Kate: “I quit TV so I could be a better mum”
Former X Factor host Kate Thornton talks to Closer about juggling her business with being a single parent – and reveals why her celeb pals are still her ‘muscles’
he was the star of Saturday S nights as the first ever host of The X Factor until she was sensationally sacked by Simon Cowell after three series. And as the hit show returns to our screens Kate Thornton, 44, tells Closer she quit TV to save her career, start her own business and be a better mum to her nine-year-old son, Ben.
“My career started in magazines and I jumped into TV when sales were dwindling. I thought, ‘If I want to be working at 50 then I need to transfer my skills,’” she admits.
“I couldn’t keep travelling once my son started school. He’d been on three Strictly [live] tours and visited the Arctic at 18 months. Try finding nappies in the Arctic! That was tough. To be the mum I wanted to be, I knew I had to start my own business.”
Kate launched fashion and beauty cashback site Tbseen.com last year, with the backing of a host of celebrity pals, including Myleene Klass and Denise Van Outen. But she admits juggling it all as a single parent is tough.
BALANCING ACT
In 2011, Kate announced live on Loose Women that she had ended her four-year engagement to fiancé DJ Darren Emerson just before their son Ben turned three. Now she admits that the driving force for setting up her own business was to be a hands-on mum.
She says: “I have to be at sports day on Friday because there is no one else to be there. So everything needs to get done by then. Tragically, I will be that mum who spends five minutes of every 15 checking emails.”
And Kate, who’s currently single, adds that it is difficult being on her own.
She admits: “I’ve been trying to have a bath for 11 days! I’ve had a shower. I ambitiously brought a Kindle with me today. I’ve got eight sweaty stops on the Tube while I’m eating a sandwich – that is my ‘me’ time!”
Kate was propelled into the limelight presenting Top Of The Pops back in 1998. She appeared regularly on This Morning and fronted Pop Idol before landing the X Factor gig in 2004, later becoming a panellist on Loose Women and hosting the Strictly Come Dancing live tour for five years. But it wasn’t always so glamorous and Kate worked some hard jobs before hitting the big time.
She says: “I had some terrible jobs. I was a receptionist in a sexual health clinic. This one guy came in – so I knew what he was in for – took off his wedding ring and asked me out. I thought, ‘Do I look that desperate?!’ I decided, ‘This isn’t going to be my life.’”
Kate became the youngest ever editor of pop magazine Smash Hits at 21 before radio and TV roles beckoned. But she was left red-faced in 2007 when Simon Cowell sacked her from The X Factor and brought in Dermot O’leary to replace her.
HUMILIATION
‘‘I’ll never talk to Simon again. He fired me to create headlines without even telling me beforehand, when we had been good friends,” she told Closer in 2009. “At the end of the day it was a game of ‘Simon Says’ and he wanted me out.”
Kate faced more humiliation when she was dropped from Loose Women due to a ratings slump in 2011. She then decided to enrol on a three-year counselling course to change her career. “You have to become resilient and it is a painful process,” she admits.
A documentary about Kate’s battle with anorexia and bulimia aged 11 aired a few years ago. At one point she weighed just 5st 8lbs after being targeted by teenage bullies, saying at the time: “I’m much better. My body has caught up, but I still need to