SHE doesn’t know why she hates them, but she does. These celebrities are subject to decades-long maternal vendettas beyond any understanding:
Anneka Rice
Had a career in the 80s by being dropped from helicopters, described as ‘being a professional show-off’. Wore an unnecessary jumpsuit over her ‘big arse’ even though ‘everyone’s got one of those, love’. Is still coasting on its fame 40 years later, and your mother now holds her in contempt for that as well.
Cat Deeley
Your mum doesn’t know why Deeley and Patrick Kielty split, but she’s firmly on his side. ‘God know what he saw in that conniving cow,’ she says, a judgement seemingly based on a single 2002 TV appearance where she ‘seemed a bit too cheerful’, interpreted as evidence of deeper moral ambiguity. She will, apparently, get her comeuppance.
Amanda Holden
Cheated on poor Les Dennis, who was ever so lovely on Family Fortunes, and is thus beyond redemption. Nobody had heard of her before ‘she got her claws into Les’. Cosmetic treatments are noted with quiet fury, as is her right to sit in judgment on others on Britain’s Got Talent because she has none, ‘other than gold-digging.’
Tess Daley
A bit harder to hate now she and Vernon have split and she’s unemployed, but your mum remains committed. Will frequently and unprompted bring up grievances such as ‘I never liked the way she stood there with that fixed smile while they were waiting for scores,’ and, despite there being no direct evidence for this, ‘fancying herself rotten.’
Judith Chalmers
Dead now, but that doesn’t grant forgiveness. That ‘mahogany cow’, as Chalmers is still referred to with surprising consistency, was allowed to go on ‘all those bloody holidays’ while the rest of the country was left with only Butlin’s Skegness. It is authoritatively claimed that she got so fat ‘they had to film her standing behind rocks’.
Anthea Turner
Admittedly hasn’t been on telly forever, which your Mum attributes to her letter-writing campaign, but remains unforgiven for going with Grant Bovey and eating a Flake on her wedding day. Most have forgotten. Not your mother, who mutters that ‘a woman who’ll do that in a wedding dress would sell her own grandmother’.
Nigella Lawson
‘She’s not even a trained chef’ she bellows as Nigella pouts, all twinkly lights and pancetta. ‘Why is she in her dressing gown in front of a camera? And you know that’s not really her house.’ Her use of luxury ingredients causes particular offence. ‘Your dad loves her,’ it has been claimed for 30 years, in the face of his total lack of interest.
