\nBy Last updated at 1:53 AM on 20th February 2011<\/p>\n No longer an unlucky-in-love ladette, these days Denise Van Outen is more likely to be up in the small hours with her baby Betsy than all-night clubbing with unsuitable men. But even as a happily married yummy mummy, the feisty presenter and performer still manages to attract controversy, as she tells Judith Woods<\/span>\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n ‘I still remember all the heartache, and I get slightly annoyed at myself for wasting time dwelling on relationships that weren’t working and crying into my pillow over guys who weren’t worth it,’ says Denise<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s an air of heavy-lidded serenity about Denise Van Outen as she curls up in a chair, sipping mineral water. It\u2019s that slightly spaced, not entirely unpleasant morning-after feeling that you get following a crazy night of reckless drinking, or dancing \u2013 or these days, pacing about with a wakeful nine-month-old baby whose gummy little smile slyly steals her mother\u2019s heart, even as she robs her of sleep. \u2018I am tired. When I think about it, I\u2019ve spent most of my life being tired,\u2019 she smiles. Her face free of make-up, there\u2019s an unexpected vulnerability about her; less larky, more likable and much more real. I dimly recall that when my daughter was that age, I was still in elasticated loungewear; yummy mummy Denise is bang \u2018In my 20s I was tired because I was doing The Big Breakfast. Then I was tired because I was partying so hard. After that I was tired because I was doing Capital Radio\u2019s breakfast show. Now I\u2019m tired because although I\u2019ve just been on a\u00a0 relaxing family holiday to the Middle East, Betsy is up at 4.30am because she\u2019s still on Dubai time. But I love it. I-Love-It!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n This goes without saying for any new mother, but perhaps more especially for reformed ladette Denise, 36, who freely concedes her biological clock had been chiming so loudly, on the hour, every hour, for the past decade it\u2019s a wonder she could make herself heard over the din. Like Captain Hook\u2019s crocodile, the ticking relentlessly pursued her even as she set her determined little chin in the direction of TV success, standing by wildly unsuitable men and making headlines wherever she went; the cheeky, chirpy Essex girl, having a right laugh, resolutely smiling through the tears when every romance blew up in her face.<\/span><\/p>\n From left: Denise with her dream man, husband Lee, at the wedding of David Walliams and Lara Stone; during her pregnancy in 2010<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018I\u2019ve always wanted marriage and babies,\u2019 she says simply. \u2018If I\u2019d met As her FHM compadres \u2013 Zo\u00eb Ball, Sara Cox and Gail Porter \u2013 dropped out of the scene and had babies, Denise hid her creeping sense of desolation behind the brassy showbiz front expected of an alumna of the respected Sylvia Young Theatre School. But all the while she was searching for a soul mate. \u2018We women are prone to thinking, But that was in another life, before she met mop-haired Lee Mead \u2013 at 29, seven years her junior \u2013 on the set of the 2007 BBC talent show Any Dream Will Do, which aimed to cast the leading role in a West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She was a judge, he took the crown \u2013 but Denise was arguably the real winner. A few months afterwards he asked her out, they moved in together just over a year later, and in April 2009 they had a romantic wedding in the Seychelles.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I got to know Lee during the series, when we were hanging out and having those idle conversations about your dreams \u2013 or in my case feeling slightly panicked that I might never meet anyone to fulfil mine. He mentioned at the outset that he wanted a family, and he was the one who moved things along; I never considered his age, because he\u2019s much more mature than anyone else I\u2019ve ever dated. <\/span><\/p>\n \u2018We do bicker like every couple, but mostly about how to look after Denise uses the word \u2018mum\u2019 a lot \u2013 rather like a new bride enjoying the unfamiliar yet delicious sound of \u2018Mrs\u2019. But she hasn\u2019t jettisoned all professional ambition. Quite the opposite: she has designed a new maternity range, written a mumoir about her pregnancy called Bumpalicious which documents her fertility difficulties (relatively minor but worrying nonetheless) and pregnancy, and is currently singing and hoofing like a trouper in Legally Blonde, a feelgood show running in London\u2019s West End. She plays beautician Paulette, confidante of heroine Elle Woods, every night, just as her new mum chums are dozing on the sofa. No wonder she\u2019s wrecked. \u2018All my work decisions are based around my daughter now. I\u2019ve chosen that path, but the joy of this job is that I\u2019m at home all day with Betsy and then I leave her with our part-time nanny and go off to work when she\u2019s asleep. It\u2019s the same for Lee, and we\u2019re very lucky. I love coming in to work; having spent a lot of the day singing \u201cIf You\u2019re Happy And You Know It\u201d, it\u2019s wonderful to be in adult company.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018When I was little my mum had two jobs and I like to be a provider and pull my weight financially. Lee and I have got a mortgage on a house in Kent and I want to set a good example to my daughter. It\u2019s not a bad thing for her to have a good, strong work ethic and understand that we all need to contribute to society when we can.\u2019 This sounds oddly prim, coming from The Big Breakfast presenter who once stole an ashtray from Buckingham Palace (and later returned it with a grovelling note of apology), who was photographed in her bra and knickers for the cover of a lads\u2019 mag, and who presented Something for the Weekend, a disastrous, X-rated game show that wasn\u2019t so much a car crash as a multi-vehicle pile-up involving a Carlsberg truck and an Ann Summers lorry. Since then she\u2019s wowed the crowds in the West End and on Broadway as Roxie Hart in Chicago, and proved her mettle as a straight presenter but, as is the way of the world, we tend to trap celebrities in the amber of their glorious \u2013 or indeed notorious \u2013 heyday and forever see them through the refracting lens of the gossip columns. \u2018I used to cringe at the ladette label, but now I\u2019m quite proud of it and in the years to come I will explain to Betsy that it was a moment when a little group of strong, opinionated women were having a great time. We were a spirited generation and gave men a run for their money.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I used to cringe at the ladette label, but now I\u2019m quite proud of it and in the years to come <\/span><\/span>I will explain to Betsy <\/span><\/span>that it was a moment when a little group of strong, opinionated women were having <\/span><\/span>a great time\u2019<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n She cracks a grin and there is a familiar twinkle in her eye, although But that\u2019s not to say Denise doesn\u2019t still have her mouthy moments \u2013 in fact, motherhood has seen her plunged into greater contentiousness than she ever imagined. \u2018I had no idea having children was so political and that everything I did would be treated as somehow controversial. It started from the day I announced I was pregnant \u2013 people are so opinionated! They seem to feel that they have the right to preach at you for wearing high heels, even though I would arrive at a studio or for a photo shoot in ballet pumps, change into heels for the camera and then take them straight off again.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m a feisty Essex girl, sometimes to my own detriment \u2013 I speak out Thus, when she was dropped as a judge from BBC\u2019s Over the Rainbow, ostensibly because the entire panel was being replaced, Denise had no qualms about voicing her dismay, naming and shaming the biggest name in the business, Andrew Lloyd Webber himself.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Andrew told me I was in the show and I only found out I wasn\u2019t when a journalist asked me how it felt to have been dropped. It was actually said to me, \u201cYou can\u2019t be on the show, you\u2019re pregnant.\u201d So of course I felt very let down. I might have understood if I\u2019d been throwing up all day, but I was completely capable of working right through. I haven\u2019t spoken to Andrew, who has to take some responsibility; he sent me a letter passing the blame on to the BBC, so I guess I\u2019ll never know what happened.\u2019 Then, after the birth, when Denise revealed that she stopped breast-feeding after three weeks, she received a highly personal letter from the NHS \u2013 addressed to her and her husband \u2013 expressing regret that she had fallen by the wayside and urging her to reconsider. There was a mug enclosed, bearing the words, \u2018Keep calm and carry on breast-feeding\u2019. \u2018There is a huge percentage of women who struggle with breast-feeding and it\u2019s just not working for them or their baby,\u2019 says Denise. \u2018To be made to feel a failure because of it is unforgivable \u2013 I was really upset to be so unfairly targeted.\u2019 The dust had barely settled when an even more heated imbroglio saw Denise engaged in a slanging match with former EastEnders actress Natalie Cassidy, then pregnant, who condemned her in an interview for going back to work when Betsy was just weeks old, rhetorically asking, \u2018What have you had a child for? Having a child should be your job.\u2019 Denise, in response, Tweeted furiously about Natalie\u2019s appearance on television with her new baby Eliza, to promote her reality TV series, and derided her for pocketing cash from a glossy magazine for her baby pictures when she and Lee donated all money raised from their official baby photograph to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Ladies, ladies! It was proof \u2013 not that proof were needed \u2013 that motherhood brings out the inner tigress in all of us. But mercifully, Denise\u2019s pregnancy guide is an altogether more upbeat and supportive read. \u2018The idea for Bumpalicious came partly because I wanted to document my pregnancy for Betsy and partly because I bought loads of books when I got pregnant, but none seemed to be exactly right,\u2019 she says. \u2018I loved Myleene Klass\u2019s My Bump & Me diary, but I had to go elsewhere to get more technical information, so I decided to combine the two dimensions.\u2019 From left: Denise takes Betsy home from hospital; out and about with Lee last May<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The result is an astute and rather successful combination of practical here-comes-the-science-bit advice, penned by experts, leavened by personal commentary from Denise. It opens with her shock at being told by a gynaecologist that her ovarian store was running low, and her determination to kick the late nights, early mornings and erratic lifestyle in order to conceive. It ends, happily, with the birth of Betsy. \u2018After she was born, I didn\u2019t go on any ludicrous starvation diets, I just ate healthily and I\u2019m really happy with the result. I\u2019ve got a bit of a wobbly mum tum and I still can\u2019t get into most of my jeans because my hips have got wider, but that\u2019s OK. \u2018Being a mum has made everything else in my life more enjoyable\u2019<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u2018The nicest and most unexpected thing about being a mum is that it\u2019s made everything else in my life more enjoyable; I don\u2019t take it all so seriously. The whole business is so much about appearances and now I find myself running out of the door with milk spills on my top or a little bit of baby sick down my back. But who cares? I don\u2019t obsess any more.\u2019 Exhausting it may be, but for this reformed hellraiser, motherhood has been more liberating than she ever imagined.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018I wondered whether I could conceive\u2019: An extract from Denise\u2019s book Bumpalicious<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n About to turn 34, working long hours by day, propped up by copious amounts of chocolate and caffeine, and sleeping only four hours at night, Denise booked herself in for a health MOT. She was shocked to learn that she had a low ovarian reserve for her age and that a complete change of lifestyle was needed to maximise her chances of conceiving. There was no denying that my job co-hosting Capital Radio\u2019s breakfast show was affecting me the most. The early starts meant I was constantly shattered. My boss was very gracious and understood that I needed to leave for health reasons. My next step was to contact fitness expert Nicki Waterman and nutritionist Amanda Ursell. With their expert advice, I was putting myself in the best possible position to fall pregnant. I used the extra hours in my day to catch up on sleep and to start a new fitness regime. Nicki and I met up for walks and built up to gentle runs. Bit by bit, I started to feel like my old self again. When my mobile rang, I was surprised to hear Gary Barlow\u2019s voice asking if I fancied joining him and a team of celebrities to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief. I said I\u2019d love to do it but Nicki stressed how important it was to build up my fitness gradually, otherwise I\u2019d be putting my body under stress again, which would be bad news for my fertility. We built up the intensity of our work-outs and before long my main focus was the climb. With every interview to promote Comic Relief came enquiries about when Lee and I were going to start a family. I\u2019d cobble together a woolly answer, all the while wondering whether I could actually conceive. On 7 March 2009, I made it to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. It symbolised my life turning around 180 degrees from when I was eating unhealthily, barely seeing the sunshine and fending off depression.<\/span><\/p>\n With my healthy lifestyle firmly in place I wanted to turn my full attention to getting pregnant. Lee insisted we get married first, so in April 2009, in a wonderful ceremony on a beach in the Seychelles, I became Mrs Mead. Our busy schedules soon began to create problems. Lee was in New York on an acting course while I was busy in London. I\u2019d spend a fortune clocking up the air miles trying to coordinate being with my man when I thought I was ovulating. As Lee returned from New York, I moved to Edinburgh for a four-week stint at the festival performing a one-woman show. With the physical and mental exertion I was in bed, exhausted, by ten o\u2019clock every night. I put my tiredness down to the adrenalin of being on stage and the busy year. On my return, Lee thought it was highly unlikely I was pregnant and I was probably just under the weather. He persuaded me to save the only pregnancy test we had left \u2014 not because it cost \u00a310 and he\u2019s a skinflint, but because buying the test without anyone seeing you is a real mission when you\u2019re in the public eye. At four o\u2019clock in the morning I sat bolt upright and I swear I could feel my hormones racing around my body. I opened our last pregnancy test with my fingers trembling. When two pink lines appeared I shrieked with delight. I \u2014 we \u2014 were finally pregnant.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a9 Denise Van Outen. Bumpalicious by Denise Van Outen will be published by Headline on 3 March, price \u00a314.99. To order a copy for \u00a312.99, with free p&p, call the YOU Bookshop on 0845 155 0711 or visit you-bookshop.co.uk<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
\nJudith Woods<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Denise](\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/c3431fcf603_634x756.jpg\")
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on trend in black opaque tights, denim shorts, vertiginous boots and a fabulous Vivienne\u00a0 Westwood crown pendant. Over in the corner,\u00a0 \u00a3800 worth of patent Mulberry bag (quite possibly containing half a banana fromage frais) has been flung heedlessly on to the floor.
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe right man I\u2019d have had a family years ago. My parents have been
\ntogether for 40 years and I wanted that sort of partnership, that sort
\nof loyalty. I still remember all the heartache, and I get slightly
\nannoyed at myself for wasting too much time dwelling on relationships
\nthat simply weren\u2019t working and crying into my pillow over guys who
\nweren\u2019t worth it. In affairs of the heart I\u2019m quite sensitive and it
\nwas frustrating to be with men who didn\u2019t have the same vision of
\nsettling down.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n
every single time, regardless of the evidence to the contrary, \u201cThis is the one, this is happy ever after, white picket fence time\u201d, and actually half the guys never call you back and the other half are seeing somebody else on the side.\u2019
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nBetsy \u2013 who\u2019s doing the night feed or getting up early. We had this
\nhilarious argument the other week because he was appearing in the
\nmusical Wicked and I\u2019m in Legally Blonde: The Musical, and someone
\nneeded to take her to the doctor which would mean missing a Saturday
\nmatin\u00e9e. We were getting very het up about who had the bigger role and
\nwas more crucial to their show \u2013 he said that he had two solos, but I
\nreplied that I had two solos and I had to dance an Irish jig. It was
\nridiculous! In the end, I stayed behind with Betsy; sometimes Mum just
\nhas to be there.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n
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\nshe\u2019s under no illusions that there are cons as well as pros to being a
\ngirl-power pioneer. \u2018I\u2019m still battling to prove that I\u2019ve finally
\ngrown up. Last year I was doing something for Comic Relief and just
\nbefore we went on air, the producer said, \u201cThis is a primetime show
\nwith a family audience, Denise, so don\u2019t say anything rude or risqu\u00e9.\u201d
\nThere I was, 35, married and pregnant, and I was being treated like a
\nmouthy teenager.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n
\nabout certain things; I\u2019m not one to take insults or criticism lying
\ndown. I also feel that being in the public eye means the onus is on you
\nto some extent to talk about things that matter to you and affect other
\npeople.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n
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