Melanie Sykes is up there with women we want to be. Or at least ‘women we want to meet down the pub for six large wines.’
And in her latest interview, she confirms her reputation as uber-cool with a damning verdict on how she deals with sexism from the opposite gender.
“I call it out,” she told Fabulous magazine. “All the time.”
She added: “I have to because people are just so [bleep] weird, especially blokes. It’s only men isn’t it? Women don’t do it!”
“Because I’m famous, they think they know me and how I’ll be, and usually they’ve got it completely wrong.
“I feel like I’m constantly having to educate men about how to behave around women. I actually relish it, because if I don’t tell them, they’ll go on and do it to some other poor woman.
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“So next time he even thinks about saying that to another woman he might decide not to after getting an ear-bashing from me.”
Mel, 47, has made it obvious that she’s a feminist in the past too, being spotted in a ‘Empowered Women Empower Women’ t-shirt alongside mate and fellow presenter Gabby Roslin.
“I don’t go around being an absolute bitch to men, but you can be firm, and I exercise that right all the time,” she continued to Fabulous.
“I don’t want to feel uncomfortable because of someone else – why should I?”
Hell yes, Mel. We’re even keener on that six wine-plan now. Bring Gabby too.
Controversially though, Mel says she isn’t averse to an ogle; just the comments that can accompany them.
“You can’t stop people looking,” she told the magazine. “I mean, I ogle beautiful men all the time. If I see a gorgeous guy I’m having a look, sorry! That’s human nature. I’m talking about etiquette and language and I’ve no fear about saying it.”
Mel has two sons, Roman and Valentino (known as Tino) with her former husband Daniel Caltagirone who she split up with in 2009. After that she was briefly married to Jack Cockings, who she met on Twitter, but they finalised their divorce in 2016.
Publicly, she’s single but she gave some heavy hints in this interview that that might not quite be the whole story…
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“I’ve had a private life for three and a half or four years now, and it’s amazing,” she said.
“When people say they can’t have one, well, you can. I don’t talk about it, I don’t share it, I don’t go anywhere where it’s going to be obvious. That’s how you do it.”
We knew it. No more sympathy, celebrities coming out of The Ivy/ Chiltern Firehouse etc.
Now seriously, about those wines…?