She has landed the most coveted job in TV. From next month, Cat Deeley’s smiling face and sunny demeanour will be appearing on our screens four days a week as she co-hosts ITV’s This Morning with Ben Shephard.
It’s a fresh start for both the West Bromwich-born presenter and the show, which lost its two regular presenters – Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield – amid turmoil last year.
Fronting This Morning means Cat will be kept extremely busy with the demands of the show and her family life; she and husband Patrick Kielty, 53, have sons Milo, seven, and James, five.
But the 47-year-old star is fully aware of the pressures she faces and will be taking it all in her stride.
“I drop the ball all the time,” she says. “I’m exactly the same as everybody else. I do the juggle – the juggle is real, the struggle is real. You know, we know, we’re all just trying to make everything work. It’s all a juggle; it’s juggling the things that make you feel good.
“I have a new perfume oil – a fragrance oil with my best friend Amanda, called E11even fragrance – so we’re juggling that. But there are always two people who win my time: Milo and James.”
FRESH START
Cat quit her lucrative presenting job on US reality competition show So You Think You Can Dance to take up the position on This Morning,, confirming her and Patrick’s commitment to their new life in London. They returned to the capital in 2020, having lived in Los Angeles for 15 years, after missing their relatives.
“We had always thought: ‘Our boys have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins they adore, and they adore them right back,’” she told Lorraine Kelly after their move. “It’s such a special moment in time and you don’t get those times back.”
With so much on her plate, Cat – also an Ella & Jo beauty ambassador – makes sure she always takes some time for herself, even if it’s only a few minutes.
“My ultimate self-care routine usually involves trying to do a little bit of yoga,” she said. “I roll out my mat and then I do some yoga from the Yoga Glow website. Even if I can only squeeze in half an hour, it makes me feel so much better.
“It means that I’ve stretched, I’ve moved my body and I’ve actually concentrated on breathing, not the other million jobs that I have to do. It’s really important for us to take those moments, I think, even within really busy, hectic lives.”
