By Louise Gannon
Following the breakdown of her very public relationship with a fan she met on Twitter, MELANIE SYKES has vowed to keep a lid on her private life. Ironic, then, that she is about to present the revamp of iconic TV series Blind Date, she tellsĀ Louise Gannon.

MELANIE WEARS SWIMSUIT, Ward Whillas. RING, Vhernier at Nigel Milne
There is something very telling about the way TV presenter Melanie Sykes attacks a heaving buffet table at the end of a long dayās filming. As others on the YOU shoot hover over the delights of the chocolate roulade and potato salad, Melanie knows exactly what she wants, filling her plate with spring greens, avocado and a super-grain vegetable mix.
It is the reason she is so lean and fit, and why, just two months off 47, she admits, āPhotographers ask me to take off my clothes more than they ever did in my 20s.ā Sheās aware how great her assets are, opting to remove a drapey skirt from one of the looks so that she poses in just a top, revealing those glorious legs.
Melanie ā who avoids sugar, carbs, alcohol, dairy and gluten as part of the Amelia Freer āEat. Nourish. Glowā regime she has been following for the past three years ā says: āI would eat linguine with lobster every day, but I donāt want to get fat and unhealthy. I want to be a fit, strong woman and a good mother to my two boys.ā
It is also an indication of the unswerving determination and self-control it has taken to transform herself from a shy, insecure teenager into a model-turned-presenter who is about to launch Channel 5ās multimillion-pound revamp of the primetime show Blind Date alongside Paul OāGrady.
āAm I excited about it?ā she laughs, sipping an illicit coffee (caffeine is frowned upon by Freer, but Mel believes in a little deviation from the rules). āIām beyond excited. I loved the show when I was a kid. I watched it every Saturday night, like everyone else at my school. Weāve filmed a few episodes [in which a contestant chooses a date from three potential partners without seeing them by asking a series of questions] already and itās a lot of fun. We have stayed totally true to the original format. Paul was the original host Cilla Blackās [who died in 2015] best friend and he is just brilliant with his ad-libs and sauciness.ā

with Blind Dateās Paul OāGrady
Melanie (who replaces āOur Grahamā as the voice of Blind Date) is responsible for tongue-in-cheek summations of each contestant and their potential partners. āI get to have real banter with Paul and make the audience laugh,ā she says.
āI never thought Iād get to be part of such an iconic show. Blind Date made television history. Itās fun, itās a family show and itās something we want everyone to be talking about during the week. Everyone wants the dates to work out, but they can be very funny if they donāt. You never know!ā
Which brings us neatly to the subject of Melanieās own romantic life. She married The Tudors actor Daniel Caltagirone (he also starred in The Beach and The Pianist) in 2001, but the couple ā who have two children, Roman, 15, and Valentino, 13 ā divorced in 2009. Three years later Melanie began a relationship with roofer Jack Cockings, who wooed her on Twitter, having previously attempted to spark up social-media romances with singer Cheryl and glamour model Jodie Marsh. After less than 12 months of saucy flirting and besotted messages (they announced their engagement on Twitter ā where else?), she married Jack ā who is 16 years her junior ā but six months into the marriage she was arrested by police over an alleged assault against him (the charges have since been removed from police records). Within eight months the marriage was over.
Melanie has vowed, post-Jack, never to be so blithely open about her private life again. āYou can ask me if you like but Iāll never say anything [about the relationship],ā she says in a typically blunt manner. Has she ever been on a blind date? āNo,ā she says. Does she enjoy dating? Is she single? An eyebrow is raised. What advice would she give to anyone looking for love? āI wouldnāt give advice to anyone,ā she says, then laughs. āItās pretty ironic isnāt it, that Iām doing Blind Date?ā
Final question: as a successful woman with a less-than-successful romantic record, does Melanie believe in the concept of having it all? She wrinkles her brow: āI think itās more a case that I donāt want it all,ā she says. āIām happy in my world. I donāt think thereās one rule that fits all women and that has to include career, marriage and children.

TOP, Masscob. BIKINI BOTTOMS, Ward Whillas
āI have my kids, my health, good friends, a job I love and independence, which has always meant a lot to me, and thatās the stuff of my happiness. I donāt see the need to be married because, to me, it is just a financial contract. Iām very happy as I am. I wonāt say never because none of us knows whatās around the corner. Itās just not something I think about or measure my success by.ā
There is much to be admired about Melanie ā though she is often, as she says, confined to the āformer model, gym bunny, TV presenterā tag. Her broadcasting career began more than 20 years ago when she appeared, wearing a pink waitressing dress, in a commercial for Boddingtons Bitter. The juxtaposition of the doe-eyed, razor-cheeked, Audrey Hepburn-style beauty with an accent thicker than a Lancashire hotpot caught the public imagination, and Melanie grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
She went from that one television advert to reporting on Channel 4ās The Big Breakfast (alongside Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen), to starring in shows including Today With Des (OāConnor) and Mel, Letās Do Lunch With Gino (DāAcampo) and Mel, Humble Pie (with chef Marco Pierre White) and Iām A Celebrityā¦Get Me Out Of Here! (she finished third in 2014), and co-presenting with Alan Carr on BBC Radio 2. She has also provided regular guest-cover for Paul OāGradyās television and radio shows ā and the comedian suggested she be given the job on Blind Date alongside him.
āI always get on really well with comedians,ā she says. āIāve worked with Paul quite a bit and I like funny men like Des and Alan. Theyāve all come up the hard way and they see that discipline in me. Iām never late, never off my game and always happy to play the straight man. And I absolutely love what I do.ā
As a teenager, Melanie had no plan to become a famous name. The middle of three sisters (Samantha, now 48, and Stacy, 44) born to an English engineer father, Robert, and an Anglo-Indian mother, Wendy, she was teased at school in the mill town of Mossley, Greater Manchester, for her skinny legs and flat chest.

Melanie on Iām A Celebrity

With sons Roman and Tino
āI was never considered pretty growing up,ā she says. āI was shy and introverted. The āprettyā ideal I grew up with was blonde, blue-eyed and fair-skinned ā not me. I only started modelling because my mum went to a Pippa Dee party [where women could buy Pippa Dee clothes in their homes] and one of her friends made me try the clothes on because I was tall and thin.
āMy mum told me that a woman there said I should try modelling. A few weeks later I went to a model agency in Manchester and was taken on. You would think that gave me confidence, but it didnāt. I was very green and completely intimidated on every job I took.
āI remember having to get on a plane for the first time. Iād never even been to an airport before and I just had to force myself to get on, smile, do what I was asked to do. I pushed myself to stop feeling terrified and actually started to enjoy posing for pictures.ā
Melanie spent almost a decade travelling the globe as a model. āI loved it,ā she says. āThe travelling was the best bit for me, but it could be very lonely. There was a lot of pressure to stay thin. You are continually on a diet and I was told quite a few times to lose weight ā all models are. I didnāt eat much, which was hard for me because I love my food.
āYou have to be very thin to do editorial modelling; you could be a size ten if you were a commercial model [adverts and catalogues] but if you worked in Paris you had to be stick thin. I was mates with Tess Daly [they are still friends], who was in Paris with me a few times, and it was always nice to be with another Northern girl.

DRESS, Kalita. SHOES, Rebecca Bjƶrnsdotter
āIn my mid-20s, on my own in Paris, hungry as usual, I rang my agent to tell him I couldnāt be bothered with trying to stay super thin and I wanted to go home and concentrate on commercial modelling, which is what I did.ā
The upshot was stealing the role in the Boddingtons ad. More than 20 years on, the company is about to revive its most iconic commercial campaign with Melanie back in a new advert. She smiles: āA lot of good things are happening to me this year,ā she says. āThey are working on ideas for the campaign and Iām keeping myself ready.ā Does she drink Boddingtons? āNo,ā she laughs, ābut my dad does. I like the occasional glass of gavi di gavi, a dry white wine.ā
Melanie is looking, at 46, every bit as stunning as she did two decades ago. She keeps her body finely tuned with four hour-long workouts a week (āI alternate between pilates, spinning, boxing, yoga and reformer pilates, which is sort of extreme pilatesā). She eats scrupulously healthily with āoff-daysā kept solely for birthdays and special occasions, on which a few slices of cake or chocolate are allowed. Apart from breast implants (after breastfeeding), she has had no surgery. āIām holding up because I work at it andĀ I have good genes,ā she says. āMy mother and grandmother looked great as they aged and thatās the way I want to go.ā
But the real measure of Melanie came when she faced her greatest fear. It wasnāt snakes in the jungle or a humiliating end to an ill-advised marriage; it was the realisation her 13-year-old son, known as Tino, was autistic.
Ask Melanie to define herself and she will say: āMother first, last and always.ā She wonāt discuss her eldest son Roman (āHeās asked me not to as heās 15 and has his own life and I respect thatā) but she will open up about her struggle with Tinoās autism.

Melanie with her ex-husband Daniel Caltagirone on This Morning
Two years ago, in front of an audience of academics, parents of autistic children and her ex-husband Daniel (who was there to support her), she told an autism conference how she spent years feeling disconnected from her son, who barely spoke, and how she had thought he was deaf and then broke down when he was diagnosed with autism aged three. Admitting to wanting to ārun away from the houseā during the initial shock, she then told how she quickly realised: āIf I canāt accept he has autism he canāt emerge from it.ā
Now she tells me how terrified she was to talk publicly about her son. āI had to have coaching for weeks before because I was so nervous. I was taught how to stand, how to breathe. I knew I was going to find it so hard to speak about something so personal, so emotional, and my heart was beating so much I thought it was going to burst out of me. When I was on the stage I had to take off my shoes because I suddenly felt I couldnāt speak in uncomfortable high heels. What got me through it was knowing how important it was to share my experience, tell the truth and be proud of my son.ā
After years of Tino failing to develop his language skills, Melanie and Daniel started working with therapists to increase their sonās vocabulary and connect with him. Ten years later, Melanie has faced every challenge his condition has thrown at her, from automatically turning off āany music with violins, which he canāt bearā to getting him into a secondary school. āHeās in a great state school. Heās gradually being integrated with the other kids. Heās really happy. They have a book that his teacher fills in every day and I fill in in the evening, so we all know whatās going on.ā
How does she feel about Tinoās autism now? She smiles. āHeās my son. I love him. He says what he feels about everything, which I love because it makes me determined to tell the truth. Heās funny, heās lovely, he hates me wearing make-up and I couldnāt live without him.ā
There is, she admits, a chance that Tino will never achieve independence, get a job and move out of home. āIād love him to be able to live independently because thatās what all parents want for their child. But I accept it may not happen. And if it doesnāt he will be with me for ever and Iād be happy about that, because he means everything to me.ā
Daniel shares custody of the boys, which means Melanie often has weekends to herself. She isnāt good at doing nothing. āIāll go away for the weekend, go to the theatre, visit an art gallery,ā she says. She shares a passion for art with her Radio 2 co-host Alan Carr, who bought her the historian Simon Schamaās book History of Art. āI got into art when I was modelling. Iād often end up in a city on my own and spend time in galleries. Alan is a big fan of Caravaggio.ā
They are, it has to be said, an unlikely pair when it comes to appreciation of fine arts. First she laughs and says, āItās this interest we have in common and like to talk about,ā then adds, āBut why not? Why shouldnāt we both love art?ā

TOP, Theory. RING, Pesavento, from Nigel Milne
Itās a fair point. And the fact that there is more to Melanie is borne out by the briefest perusal of her social media. Her days of giddy public romancing are long gone and today she uses her profile to blog about issues such as health, exercise and the menopause. āIām interested in subjects that all women my age think about. Iām getting older, Iām going to go through the menopause. I want to know about it, I want to know why people choose to take HRT or not. And I think itās important to stand up and share your knowledge.ā
As Melanie has got older she has grown in confidence. Her icons include Jane Fonda and Madonna. Would she, like Madonna, grow old disgracefully and wear the sort of clothes deemed too inappropriate for a woman of a certain age? āAs far as Iām concerned Madonna can do what she damn well likes because she is Madonna,ā she says. āThere are no rules. You do what feels right for you. Iām proud of my body and I have no problem wearing a bikini ā but I donāt choose one with frills all over it because thatās too girly and Iām most definitely a woman.
āYou get wiser as you get older, and Iāve certainly learnt what I want and need in life. That can only be a good thing.ā
Blind Date will be on Channel 5 later this month; Alan and Melās Summer Escape will be on BBC Radio 2 on 8 July