Cat: “I love my boys – but I think I’m done with babies”
The TV host opens up about being a mum of two and the importance of traditional values
She’s carved out a successful S career Stateside since moving to LA in 2006, and found her fairy-tale ending when a long-term friendship with Irish comedian Patrick Kielty transformed into love and marriage.
Now Cat Deeley, 41 – who gave birth to the couple’s first child, Milo, in 2016 and welcomed a second, James, in June – reveals balancing a busy work schedule with two young sons can prove tricky, and insists she has no plans for baby number three.
FINDING LOVE
The presenter of dance reality show So You Think You Can Dance says, “Being a working mum of two is kind of like a massive juggle, where you throw all the balls up in the air and you try to keep them all up there. Most of the time you do, but then sometimes you just don’t and they all land on the floor. Then you’re on your hands and knees, trying to pick them up and sing and dance at the same time and make the little ones laugh and feed them broccoli!”
Asked if she has any desire to try for a little girl, Cat adds, “No, I think I’m done. I love my boys. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have them. I’m good, I think. Ask me again in 12 months’ time!”
After appearing to ping back into shape within weeks of giving birth, Cat admits the secret was to keep her junk food pregnancy cravings at bay.
She says, “I was really sensible on the pregnancy side of it. If I fancied a biscuit or an ice cream, I’d have some, but I didn’t go nuts. Because otherwise, by the time you get to the other side, you have a newborn baby but you’re also trying to fit in the gym and all the rest of it.”
Cat first met Patrick, 47, in 2002, while co-presenting Fame Academy, and they became close pals over the next decade. Describing the moment in 2011 when Patrick surprised her at a birthday lunch, Cat has said, “I went to lunch and in walked Patrick. There was a strange little moment like in the movies when everyone else just seemed to melt away. We spent the afternoon together just drinking, laughing, talking. He told me he wanted to be with me forever.”
The pair got married in a secret ceremony in Rome the following year and, opening up about why their relationship works so well, Cat said recently, “I always used to go for the same chocolate in the box and then I went for the strawberry cream and decided I liked it. And the thing I love about Patrick is that he’d say I was the lucky one, and he’s right, I am. You can’t ever guarantee you are going to find the right person – I’m just very lucky it happened to me.”
Despite having previously endured a long-distance marriage – with Patrick based in Ireland while Cat worked in LA – the couple have chosen to raise their sons in LA together, with Cat insisting on some traditional family values.
FAMILY FIRST
She says, “We try to sit down together every single day for dinner. I think it’s really important. It was something that my mum and dad tried to do with me, so that if during the day there was anything you were unhappy about or you wanted to talk, that was the moment. Milo eats with Patrick and I, and has a smaller version of our dinner. He’s always done that ever since he was a baby, but back then I’d just put it in a blender.”
And despite being so far away from her Birmingham roots, Cat insists on keeping her extended family close.
She says, “I love cooking for family and mine were just over to visit. They stay at our house in LA and we go back to visit. We’ve got a couple of bases in London to stay at when we’re in the UK and Patrick is from Northern Ireland, so we’ll take the babies there when we’re back, too. My mum still really helps me. When you have children, your own family becomes so important to you. I adore my boys and sometimes I get it right and sometimes I get it wrong, like every other mum, but you do your best.”