Wearing sexy undies simply to feel good and celebrating being different are two of the keys to a happy life for TV presenter Davina McCall
Coping with a benign brain tumour and breast cancer within the same 12 month period, instead of cracking under the strain, Davina McCall secretly tied-the-knot. Now happily married to celebrity hairdresser Michael Douglas, she will soon be back on our screens judging The Masked Singer’s Christmas special on ITV on Boxing Day.
Davina, 58, whose health problems followed a very rough ride through the menopause, which she says left her “knocked for six,” has solid advice for middle aged women, who have lost their sparkle. She says: “I always say go out and buy yourself some new underwear. You can tell what mood I am in by the underwear I am wearing. If I don’t like myself it is off-white, seamless comfortable underwear.
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“Michael tells me to wear pink boots. If you wear your normal everyday outfit then buy shoes, one small thing, or mad earrings. It might be so far out of your comfort zone, but someone will go ‘wow’. Don’t be embarrassed to be seen. We are all guilty of wanting to shy away, but don’t give into it. Be seen and don’t give into it.” She says this positive outlook helped her to land her Masked Singer role, which she describes as a “second spring.” And she admits that her ongoing success has surprised her, as she feared her TV career was over when she quit hosting Channel 4’s Big Brother in 2010 – although she was delighted when she became the host of Long Lost Family, saying: “I love that show.”.
Davina continues: “Big Brother is the one show I will be remembered for, for the rest of my life. After Big Brother I thought ‘am I ever going to work again as I am known for that so much?’ Every other show I tried to do alongside Big Brother has been a bit of a turkey. I was like ‘oh my God, without Big Brother who am I?’”
That changed over lunch six years ago, when she met up with ITV’s entertainment boss Kevin Lygo. She says: “I remember I had lunch with Kevin when I was about 52 or 53. I had known him forever, as he made Big Brother. We are good friends and every year we have a lunch. When we met he said ‘can you sing Davina?’ I was like ‘sort of…in the shower’.”
They then chatted about The Masked Singer, but she said she wanted to present, not sing so, with Joel Dommett already doing a fantastic job as presenter, she suggested she should join the panel. “He went ‘OK. I will think about that.’ A week later I got the call.”
Davina, who judges alongside Jonathan Ross and comic Mo Gilligan, adds: “If I had not said I wanted to be on the panel I don’t think I would have been there.” Now she wants other people to follow her lead, adding: “Be ballsy. Remember your worth. For me, getting the job was like a second spring. I never thought I would work in entertainment again and have outrageous shoes on TV again. So remember, if you don’t try…you don’t get.”
Brimming with confidence, despite her recent health battles, she thanks her husband, Michael, 52, and her stepmother Gaby for supporting her. She says: “Before my operation [brain surgery in November 2024] my mum [Gaby] laughed at me, because I love wearing sexy clothes or sexy dressing gowns. She asked what nighties I had for hospital. I put one on and went with White Company pyjamas, but they were shorties. She was like ‘don’t be flashing your brain surgeon’.”
Davina moved in with Gaby when she was 13, after her relationship with her biological mother Florence Kock, who battled alcoholism and had leukaemia when she died of a lung infection in 2008, became strained. Davina, mum to daughters Holly, 23, and Tilly, 21, and 18-year-old son Chester, has now forgiven her mum for her tricky childhood.
She says: “My birth mother was a gorgeous, French, exotic, mad, risk taker – exciting to be around, chaotic, but I just wanted Angela Lansbury. I wanted somebody with sensible shoes. She used to wear coats and flash people in the street. She used to do citizens’ arrests. It was madness. I was in the back of a car once while she drove it across a cricket pitch while the match was on.
“I spent my entire life trying to get her to mother me, but my stepmum was just there all the time. She was solid, dependable, loving, non judgemental. She is a very different person. She loved my dad [Andrew}. He was quite a difficult person.”
Davina has spoken openly about her own difficulties with drink and drugs and how she became clean and sober, aged 25, with the help of a friend of rockstar Eric Clapton. She started smoking cannabis with her mother when she was just 12, before moving on to alcohol and eventually heroin use in her early twenties.
After a spell in rehab, she turned her life around, but admits: “I hated myself when I got clean. I really hated myself. I had let myself down. I had let myself and other people down. I had been infected with this dark shadow.” But, with the help of Narcotics Anonymous, she learned to love herself.
She says: “It took me six months, but I realised you can love yourself warts and all. “I did not have to be perfect. I was allowed to not be perfect and still like myself. I have lots of defects of character that I am aware of and I try to be better. But when you love yourself warts and all that is a lovely place to get to.”
Now sober for almost 35 years, Davina had overcome her demons before finding TV fame. She admits: “I harassed people at MTV for three years and I did not get a job until I was 25 – thank God, as I got clean at 24. If I had got an audition before then I would have messed it up. I could start MTV clean, like being reborn. I was lucky.”
Now, having won another major life battle – this time with her physical, rather than her mental health, she is looking forward to a new year filled with promise. She says: “My happy place is now with people I love, with Michael, our kids, our families. Probably in a karaoke bar or Ibiza or with people I love with music and dancing. I feel free. We were listening to Florence and the Machine the other day and their song Free came on and everybody was dancing. That for me, with people you love, that is my drug of choice.”
But Davina has no intention of leaving our TV screens any time soon. She laughs: “People used to level at me that I was annoyingly enthusiastic on TV. It is like Marmite, some love it and some hate ir, but that is OK. People can turn me off. I don’t mind.”
*The Masked Singer returns to ITV on Boxing Day
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