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Dannii Minogue has admitted her stint judging The X Factor from 2007-2010 ‘took it’s toll’ and left her drained, calling out the show for their lack of mental health support.

Dannii Minogue has revealed that working on The X Factor UK wasn’t all it was cracked up to be in the height of the show’s fame. The Australian TV star, who was a judge on the show from 2007 until 2010, worked alongside Simon Cowell, Sharon Osborne, Cheryl Cole and Louis Walsh.

“I definitely had a moment where I was like, ‘If this is what [the show] is – the toll it takes on your entire life – I don’t know if it’s worth it for me. I remember thinking, ‘The show is what it is and I’ve got to step off’,” recalls Dannii, speaking on a new episode of Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place Podcast.

Claiming that she was constantly in rehearsals with the contestants, something the other judges didn’t do, Dannii continues, “The length of the days were so long. We would go straight into rehearsals for the next week’s songs and none of the other judges were there, I was always there at 10am.”

Dannii is currently working on BBC Three show I Kissed A Boy, and says it’s the first time she has worked on a show where production have taken her mental health into account – something she believes The X Factor could have learned from.

“The first time I’ve worked on a TV show – bearing in mind I’ve worked on TV since I was seven – the first time I’ve ever been told, ‘If you need to speak to someone they’re there’, was on I Kissed A Boy season 1. “

“It’s the first time I ever thought that my mental health was important, and was acknowledged. “

“It would have been really helpful back in The X Factor days to have had anything like that,” says Dannii.

During the conversation, host Fearne recalled her shortlived presenting gig on the series’ spin-off show, The Xtra Factor, which she says the lines are ‘blurred’ on whether she left on her own accord or she was fired.

Looking back at the full-on schedule, Dannii says that, after a full days work in rehearsals with the contestants, she would ‘rather stick pins in my eyes’ than appear on The Xtra Factor.

“I’d get home at 1:30 and it would take me three hours to wind down, then they’d say, ‘Do you want to just pop over to Xtra Factor? ‘

“You just want to say, ‘I’d rather stick pins in my eyes’. But, when you’re a viewer at home and you get that extra bit… it was amazing. It just, energy wise, you didn’t get the best of us. “

After leaving the show in 2010, Dannii was replaced by Tulisa Contostavlos on the judging panel. The X Factor was axed eight years later, after making stars out of acts such as One Direction, Little Mix and James Arthur.

Meghan Markle has revealed the heartwarming reason behind her one-word nickname for Prince Harry, explaining how they kept their relationship a secret by referring to each other in “code”

Meghan Markle has opened up on the meaning behind her one-letter nickname for Prince Harry – and it has a heartwarming connection to the beginnings of their relationship.

Over the years royal fans have noticed how the Duchess of Sussex has often referred to Prince Harry using a sweet pet name made up of just one letter. Back in 2019, Meghan, 43, first let slip that she referred to her husband simply by the letter ‘H’ while on an official royal tour of Southern Africa during an interview with ITV. Three years later, the nickname resurfaced during the pair’s six-part Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan.

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And now, during an appearance on The Jamie Kern Lima show podcast, Meghan has revealed the reason she refers to her husband using one initial. “Your close friends and family, so many of them call you ‘M’ and Harry ‘H’. How did that start? And tell me about that,” asked host Jamie.

In response, the Duchess of Sussex explained that its origins are rooted in the early days of her relationship with Prince Harry. Before the pair’s romance was made public, Meghan and Prince Harry used “code” to keep things under wraps, with this extending to how they referred to one another too.

“Probably at the beginning of us dating, when everything was in code. People didn’t know we were dating for, talk about memory lane, so long ago. I mean, it’ll be our seven-year wedding anniversary soon. I couldn’t tell anyone who I was dating, and who was keeping [the secret], so I think we were just on a letter basis,” she said.

However, what began as a way of keeping their relationship a secret soon became the norm and “it stuck”. Now they’ll use the nicknames even when they’re with friends or on a playdate with their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. “I like it. I love nicknames,” added Meghan.

As well as ‘H’, Meghan has previously revealed that she has Prince Harry listed on her phone as ‘Prince Haz’, a name he was known by to the friend who originally set them up. However, Harry has made it clear that the nickname ‘Haz’ is reserved for Meghan alone, with him once jokingly telling James Corden not to use it.

During an appearance on The Late Late Show With James Corden in 2021, James joked: “Haz? I didn’t know we were calling you ‘Haz’ now. ” In response, Harry laughed: “You’re not my wife. ”

Prince Harry’s name itself is even a nickname. When he was born in 1984 he was christened Henry Charles Albert David, though many royal fans have only recently made the discovery.

“PRINCE HARRYS REAL NAME IS HENRY? ? wtf,” one person wrote on X. “PRINCE HARRYS REAL NAME IS H E N R Y? ,” said another.

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Celebrity Big Brother star JoJo Siwa has revealed her future baby plans despite her sudden split from partner Kath Ebbs as she settled Chris Hughes romance rumours

JoJo Siwa has made a Chris Hughes confession as she opened up on her baby plans. The Dance Moms star, 21, had viewers gripped with her close bond with Chris, 32, while in the Celebrity Big Brother house.

They both made it all the way to Friday’s final, with fans widely speculating if there was anything more going on between them than their platonic friendship. Both JoJo and Chris have insisted they are nothing more than friends who have a “soulmate bond”. JoJo, who dumped her partner Kath Ebbs at the show’s wrap party in a shock move, has been open on her wishes to become a mum someday in the future. She was even met with a bold proposal from Chris while in the house that he could be the father to her kids.

JoJo told housemate Donna Preston how she would love nothing more than to take her children on holiday. Donna responded by jokingly saying: “There you go. Pop a couple out, babe. Chris is available.”

Chris said: “We’d have babies together. [I’d be just] the dad. I have good swimmers. I had mine checked. ” Despite JoJo being in a relationship at the time, she joked at how she would inform her future kids on how “we decided who the father was”.

Since her very recent split from Kath, JoJo reflected on her future children once more and revealed another connection to Chris. In an ultimate compliment to the Love Island star, JoJo declared: “He is somebody I would want my children to be like.”

Heaping on the praise, JoJo said on the Useless Hotline podcast: “He is such a great gentleman. He is also just hilarious and a good ball of fun.

“He is a special guy, he really has such a great lovely side of him that maybe the world doesn’t see as often as they should. Big Brother gave him that to show he is fun, he is chill.”

Before heading into the Celebrity Big Brother house, JoJo also made an appearance on Paul C Brunson’s We Need To Talk podcast, where she revealed her aspirations to become a parent.

“My dream is to have babies, I just want to be a mum,” she shared. “I’ve had a very maternal instinct, no joke, for a very long time. “

On how she’d make this work with Kath, JoJo expressed: “I want my kids to know my partner’s family and my partner wants their kids to know my family. We’re in a beautiful place, where they like America [and] I like Australia, we’re down.”

However, things came crashing down for JoJo and Kath when they reunited at the wrap party over the weekend. Australian actor Kath, who is non-binary and uses she/they pronouns, and JoJo went public with their romance earlier this year.

In an appearance on This Morning, JoJo and Chris were quizzed about the status of their relationship. “So it’s platonic right now, but would you like it to be romantic JoJo? He’s a gorgeous boy,” host Ben Shepherd said.

“Erm, look. He is a great guy,” JoJo began in her reply. “It is platonic. We have a lot of fun together. Life is life and I don’t know any future of anything. But I’m really grateful for our dynamic and our bond that we have and whatever life does, life will do. “

Kath claimed that JoJo “asked to marry them before this social experiment”. They added they travelled to the UK, and went “to the live show to show up for my partner and support them in their experience”, and talk about their relationship.

“(I) went to the after party with my, I guess now, ex, crazy thing to say, and was dumped in the party,” they said. Kath says JoJo told them “they had realised in the house that I wasn’t the person that they wanted to spend the foreseeable” future with.

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