I miss having anonymity.. I’m 20 foot tall with the biggest teeth in Britain
Now in-demand star wants to help others
CALL Rylan Clark a national treasure and you get a flash of those soap powder gnashers, visible from space. “I’m a regional trinket!” he laughs. He’s being way too modest… and that’s not something we typically associate with Rylan, 35, all unflinching honesty and telling it like it is.
“I was very cheap in the early days,” he says. “Not so much now!” That’s an understatement too.
He’s gone from a council house with his single mum Linda to becoming one of TV’s most recognisable faces, via the X Factor and Celebrity Big Brother.
Rylan is grateful for fame and the security it has provided for him and Linda. But if there’s one thing he misses from the old days, it’s being that gawky 18-year-old ginger kid he once was, someone no one had heard of.
“Anonymity. That’s the main thing I miss from my old life,” he admitted.
“I’m 20ft tall with the biggest teeth in Britain. I wish, I wish I’d made the most of my old life. Going out, getting trashed and rolling home somewhere, in a wheelbarrow, you know, doing all of those things, without responsibilities.”
But instead, he’s made it big – in an industry he says is “full of a***holes”.
He said: “Entitled people that believe they are something special, and that they can talk to people like sh**, and that they can get away with it. And subsequently do get away with it.
“Going into that industry at 23 when I was on X Factor, I learned that the hard way by seeing how people would treat me, a reality contestant. ‘He’s not going to be about in two weeks, I don’t need to make the effort to him…’”
Now the tables have turned, and he’s the one interviewing them.
Rylan is one of the most in-demand presenters on TV, trusted with everything from This Morning to Supermarket Sweep to the Mamma Mia dating show.
Regional trinket? Not really. Maybe Working Class Hero instead – the lad from Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, just down the road from the Big Brother house, has never forgotten where he came from.
He is currently working with The 93% Club, which gets its name from a sad and damning statistic: In the UK, 93% of people went to state schools, yet they account for just 34% of CEOs, 35% of senior judges, 43% of the House of Lords and 56% of journalists.
I got success, I got married, I thought I was taking over the world in my 20s ... then I hit 30 and it all changed
It’s got Rylan fired up. He may be a superstar now but even he has been there – Boris Johnson’s team once refused to do an interview with him after he was a last-minute replacement. “Don’t let anyone else sit there and say to you, you shouldn’t be sat around this meeting table because you didn’t go to Eton, you went to a state school in Dagenham,” he said.
“Don’t let Boris Johnson’s team say to you, you’re not qualified to interview the future Prime Minister, when eight years down the line, I’m the one still doing my job and you’re not!
“I personally don’t believe in the political parties any more. Next year, I will be running! Free veneers for everyone! And on Wednesdays we wear pink!” We think he is joking, but he still gets our vote.
The self-belief needed to stick two fingers up to the Establishment didn’t come from Rylan’s dizzying climb to fame, it was found much closer to home. Growing up in a single parent family, not having loads, like a lot of people did, that’s instilled into me that I’m lucky to be doing the job that I’m doing,” he said.
“I was just thrown on to live TV, it’s all I’ve ever known, and I ended up being quite good at it.”
That success means one thing above all others for him – financial security.
“I never intended what happened for me, to happen. The reason I went on X Factor was my car broke down. Patsy the Peugeot, long may she rest.
“I thought, if I could go on that show, last one week of live shows, get a couple of gigs in some gay clubs, earn about 20 grand, I’ll be able to get a new Patsy, buy my mum a new front door.
“Well I’ve built three houses and now I drive a Range Rover... so f*** them, I’ve
done all right!” What came so easily, could go easily too, he sometimes thinks.
“I don’t know tomorrow, but if it all flies away, I’ve got them two houses,” he said. “That is the worst case scenario – living with my mum again.”
He lays his success at the feet of Linda – and the public. “If I’m walking about and someone asks for a photo, I will always stop because my whole life was a public vote at one point.
“If it weren’t for the public, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.”
He’d love to see an army of other working class Rylans hitting it big and there’s no chance of him pulling up the ladder now he’s made it. This might sound dodgy, but my ladder is always out!” he laughed.
His advice to wannabes is to treat everyone with respect: “Give everyone a chance because that person who you might think will just be a flash in the pan could potentially be the most influential person in the world in two weeks’ time.”
But Rylan knows he was also in the right place at the right time.
He recalled: “I was very, very lucky that I was on X Factor at a time that it did still make people. And celebrity in those days was a lot more of a currency than what it is nowadays. “[Now] anyone can be famous by taking their phone and saying the right or wrong thing. And then we all know about it. We all know that you can be in someone’s living room 24/7 just by holding your palm up, whereas in those days you couldn’t.” And there’s been anguish, too, such as the breakdown in 2021 following his split from husband Dan Neal after six years of marriage.
“It was a combination of my marriage breaking down, and actually stopping to realise the success that you’ve made,” he said.
“When I say I hit rock bottom, I was very much the worst place any person could be. There was no more down to get. And actually, looking back, a lot of that is because I didn’t acknowledge and celebrate the small wins.”
He hasn’t given up on love, wants a happy marriage and kids some day. Who knows what the future holds?
“In my 20s, I did everything. I got success in my 20s, I got married in my 20s, I thought I was taking over the world in my 20s.
“And then I hit 30. And everything changed in my head.
“There’s this mental thing where you go, I’m not in my 20s no more, f***, what’s going on?!
“The older you get, the more you start to know about yourself.
”In my 20s, I was so concerned about looking a certain way.
“In my 40s I’m going to be a horrible b ***** d. In my 50s, woah!”
A scary new Rylan for PM? Blimey. We’ve been warned…
■ Rylan was talking to support the 93% Club, which helps promote social mobility. For more information, visit www.93percent.club
Don’t let anyone say to you, you shouldn’t be here because you didn’t go to Eton, you went to a state school