I piled on five stone during pregnancy but I’m in no rush to lose it all... I don’t want my girls to think weight is a thing to worry about
professional life took a nose dive. “I was too famous to work in McDonald’s but not famous enough for good roles. “I went from rags to riches and rags, bankruptcy! We went from private jets to having nothing,” she has said. There were shoots for lads’ mags in the early Noughties and then I’m a Celebrity came along – and after she was named runner-up, Myleene was offered plenty of exciting work.
She became a DJ for Classic FM, fronted the Classical Brits, hosted 10 Years Younger and The One Show, and designed women’s and kids’ clothes for Littlewoods and Very. Things were looking up in her personal life as well... Myleene fell for security consultant Graham Quinn and they married in 2011. But Quinn, the father of her eldest two children, left after six months of marriage, on Myleene’s 34th birthday in 2012.
The aftermath of the divorce, including more money worries and anxiety, led her to drinking too much. Finding herself a single mum, she swore off men for years but things changed when friends set her up on a blind date with fashion PR Simon
Motson three years ago. Last August, they welcomed their first child, son Apollo.
Looking after a newborn in her 40s is “massively different” to bringing up her first two, Myleene says.
“I’m more relaxed. When you have a child when you’re younger, it takes one comment from someone and you start really second guessing yourself.
“This time around, I just let everything flow over me. I don’t sweat the small stuff.
“Mentally, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been.”
Simon has a son and daughter the same age as Ava and Hero, and Myleene returned to Classic FM in September with Apollo in a baby sling when he was only six weeks old.
Life is certainly busy. She said on Instagram recently: “I now teach three lots of piano lessons, boxing, extra German, science homework, iron four uniforms, kiss five children good night, listen to more problems, add more bullies’ names to my lists after tales of school, cut more hair, tidy more bedrooms, take seven on holiday.” It certainly sounds exhausting.
“If you cut me open I’d bleed coffee,” she says. “But I love it because I know [this stage] is quite fleeting. I even look foward to the night feeds. You understand just how precious this time is, and how quickly it goes.
“With Ava, it’s trying to navigate social media, what’s going on with her friends and how she’s coping with school work.
“She is becoming a woman and that brings a whole host of new challenges. “The most important thing is that you trust your children and give them the tools they need.
“Otherwise you’ll be forever helicopter parenting.”
Myleene is fronting a campaign for the new kids’ cereal from Kellogg’s, WK Kellogg, which contains fruit and vegetables. “When I said, ‘There’s vegetables in there’, the kids couldn’t believe it,” she says.
Small steps like ensuring children eat healthily can seem like big victories to busy parents.
And although Myleene will no doubt be pictured looking super-slim again soon, she’s the first to admit that behind the enviable image, life isn’t always perfect.
“I don’t get it right all the time,” she confesses. “I just try my best.”
MYLEENE FEELS MORE SECURE AS A PARENT
Mentally, I am now stronger than I’ve ever been