INTERVIEW
Three years after returning from LA, Cat Deeley talks about life back in the UK, date nights with hubby Patrick Kielty, and her anti-ageing secrets
It’s been over two decades since Cat Deeley left SMTV: Live – the show she co-hosted with a fresh-faced Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly and a gig that quickly made her a household name and catapulted her to superstardom.
And despite bagging a BAFTA children’s award and cementing her place as TV’s golden girl, Cat wanted to face a new challenge. In 2006, she was invited by entertainment mogul Simon Fuller to take a chance on success in America, becoming the host of US talent show So You Think You Can Dance? and starting a new life in LA.
TERRIFYING
But a terrifying ordeal in 2019 saw her husband of 11 years, Patrick Kielty, and her then three-year-old son Milo, who had just been collected from nursery, forced to hide in a burger restaurant at the mall when security suspected a shooter was in area.
Since that day, everything has changed for Cat, 46. In 2020, she gave up the American dream that had reportedly earned her £15 million, and the family relocated from their LA mansion back to London.
Now she tells Closer she’s “loving” being back on home turf. Cat smiles, “We’ve definitely all acclimatised now, after all the sleet and the snow and everything else!
Now the kids are loving it here. They love their schools, and being able to hang out with their grandparents. The whole idea is to be based here so they have a great grounding and they’re close to family, and then we can hop across to Ireland [where Paddy is from] when we want to, and I can go back to the States when I want to.”
Alongside her hugely successful career, which saw Cat win two Critics’ Choice Awards, she also experienced a roller-coaster love life when she first moved Stateside.
After divorcing her first husband, businessman Mark Whelan, in 2006, Cat dated Twilight star Jack Huston and True Blood actor Michael McMillian, before falling in love with her childhood friend, comedian Patrick, who she married in 2012.
And bucking the trend of flashy celebrity vow renewals, Cat confesses she was “uninvolved” in the planning of their big day in Rome.
“I barely even did my own wedding. Patrick went and tried the food and did all that. I never even saw the place where I got married before I got married – that’s how uninvolved I was,” she laughs.
“I don’t care, as long as everybody was there and had a good time –
