UBIQUITOUS is a word you don’t see everywhere. But it’s arguably, if not literally, applicable to Lorraine Kelly. You can hardly open your Investors’ Chronicle or Philatelic Gazette without finding her sonsie coupon beaming forth.
She’s pretty much a fixture in OK! and Hello! magazines, and here she is now in The Herald on Sunday newspaper. Her debut novel, The Island Swimmer, is out this week and is reportedly a bit of a Binchy.
By profession, Lorraine is a lady of the morning, and has hosted multiple TV shows with names like – checks briefing supplied by reliable researchers – Daybreak, Cockcrow, Sparrow Fart, and Good Morning Buttocks.
She’s been called “everyone’s cup of tea”. That is to say, she’s right normal, with a “nice” image that appears to reflect the reality.
Somewhat abnormally, she’s a “diehard” supporter of Dundee United, making her the Brian Taylor of telly showbiz, though a quick look through the cuts reveals that, surprisingly perhaps, Brian has never been described as the Lorraine Kelly of Scottish politics.
Despite having various platforms from which to ululate, she resists the temptation to hold forth about politics, though she has described Donald Trump as “appalling” and “dreadful”.
An unusual take on this popular figure. Earlier this month, she tweeted her hopes that Prince Harry popping in briefly to see his ailing old man, a king, could see bridges rebuilt within the royal family.
Yes, that would be the best thing to happen in all our lives.
Life for Lorraine began when she was born on November 30, 1959. She lived in yon Gorbals until she was two, then Bridgeton after that, before the family moved to East Kilbride when she was 13.
There, she attended a school before joining the local paper as a trainee reporter. After a spell as a BBC Scotland researcher, she moved to TV-am as Scottish correspondent, notably covering the Lockerbie disaster in 1988.
Then came the various morning malarkeys, including a show with that Eamonn Holmes, before she found herself appearing in a production called … Lorraine. She was in it.
In 2016, she hosted Lorraine Kelly’s Hogmanay, a programme dedicated to the ghastly annual celebration.
Acting up
Controversially, she has denied flirting, on her daytime TV show, with handsome hunk George Clooney, a seismic coming together of 60-something sex symbols that saw her blushing and giggling disgracefully.
More disturbingly, she was discombobulated to find that Made In Chelsea star Jamie Laing had a tattoo of her face on his … arm. Later, worrying that it was “a bit stalkerish”, and sensing she was “really upset”, he revealed it was just a temporary tat.
Aside from the dizzying array of shows hosted in her own right, Lorraine has made guest appearances on, in descending order of cultural merit: Still Game, River City, the Paul O’ Grady Show, So Graham Norton, the Jonathon Ross Show, and Have I Got News For You? One show she won’t do is Strictly, claiming she’d be “rubbish”.
She told Woman and Home magazine that she’d once asked Anton Du Beke – aye, him – if he could teach anyone to dance, upon which he had taken her in hand, so to say. It did not go well.
“First off, I’m Scottish and don’t like being too close to somebody I don’t know well, and he was too close. Then he said it was like dancing with a wardrobe.”
Speaking of wardrobes, in 2016, Lorraine told The Herald: “I’m not flash. I’ve got one pair of earrings because I have one pair of ears. And I have one handbag.”
Yes, but she’s got two hands. Doesn’t add up.
Our fastidious interviewer pointed to several Lorraine Kelly fashion collections, prompting the gal to exclaim: “Well, I can’t wear awful clothes on the telly.” I don’t know. Look at Jeremy Clarkson.
Sparks' dress will fly
LAST week, OK!’s investigative team revealed that Lorraine’s £79 M&S blue satin printed midi was set to be the “must-have dress of the season”.
As we suspected, it has a twist-detail waist.
For the Woman and Home photoshoot, Mailonline reported she wore “a slew of incredible rainbow ensembles including a dazzling high-necked dress before posing for al fresco shots in a billowing tulle maxi skirt ”.
I see. Last month, she was revealed as Owl on The Masked Singer, after performing Kylie Minogue’s Padam Padam. Readers, I swear to you that, at the time of writing, I’ve only had one corned beef piece. But this narrative is making me suspect I’m on drugs.
Returning to the planet Earth, Lorraine was appointed Officer of the British Empire in 2012 and Commander in 2020. Excellent. We’re sure the Empire is in good hands under her leadership. She’s patron of several charities and has been described as a “gay icon”.
However, she’s been happily married for 34 years to Steve, who “makes me laugh and is always in my corner”. Outrageously, on their first date, he took her to see Dundee United.
While Lorraine was at TV-am, the couple lived in Kensington during the week and travelled home to Scotland every weekend. Later, when she joined GMTV, they moved to Berkshire. In 2005, they returned to Tayside.
However, recently, they put their seven-bedroom gaff in the Broughty Ferry ghetto up for sale. I don’t know where they live now, and it’s none of my business anyway.
Lorraine has described herself as an “adopted Dundonian” and, like most people in the city, speaks fluent Russian.
Her favourite weekend breakfast is “a potato scone with black pudding and a poached egg on top with a dollop of HP sauce”. Which has now put me off me off my planned second corned beef piece.
Novel approach
THE lassie loves Orkney, where her new novel is set.
It’s a feelgood story in which, spoiler alert, everything is going wild swimmingly until, one fateful afternoon, amid torrid roars and cracks of thunder and lightning, the leading protagonists are eaten by a flotilla of great white sharks sent by Vladimir Putin.
We jest of course.
While declining to reveal what’s really in the book, we can tell you what’s not: sex. That should help sales.
Says Lorraine: “We all know what happens and where it goes” – eh? where what goes? – “but my mother’s going to read it!”
She adds: “Parts of the book are funny and quite cheeky – because I am. I love being unleashed!”
Woman’s out of control. And she’s everywhere.
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