Sort Your Life Out host Stacey Solomon on helping people clear their house and what motivates her to be organised
JEN PHARO
When 19-year-old Stacey Solomon first appeared on our screens singing her spine-tingling version of What A Wonderful World on The X Factor, viewers fell in love with her.
Fifteen years later, Stacey has gone from being a struggling single mum to one of television’s biggest stars. Her career has seen her triumph at everything, from winning I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! to carving out a successful presenting career, as well as amassing 5.8 million followers on Instagram. All the while, she’s raising her five children, Zachary, 15, Leighton, 11, Rex, four, Rose, two, and Belle, 12 months, with husband, Joe Swash, who is the father of her three youngest and is also dad to 16-year-old Harry from a previous relationship.
Stacey can’t believe it. “I’m waiting for someone to be like, ‘Oh, it’s all over now. It was just a big joke,’” she admits. “I laugh with my mum all the time. I’ve been in scenarios that neither of us could ever imagine. I got to interview Boris Johnson once and my mum just rang me up laughing, going, ‘What are you doing with Boris Johnson?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, Mum!’ Every opportunity I get, we can’t believe it.”
From that first appearance on The X Factor, Stacey’s career has blossomed. She’s excelled in every role she’s taken but Stacey, 34, knows that grafting isn’t always enough on its own.
“People will say, ‘Oh you work hard,’” says Stacey. “But the reality is I got so lucky. I worked really hard and gave it my absolute best, but I still have been lucky to have fallen into those situations where somebody gave me an opportunity. Honestly, I’m just running with it. I’ll keep going until it finishes.”
Stacey must be doing something right because she’s back on our screens with a fourth series of her hit BBC show Sort Your Life Out. The series sees Stacey and her team go into people’s houses, recycle or upcycle their clutter and leave them with a reorganised home filled with storage solutions. But for Stacey, the show is as much about helping people say goodbye to past trauma as it is about saying goodbye to old belongings.
“It’s the psychological side of it that helps more than anything,” she says. “There’s always a reason behind the clutter. Whether that be emotional attachment or a trauma in their life that has meant they haven’t been able to move forward. There’s so
