the ocean, where she lives with husband Patrick Kielty – the comedian and presenter – and their 18-month-old son Milo. Maybe it’s because she’s away from them, but today Deeley will be unusually revealing about how she cracked the US, her longing for Britain and for more children – and her worries about raising Milo as an American.
But I also want to ask about her old friend Anthony McPartlin – better known as Ant out of Ant and Dec – who made headlines when he recently checked into rehab. Did she know he was struggling with addictions to alcohol and super-strength painkillers? ‘No, I didn’t know anything. The last time I saw them was in Florida when we did the ‘Missing Crown Jewels’ thing in Florida in April. Ant seemed absolutely fine.’
That was a spoof thriller sketch for Ant And Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, reuniting the three in comedy scenes for the first time since the glory days of their youth. When SM:TV started in 1998, Deeley was a teenage model from the West Midlands and Ant and Dec were a couple of likely Geordie lads. The show was for kids but the silly games, anarchic humour and wild innuendo made it a perfect hangover cure for the older crowd too. ‘We were terrible when we first started,’ admits Deeley with a grin. ‘We were being hammered in the ratings, but they let us carry on and grow on people.’
Deeley with her husband Patrick Kielty in 2014
The three cheeky charmers are now in their 40s and at the top of their industry, which is why Ant’s troubles came as such a shock to his fans. ‘He is doing the right thing. If you need some help, get some help.’ She sounds genuinely concerned. ‘Everybody has issues. He’s made the decision to do something about it, which should be applauded. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody makes some silly choices at some time in their life. We all do it. I think he’s going to just get better and everyone’s going to love him even more for it. They’ll love him as much as I do.’
The three are planning a one-off SM:TV reunion show for next year, so is their friendship still strong? ‘Yeah. And it’s weird, because we won’t speak for ages, and then we’ll see each other and it’s like no time has passed at all. SM:TV was a moment in all our lives when there was heartbreak and devastation and craziness and good times and that’s what makes you the person you are today. When you share that with people, no matter how much time goes by, they’re a massive part of your life.’
Deeley went her own way when SM:TV finished in 2002, working on a variety of different shows. Then came her lucky break. Lauren Sanchez, the original host of US dance competition So You Think You Can Dance? pulled out just before the start of the second series and a producer she had worked with in Britain called her up. The show is produced by Brits Simon Fuller (creator of Pop Idol) and Nigel Lythgoe (producer of Pop Idol).
‘I didn’t try and be anything I’m not. I was a bit kooky, a bit bonkers, I said what I thought, I did silly stuff and nobody tried to curtail it, and they also gave me the time to grow on people as well.’
Other Brits have tried but failed to break American television because of their voices – Cheryl Cole, for example, was told her Geordie accent was just too strange for the US X Factor – but Deeley says that her West Midlands sound goes down well. ‘They actually think it’s posh. It’s far from posh. What’s funny is the flat A’s from being a Brummie work brilliantly over there. Gl-a-ss, p-a-ss – all that works really well.’
She is gorgeous, but American showbiz has its own ideas of beauty, so did anyone ever tell her to get a facelift or fix her nose or anything like that? ‘No, never. But I think that’s also because I’d reached a certain point in my career, and I was a certain age too. But if you were a 20-year-old girl looking for her first break and someone told you enough times to fix your nose, you might fix your nose.’
So she has thrived on her own terms, but was there a moment when she first thought, ‘This is a long way from Sutton Coldfield?’
‘I work super-intensely and I get on with it. Then the rest of the time I look after myself: I do yoga, I eat healthily, I spend time with my little boy and Paddy,’ says Cat
‘Oh yeah. Many. The first time I went to the Emmy awards they got me diamonds and a Valentino gown. You’re walking down the red carpet and you see a million people around you and somewhere in the back of your head you’ve got images from being a child and seeing Cher’s crazy gowns.
‘But you know what, I really love my garden in LA. I often get up before anyone else and I am there in my pyjamas having a cup of coffee outside on a big, soft, comfy couch and the sun’s shining. To have it because you do something you love as well is amazing and I never take that for granted.’
Kielty is very much her ally. They first met in 2002 presenting Fame Academy together, when he was already an established star with his own chat show. The pair remained just friends until 2011, when he surprised her at a birthday lunch in LA by flying in from Belfast out of the blue. ‘I went to lunch and in walked Patrick. There was a strange little moment like in the movies when everyone else just seemed to melt away,’ she once said. ‘We spent the afternoon together just drinking, laughing, talking. He told me he wanted to be with me for ever.’
They married the following year in Rome, a quiet affair for a very private couple. But I have to ask something awkward. Her career has soared, while he is still working but not doing quite so well. Does he mind?
‘I don’t think he minds at all. Everybody has moments where they’re super-hot and then they’re not. That’s the way the entertainment industry works. The idea is that we’re a team and every member of the team is vital. I couldn’t do what I do without him, and he couldn’t do what he does without me. Neither of us wants to sacrifice anything to do with our son Milo in order for a career. He comes first for both of us.’
Milo was born 18 months ago. They co-ordinate their diaries so that one is always with their son if the other is away, so is Paddy home alone with the baby right now? ‘No, there’s a nanny too, because sometimes we need cover. We don’t have family over there so we don’t have any choice.’
What will they do for school? ‘Oh I don’t know. I’ve got to start looking. He has a very full schedule right now. I take him to sensory classes on Monday, he does gym on Tuesday, Wednesday he’s swimming, Thursday is gym, and Friday is swimming.’
Is Milo going to be brought up as an American? ‘He’ll probably have an American accent because he mixes with American kids. It’s a lovely lifestyle for him, but we don’t know if we want him to be educated there.’
So this new series is not her way of saying she is coming home for good? ‘No, not yet.’
Soon maybe? ‘Well, it still feels like home. That’s due to the people. You can’t hothouse friendships. They become the brilliant friendships they are by the progression of time.’
Both still have close ties to home, as becomes obvious when I ask how she spends all the money she is earning in the States? ‘Not on material things. I save for Milo’s school fees or his university time. And I spend money on freedom. I can fly my mum and dad out if I want to, for example.’
When you have money like her, yes. But how do you stop your son being spoiled by all that? ‘We’re like any new parents who are just trying to figure it out. I know we’ll get it wrong, but as soon as you know you’ve done that it’s about putting things right. I might keep my flat in Hampstead in case Milo wants to study in London, for example, but at the same time I don’t want him to get to a point where he’s grown up, living in the pool house in the garden and watching endless TV and we subsidise that. It’s just about making smart choices and being very honest with him.’
Will she have another one? ‘I would love to. I’d love about 12, I really like it.’
What does Paddy say? ‘He says we’re not having a football team, but I would like more at some point, but whether it happens you don’t know. You can’t control everything.’
While she has been away there has been a huge row brewing about equal pay in TV, with the BBC forced to reveal the salaries of its biggest stars. What does she make of that?
Cat with SM:TV co-presenters Ant and Dec in 2001. The three remain good friends
Cat with Cindy Crawford in 2014. Despite her success in the States, Cat says the UK always feels like home
‘It exists in America too. I think it will be a case of gradually chipping away and making it fairer. But when people are comparing people’s wages, they’re just over-simplifying everything. It’s not logical. Let’s be smart and actually use our heads in a proper way rather than just throwing numbers around because that doesn’t make any sense.’
That’s a surprising thing for a forceful woman in telly to say, but she’s trying to be honest about the different rules that apply in showbusiness, where people often have to work for very little in order to get their big break. ‘The closest thing I can compare it to is fashion. If you do Vogue as a model or a hairdresser or a make-up artist you get 60 bucks for the day. But by doing Vogue you’re suddenly flavour of the month: Vogue dictates who’s in fashion. So then you get an advertising campaign that pays $10,000 a day. So we’ve got to look at every aspect of pay or else nobody’s going to have an honest discussion.’
So is it even worth pursuing equal pay? ‘Absolutely, but I don’t think that by publishing figures it’s going to change overnight.’
Deeley once said she would only come back to work in British TV if it was an amazing programme or a huge pay cheque, so which is this? ‘Well what you hope is for both. This one is because Sing interested me. I like things that scare me a little bit. It’s more like a true competition than an entertainment show, the audience doesn’t vote and the judges are professionals rather than celebrities.’
It will be a demanding job for Deeley. She is filming Sing It here for a week then flying back to the States to make a season of So You Think You Can Dance?, with live episodes every Monday night for a couple of months. Then she will host the two different series finales live, within a few days of each other, on either side of the Atlantic. ‘I won’t know what day it is. But I’m really lucky, I don’t really need that much sleep, so I’m pretty good.
‘I work super-intensely and I get on with it. Then the rest of the time I look after myself: I do yoga, I eat healthily, I spend time with my little boy and Paddy when I get back. And I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I can choose what I want to do and I don’t have to feel like, “Mmm, well I need to take that because my mortgage needs paying…”’
There’s nothing smug about the way Cat Deeley says that, just a thankful recognition that she has done incredibly well. It reminds me of that Saturday Night Takeaway appearance, when she appeared as the villainous Mask Face and sent herself up with a little speech explaining why she had turned to crime: ‘After SM:TV Ant and Dec went on to be household names and forgot all about me so I did the only thing I could – moved to LA, cracked America, hosted a hit primetime TV show and got nominated for five Emmys.’
She tossed her mane of hair like a diva then said, forlornly: ‘All I ever wanted was to be recognised at home…’
Joking or not, the Cat is back in the country for Sing – and her wish may yet come true.
‘Sing: Ultimate A Cappella’ is on Sky 1, October 6 at 9pm