Cat Deeley for This Morning? This very skilled presenter might save the ITV sequence

What’s the weirdest hearsay you’ve heard about your self?” Cat Deeley asks Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. At 11am on a Saturday morning. On Britain’s most-watched youngsters’s tv programme. “Uhhh…” Slash stammers. “Getting a blow job in a bar?” Deeley hoots with nervous laughter, her life seeming to flash earlier than her eyes, a parade of kids presumably confused off display screen. “Moving swiftly on from that!” she cries, as she cleanly, impressively pivots to innocuous questions on touring and reptile bites.

This cult little bit of CD:UK ephemera – still on YouTube, albeit in such ramshackle high quality that it was presumably taped off reside TV in 2000 through morse code – is a testomony to the genius of Cat Deeley. CD:UK and SM:TV Live, the celebrated double invoice of ITV children’ reveals that reworked Deeley right into a shiny-haired icon of Noughties Britannia, was constructed on this sort of got-in-late-last-night naughtiness. She was a significant a part of it, gamely mucking in as one in every of “the beautiful Corrs” – the semi-regular send-up of the Irish pop group; poor brother Jim having to do with a bag over his head – or serving because the Jennifer Aniston determine within the present’s Friends spoof Chums. But she was additionally tasked with steering each reveals, holding collectively a pair of programmes all the time inside spitting distance of spiralling fully uncontrolled. Slash or no Slash.

This week, Deeley took the reins of ITV’s far much less dramatic This Morning, the place the prospect of Miriam Margoyles randomly discussing fellatio reside on air isn’t fairly as… properly, admittedly that is additionally fairly doable. Inevitable, even. But nonetheless – it’s a modicum much less more likely to occur on This Morning, which Deeley will host Monday by Wednesdays over the following coming weeks, alongside Rylan Clark and Craig Doyle.

Nothing has been confirmed, however it feels a bit like an audition – or not less than a toe-dip right into a everlasting contract with the present; Holly Willoughby, who introduced her exit in October, nonetheless wants a full-time alternative. Hiring Deeley wouldn’t simply be an awesome transfer for the present, however it’d even be a godsend for ITV – seeing as Ruth and Eamonn presumably stood beneath a blood moon and hexed This Morning and everybody related to it in some unspecified time in the future in early 2022. How else to clarify the present’s fast, calamitous unravelling?

There is theory from ITV circles that Deeley’s sunny professionalism is probably not consistent with the present’s model – that she is “cold” or missing within the mumsy heat embodied by Willoughby and Philip Schofield. But that dynamic duo had turn into a ugly twosome by the top of their run collectively and their obvious down-to-earth normality grew to become one thing of a poisoned chalice. As quickly as they demonstrated alleged dangerous behaviour, like maybe-or-maybe-not skipping the queue to observe the Queen lie in state, the British public turned on them. Deeley, compared, is extra of a clean slate – do you may have any actual stance on her past well mannered agreeability?

When you actually give it some thought, she’s merely a lady who is excellent at her job. The ease with which Deeley presents reside tv is partly why any randomer thinks they will do it. She comes from a college of legitimately proficient TV presenters, rising alongside her SM:TV Live compatriots Ant and Dec, but in addition the likes of Edith Bowman and Zoe Ball – folks with apparent onscreen charisma, who might concurrently learn autocues, hearken to in-ear producers and skirt round technical chaos with such grace that we’d by no means spot it at home. You know these enamel-peeling episodes of The Apprentice the place the budding entrepreneurs need to current reside on a buying channel? You know the way it quickly turns into a type of brightly lit snuff movie full of lifeless air and phrase salad? TV presenting is onerous work. Deeley makes it look painless.

The West Midlands-born, 5ft 9in Deeley entered the leisure trade at 14, having competed for a modelling contract as a part of the BBC sequence The Clothes Show. She didn’t win the competition however was signed by Storm Management anyway. Modelling proved to be a short-lived gig, with Deeley shifting into TV presenting after she answered a casting name from MTV, which was in search of presenters with “regional accents”. After a yr internet hosting the music present Hitlist UK, she was poached by ITV for SM:TV Live and have become a star virtually in a single day.

Deeley was softer than the “ladettes” of the sooner Denise van Outen/Sara Cox period however with a way of understanding cool that made her way more attention-grabbing to observe than, say, your common Blue Peter presenter. Sheer professionalism saved her out of the tabloids, too, with Deeley telling The Guardian in 2011 that she has all the time approached her trade with a level of booksmarts and realism. “I’ve identified that the industry isn’t the same for women, so my whole thing now is to get into producing,” she mentioned. “You can do one of two things. You can bury your head in the sand and believe what everyone tells you – that you will always be that young, that thin and that fabulous. Or you can use all the things you have – talent, contacts, knowledge – and do something different.”

Deeley stop SM:TV Live in 2002, adopted by CD:UK in 2005, whereas persevering with to current throughout UK tv. If you’re questioning the place Deeley has been within the years since – although you’ll have caught her hilariously sending up her personal picture in Peter Kay’s singing-contest spoof Britain’s Got the Pop Factor… and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice – the reply is America. Since 2006, Deeley has hosted the fact dance competitors So You Think You Can Dance, a possibility that got here her approach simply as she was in search of her subsequent problem; she had break up from a PR govt in 2005 after 5 years of relationship.

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“Nothing gets you to mend your heart quicker than throwing yourself into work,” she informed the Daily Mail. “When I came out here, I couldn’t dwell on the breakup because I had too many practical things to sort out – such as how do I set up a bank account, where’s the nearest supermarket and how do I go about taking my driving test?”

So You Think You Can Dance has lengthy been a kind of under-the-radar smashes, a present that hardly ever hits the headlines however has loved a faithful fan base for years. The competitors final aired in 2022 with its seventeenth season. For her work on the present, Deeley has obtained 5 Emmy nominations – for Best Reality TV Host – and common acclaim from American critics. “She’s as gorgeous as [Project Runway host] Heidi Klum,” wrote Entertainment Weekly in 2011. “Funnier than [Dancing with the Stars’] Tom Bergeron, more professional than [American Idol’s] Ryan Seacrest, and wears necklaces more fashionable than [Survivor’s] Jeff Probst’s. More?! Well, just look at how pretty she is!”

Thanks to SYTYCD, Deeley has turn into one in every of America’s most recognisable onscreen faces. The gig additionally led to numerous different internet hosting alternatives: within the US, she has offered or guest-presented every thing from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and The View to Good Day LA.

In 2012, after 9 months of relationship, Deeley married the Irish comic and presenter Patrick Kielty. They’d identified one another for years – they co-hosted the BBC’s short-lived “aspiring musicians in a big mansion” actuality present Fame Academy between 2002 and 2003 – however solely found they shared romantic chemistry after they bumped into one another in LA. He’d known as her to want her a contented birthday, and confirmed up unexpectedly to the Beverly Hills Hotel the place she was having a celebration. It was Kielty swooping in charmingly, Deeley later mentioned, that made her “slightly [fall] in love with him”.

Deeley and Kielty went on to have two youngsters collectively: Milo, seven, and James, 5. They stayed in Los Angeles collectively till 2020, after they moved again to London, impressed – Kielty has mentioned – by their horror on the thought of elevating their youngsters amid “live shooter drills”. (These are when faculties require their college students to be skilled in easy methods to flee-slash-survive a mass capturing.) “It’s something you would never want them to go through,” Kielty informed The Daily Telegraph.

Since returning to the UK, Deeley has labored persistently on the presenter’s circuit, judging The Great British Menu, and (considerably predictably) filling in for Lorraine Kelly whereas she’s been off on one in every of her many, many holidays. This Morning, although, can be her most high-profile enterprise in years if she makes it a everlasting job. They’d be fortunate to have her. This is a lady who expertly interviewed Christina Aguilera at her diva prime – Gino D’Acampo will comparatively be a breeze.