Whether you recognise her from her career in broadcasting, her reality stints on Strictly, Celebs Go Dating and Celebrity Big Brother, or her frequent guest spots on This Morning, there is still so much to know about the force of nature that is Vanessa Feltz.
Never has her unstoppable work ethic been more evident than when she sat down with Closer to discuss her new book just a few days after she was rushed to hospital for a nasty case of kidney stones. Vanessa, 62 – who shares daughters Allegra, 38, and Saskia, 35, with her ex-husband, surgeon Michael Kurer – has also suffered her fair share of public heartbreak, splitting from singer Ben Ofoedu in 2023 after an 18-year engagement. However, as she tells us as she settles down for a chat, that hasn’t put her off continuing her search for love…
This is your first memoir, when did you know it was time to write it?
I didn’t really want to do it. I’ve not ever felt that the world needed my memoir, but I was approached by a renowned literary agent who asked, ‘Why haven’t you written it?’ I thought if I’m going to write it then this is the moment because otherwise, I’ll be too old, and no one will give a f**k! There’s got to be some level of people giving a damn, so I thought I’d crack on. I did write another book, but it was 30 years ago, and I never wanted to do another, the ordeal was too much. I did wait exactly 30 years, that’s how much I didn’t fancy doing it!
You’re refreshingly open about body image in your book. What advice would you have for feeling comfortable in your skin and learning to love your body?
For me, it's simply that my mum had died by the age of 57, and I'm now 62, so I've had five more years than she ever had. Do I love my body? Well, I should be grateful to it for keeping me alive. You have to be grateful to the body for getting you through. Instead of always saying, ‘It’s too fat, it’s too wrinkly,’ you should say, ‘I’m glad I've got one. I'm glad I’ve still got the va-va-voom to get up and go.’
You’ve been so open about heartbreak, are you looking for love again?
I’m not looking as in walking around with a sandwich board saying, ‘Somebody, please come love me, I can't bear it.’ But I'm definitely not the sort of person who expected to exist alone. It was kind of considered to be the most terrible stigma, to be sort of unclaimed and unwanted. It's hard to get that kind of s**t out of your head. If you're born and raised to feel that way, you feel that way, even though if you look at it properly you can see it's absolutely rubbish. It's hard not to believe in it to some extent. I’m not actively looking, I'm not combing the universe desperately for a partner, and I'm not so desperate that I’ll hook up with somebody totally unsuitable or settle for anyone. I’m coming up on 21 months single, the longest of my life I've ever been on my own. Even though you're quite right to think I've been badly bitten, and I might well have gone off the whole idea, unfortunately, that's not my personality. I would like to meet someone.
You were partnered with James Jordan on Strictly back in 2013, and you’ve spoken before about how shocked you are at the current scandal. Do you think the show can survive this?
I think it should because although it’s a cliché, the show is bigger than the contestants or the scandals. If you enjoy it and appreciate the dancing, the glamour, the costumes, then you’re still going to love it. I don't see the whole show being obliterated by the scandal, and it'd be a real shame if it were to be. I also think it’s not as if we can say, ‘We can't forget what happened’, because we're still not very clear on what did happen.
What are your Christmas plans this year?
Ireland, of course! My idea of absolute heaven on earth with the family. For the last couple of years, we've spent Christmas at the beautiful Castlemartyr Resort Hotel, literally up the road from my house. And my girls are incredibly hard working; one's a tax lawyer, one's a child therapist, they’ve both got very time-consuming jobs and they've each got two young children, so I don't think it’s a terrible thing if we all have a relaxing family Christmas and let Mr. and Mrs. Castlemartyr do the cooking!
So, you won’t be cooking this year?
God no, I’ve been dying to get out of the kitchen. Eating is, as you know, my forte, but the cooking? Definitely not!
Vanessa Bares All by Vanessa Feltz is published by Bantam (£22.00).