5 MINUTES WITH...

Davina Mccall, 49, returns to our screens with a brand new talk show on UKTV channel W, which promises to ‘tackle life’s challenges’… It’s my baby! I’ve always really enjoyed being on shows like Loose Women and This Morning, where you can really get into

Where did the idea for The Davina Hour come from? What can viewers expect?

It’s a free-form conversation between a group of individuals who have something to say about each subject. We cover things like happiness, perfectionism and parenthood – and we bring in experts as I love someone who really knows what they’re talking about. There are also people talking about their own experiences.

What episodes really stood out for you?

“Parenting” is a really good episode. We had lots of different mums on with different methods of parenting, and the overwhelming feeling we had was how judgemental people are and how actually, if you’re a mum, then you’ve got to listen to yourself.

You open up about your own personal life; was that a difficult thing to do?

I think everybody knows I’ve had my demons. Everybody knows I’ve been on a journey. Were I not famous, then I wouldn’t necessarily tell everyone, but when I started doing TV I knew people would find out about my past. Dr Christian and I had a big pow-wow about it because he is on the “Perfectionism” episode talking about previously being bulimic.

Do you think it’s always best to be honest?

I think what’s interesting is we [as a society] used to be terrified about being really honest or saying: “I feel like this” or “I took this drug.” You think people are going to hate you, but when you are honest people react to it so well. I came out of my drug thing 20 years ago but people didn’t judge me – they saw me through different glasses as they knew it was an old part of my life.