From launching multiple wellness brands to grilling the PM from the This Morning sofa, it’s easy to forget we first knew Rochelle Humes as a pop star. Now, as she fronts WH weeks after her 35th birthday, she reveals why she’s several steps ahead of anyone who dares to write her off…
When our cover star joins the Zoom call, she’s dressed in a square-necked black cami, her skin radiating a post-workout glow, laptop perched on the counter of a sunlight-dappled kitchen that’s all neutrals, high ceilings – ‘quiet luxury’. As entrances to a Women’s Health interview go, this one’s as on-brand as they come. ‘Pilates – I’m such a Pilates girl,’ Rochelle Humes smiles, when I enquire after what she’s been up to this morning. ‘That’s what I’ll typically do every day... It’s so good for my mind as well as my body... I never thought I’d be the girl who’s like, “I’ve not worked out today, I feel like I need that,” it just sounds so not me,’ she makes a face. ‘But it really is me – which is bizarre.’
If Rochelle never had ‘doesn’t miss a workout’ on her mid-thirties bingo card, it isn’t the only element of her life where expectations haven’t matched up with reality.
Thanks, no doubt, to her plugging away at her performing arts career at school – and landing the S Club Juniors gig aged 12 – her gang of friends in her home town of Barking, Essex, had her typecast. ‘It was always like, “Oh, you’re the career girl, aren’t you?”’ she recalls. ‘A lot of my friends had that real “this is what you do: you leave school, you meet someone, you get married, you have a baby” – and that was never me. That was never what I wanted, that formula.’
Of course, life had other ideas. Rochelle began dating Marvin Humes at 21. They moved in together within months – and the rest (a big white wedding, concurrent broadcasting careers, three gorgeous children – Alaia-Mai, 10, Valentina, seven and Blake, three) is history. ‘Whenever I had a baby, I think it shocked my friendship group a little bit,’ she muses. ‘I probably didn’t think I’d have kids till about now – and I’ve just turned 35... You can never plan these things. Like my mum says, “Make a plan; God laughs.”’ I get the sense that our cover star rather likes to surprise people; to push against the sense that people (women) should fit neatly into boxes. ‘Like we’re the Spice Girls,’ she laughs, rolling her eyes. ‘In your friendship group, everyone has to be one – “She’s the flirty one! She’s the career girl! She’s the homemaker!” Who says that you can’t have an empire and
