Cover Story
Lorraine Kelly shares her Christmas traditions, explains why she recently lost and rediscovered her self-confidence, and talks age-defying beauty
It’sbeen a hectic 12 months for Lorraine Kelly, giving perfect cause for celebration as the year draws to a close.
On top of her daily ITV show, Lorraine, 62, is a Celebrity Gogglebox favourite and her What If? podcast, which she hosts with her journalist daughter Rosie, 28, is going from strength to strength.
Her personal life is equally tickety-boo. In the summer, she and her cameraman husband Steve Smith, 62, celebrated their 30th anniversary with a romantic holiday in Spain, and the couple, who live in Buckinghamshire, are still savouring Rosie’s return to the UK after four years living in Singapore.
Striding into our shoot after a morning of filming, Lorraine looks striking. After gaining 1½st over lockdown, the Glasgow-born star has dropped two dress sizes and admits she feels back to her ‘happy and healthy self’. Following a lunch of steamed gyoza, she radiates confidence in front of the camera, giggling and chatting with the team between shots.
Almost 40 years ago, Lorraine became a BBC Scotland researcher before joining TV-am as its Scotland correspondent then, later, earning a permanent spot in the ITV studio as a presenter. Warm, with an unwavering journalistic tenacity and zero fear of causing offence, it’s no surprise that Piers Morgan once described her as an ‘iron fist in a velvet glove’, and today Lorraine oozes both opinion and comforting affability as we chat work, Christmas plans and her dreams of becoming a grandmother.
Christmas will be very traditional.
Just me, Steve, Rosie, my parents, our dog Angus and Rosie’s dog Ruby. Christmas is not about presents or having a ‘perfect’ Christmas dinner. It’s all about who you spend the time with – family and friends. I don’t go too crazy with gifts. Rosie gives me a big list and I’ll choose a couple of things, so I know she’ll like the present, but there’s still an element of surprise.
All our Christmas baubles have a story.
I have some really old ones that belonged to my granny, I bought a tiny nativity scene in Peru when I went there with Comic Relief [in 2012], and a cheeky Santa in a NASA spaceship that I found at Cape Kennedy [in 2019], when I visited for astronaut training. My absolute favourite is a wonky fairy that Rosie made at primary school. Every year, it sits at the top of the tree, threatening to fall over!
