MYLEENE Klass is angry.
She is sick of people forcing women to behave in a certain way, then slating them when they don’t conform – and she’s feeling particularly aggrieved for her friend Vanessa Feltz.
The TalkTV presenter, 61, who split from her cheating ex-fiancé Ben Ofoedu, 50, earlier this year, recently appeared on Channel 4’s Celebs Go Dating, and was criticised by the show’s dating experts for her behaviour.
“I got really cross about how Vanessa was treated,” mum-of-three Myleene, 45, admits.
“And I’ll tell you why: maybe you don’t want to date Vanessa, but why was she put in a position where people thought she was being rude on the date?
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“Women are always reduced to being able to fit into a certain shape. I won’t see my friend treated that way.
“I actually think it’s a massive disservice to use women as a cheap-shot piece of entertainment.
“Let’s swap it around, because if the guy was saying: ‘She was boring,’ or: ‘She talked too much so I sacked her off,’ people would just laugh.
“It’s because Vanessa is bright, sparky and financially independent, and she keeps you on your toes. She’s bloody clever, and I love her.”
Myleene felt so strongly about it that she contacted the show’s experts, Anna Williamson and Paul C Brunson, to complain about them “gaslighting” her mate.
“I’m calling it out!” she says.
“We’re trusting the experts to set her up with somebody amazing, not a gaslighter who makes good TV.
“It’s actually really bad TV, because my children will see that, I’m seeing it, women are watching that, and you’re reducing us to: ‘Be interesting but not too interesting; make sure you don’t intimidate him, and if he is boring, just suffer it silently and with a smile.’”
Myleene admitted she will always have Vanessa’s back after the presenter comforted her during the breakdown of her marriage to Graham Quinn in 2012.
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The pair had been together for 11 years and married just six months when he walked out.
“Vanessa was also the first person to physically and metaphorically put a blanket around me when I got divorced,” Myleene says.
“I was so scared. I didn’t know how to be a single mum [to daughters Ava, now 16, and Hero, 12]. I said to her: ‘Can I raise two girls alone?’
“And she said: ‘You’ve been doing it already.’ I was like: ‘Yes! I’ve been doing it and I can carry on doing it.’
“She put the fire under me, so I’ll do absolutely anything for Vanessa.”
Having met her fiancé Simon Motson eight years ago on a blind date, is Myleene planning to set her pal up?
“Vanessa doesn’t need anything,” she says.
“When she’s ready, she’s ready. She knows what she doesn’t want, and that’s actually really powerful, because she’s had to learn the hard way.
“These cheap hot shots [Vanessa’s ex Ben did an interview saying that she had no intention of ever marrying him] – I’ve been on the receiving end of those.
“She might not be in the position to call them out, but I will.”
‘If you’re uncomfortable and your instinct says no, get out of there’
She continues: “When she’s ready and meets the right person, I will be the cheerleader.
“I always say to my girls: ‘If you are ever in any trouble, find a woman in her 40s, because she’s been through so much that she’ll be ready to help you.’”
Myleene – whose guidebook They Don’t Teach This At School has been such a hit that it’s been developed into a podcast, featuring pals such as Amanda Holden, Lauren Laverne and Amir Khan – is the perfect person to go to for advice.
She has been on the receiving end of unwanted advances herself, including from Russell Brand.
Myleene wasn’t single at the time and declined his offer. “I can’t say too much about it,” she says.
“But if you are uncomfortable and your instinct says no, get out of there.”
Myleene trusted her gut when she met PR executive Simon, although she admits that she never would have believed on their first date that they would be engaged with a son – Apollo, four – all these years later.
“I didn’t expect that, but it’s funny, you do get partners that are very different and it seems to work.
“He is definitely calmer than me, but I’m very level-headed in a panic situation.
“We balance each other out, but, ultimately, what I love so much about him is watching him be a dad.
“I used to get Father’s Day cards, as I was doing both parenting roles, and I think it’s a compliment that I don’t get them any more; he does.
“He’s an amazing dad, and he shows up. He’s there every school run.
“He does the small things, but they are actually the big things.
“He has never missed a single event for the kids, whether it’s Hero’s trumpet performance, Ava’s piano concert or Apollo on the football pitch.
“That’s what I love about him – and he brings me a coffee every morning.”
But she is the first to admit that creating a blended family comes with its own set of challenges – as well as Ava, Hero and Apollo, Simon has a son and a daughter from his first marriage.
“It’s really hard,” she confesses. “Everyone has their own rules and ideas of how you should do it.
“I always say: ‘We’re all in the same boat, and if one person rocks it, we’re all going over. My job is to get you all to land on this boat.’
“My neighbour tells me we’re all connected like patchwork. I like that. We all have our own little square.”
‘My daughters and I have put condoms on cucumbers for years’
Despite hanging out with celebs such as Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards, winning the country’s heart in 2006 when she went on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! (she was pipped to the post by Matt Willis), and cementing her place as the nation’s sweetheart earlier this year when she triumphed in the all-star version, winning her kids’ approval is proving tricky.
Myleene laughs: “After I left the jungle in May, everyone’s like: ‘Myleene’s a legend. She’s a champion.
“She did the highest heights. She ate the bugs. She beat Jordan Banjo, who’s 8ft.’
“And my kids were like: ‘Yeah, but you did crawl out on that ledge. You didn’t stand.’ That was it!
“Honestly, it’s humbling. If you’re a celebrity or in the public eye and need something to ground you, speak to your children.
“Everything I do is cringe! I think I’m alright, but they’re like: ‘No, Mum.’”
While Myleene might be “cringe” in her kids’ eyes, she has devoted all her energy to equipping them with a toolkit for adulthood and teaching them practical life skills, such as first aid and how to put oil in the car, as well as educating them on important issues like racism, contraception and revenge porn.
“We’ve all made mistakes, and we’ve got into trouble, but that’s where you learn,” she says.
“My mum didn’t have these conversations with me – I grew up with a Filipino Catholic mum who said: ‘You’ll get married and then you’ll have sex.’
“There’s that saying about becoming the adult you needed as a child, and I needed that information.
“My daughters and I have been putting condoms on cucumbers for years,” she says.
“I want it to be part of the language, it’s really important.
“I bought a bumper pack of condoms and said: ‘Everyone feel with it, play with it, don’t open it with your teeth, learn to deal with it.’
“Look, I don’t want them learning on the job. That’s where it goes wrong. They’re not going to learn it from school.
“Nothing’s off-limits. We’ve talked about drugs. We’ve done measures of alcohol – pints versus shots. It’s basic maths.
“We’ve discussed figuring out what your body can take, and how the body processes alcohol. We talk about it from a science perspective.
“I think it’s really important to talk about absolutely everything.
“I don’t even know what half the slang terms mean, so they teach me. If they can’t come to you when things are OK, how are they going to come to you when things aren’t?
“Somebody berated me quite publicly, because I said not to use silly names for vaginas, vulvas and penises.
“You have taken the power away from your child by not giving them information. There was a whole hate group for it.
“And I was like: ‘Honestly, hate away.’ If it means more people look at what I’m doing, I’ll take it.”
She adds: “I might still be getting it wrong, but I’m giving it a damn good go.”
Most celebrities would seriously dislike the idea of having a hate group dedicated to them, but Myleene just brushes it off.
“I’m over 40,” she says. “I’ve had a divorce, I’ve been famous for 23 years. I have dealt with – and will continue to deal with – whatever’s thrown at me.”
She’s even taken on MPs and won – managing to get pregnancy-loss laws changed to ensure more support for women who miscarry multiple times.
No wonder she recently quipped: “I get more done in a bikini than MPs do in their ‘pseudo-power suits’.”
“Somebody said about me being just a girl in a bikini, thinking it’s an insult or something to be ashamed of,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“It’s a compliment to me and my business. I sell a bikini every 35 seconds. It puts my kids through school, and pays for our lives.
“It’s made me a financially independent working woman.
“I had to have a crash course in politics. I think they saw me as some sort of ‘Political Barbie’ walking into Westminster in my coloured suits.
“But more fool you: I’ve been through four miscarriages, which is too many for anybody.
“Honestly, there is no hardship like it, because it is mental torture as well.
“Then I walk into Parliament and think: ‘How long have you been here and what have you changed?
“From what I see, zero – and it’s your job.’
‘I love it when people underestimate me’
She continues: “I love it when people underestimate me.
“I didn’t go to Eton, I’m not white, I’m not male and I’m not a politician.
“But I’ve gone for it. I’ve changed the law. I’ve got the balls to do it.
“I went to state school. I’m a self-made working woman who’s got her own empire.
“I make my own money and the financial liberation I have enables me to ask those questions, and if you reduce me down to triangles of a bikini, crack on.
“I’m greater than the sum of my parts. We all are.”
The speech is so rousing that Myleene would do well to stand in elections herself.
“Yes, I would go into politics, but not full-time, because that would mean I’d have to be an MP looking after recycling bins and potholes.
“My time is not best spent on that. There are certainly causes that I’m realising need attention, and I can help with those,” she says.
“I’m passionate about music, arts and education. My old school has lost its music department, so I mentor there.
I want to get involved in online safety. There are definitely things “that I can lend my ears, eyes and voice to.”
- Myleene’s new podcast They Don’t Teach This At School With Myleene Klass is available now on Global Player.
