I’ve been slagged off for 40 years, says Carol. That’s why I’m speaking out now...
SHE has a natural gift with numbers. But Countdown genius Carol Vorderman has now revealed another ‘superpower’ – honed from ‘being slagged off for 40 years’.
The 62-year-old says it allows her to brush off any personal criticism as she embraces the role of an anticorruption activist.
She tells today’s You magazine: ‘When you’ve had false headlines written about you, helicopters over your house, your kids followed by paparazzi, and every part of your life – my body, my face, my hair, my sweaty armpits, my cellulite – has had abuse flung at it over a very long period of time, one of two things happens.
‘You either go under, which I will never do. Or it gives you a superpower.
‘You think, “Well, you [her critics] haven’t got anything more in your bloody locker, have you?” I’ve got nothing to apologise for so I live without apology.
‘And where I feel a sense of right or wrong – as opposed to right or left – I call it out.’
Miss Vorderman recently hit the headlines after clashing with Women’s Health Minister Maria Caulfield over menopausal workers. She also launched a broadside against former friend Baroness Mone over allegations she had profited after lobbying for PPE contracts during the pandemic.
‘I’ve always kept my opinions to myself but I’ve been so angered by the lack of freedom of speech and what I believe is corruption that has been taking place,’ she explains.
‘So many people every day in the street stop me and say, “Thank you, we feel we have no voice.”’
Miss Vorderman’s unapologetic attitude also extends to her love life and her ‘no-strings-attached’ relationships with multiple men.
Calling them her ‘special friends’, the mother-of-two adds: ‘I’m continuing with that system and it’s working very well.
‘There are five of them. One’s been a friend for 11 years, one for seven. My kids know most of them.’
Miss Vorderman said all of them are single and she works on the principle she is doing ‘no harm’.