Claudia Winkleman on her weight-loss, gain and why she's in no hurry to shift it
Me? Looking fantastic? Youre joking. Claudia Winkleman shrieks and leans back on the sofa to show me the flabby tummy she hasnt shifted since giving birth to baby Arthur three months ago.
I still look pregnant, she says, grabbing gleefully at the spare flesh that most TV presenters would sooner fluff a line than flash. I put on three-and-a-half stone and I dont care. Hes worth it. It comes off when it comes off. Youve just got to go with it.
Going with it is what Claudia, 39, the presenter of BBCs Strictly Come Dancings results show and the prestigious Film programme, does these days. Two years ago, her 11-year-marriage to film producer Kris Thykier, father of Jake, eight, Matilda, five and little Arthur, hit a sticky patch.
Happy: Claudia Winkleman says she put on three-and-a-half stone during pregnancy but doesn't care
He was spending long stints working in Hollywood away from their family home in London. Claudia, left with the kids, seemed to diminish on a daily basis with the stress of being on her own with the children. So much so that when hosting ITVs Hells Kitchen in 2009, she appeared to be little more than skin and bones.
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Anybody whos been married a very long time and says its easy is lying, she says. Because there are always ups and there are always downs. I was working hard, he was working hard and wed been together a long time.
Theres an extraordinary statistic about couples who split up within a year of the birth of the second baby. I dont really know what it is She pushes her fringe from her eyes. So then you have to decide whether you stay together or whether you dont.
I felt quite strong through it all. Ive got an amazing support network. My parents [she means her mother, former newspaper editor Eve Pollard, and stepfather Sir Nicholas Lloyd] live round the corner and I have my girlfriends, she breaks off before continuing.
Happy couple: Claudia with husband Kris Thykier
Im quite a pessimistic person. I dont expect anything to last forever. When we got married, I didnt change my name on anything. I dont take anything for granted. Like I said, there are ups and downs. Now its good but, interview me in two years time, and I might be feeling different. So be it.
And this is the thing about Claudia: shes so honest that you cant help but warm to her. She is endearingly kooky, too. And at least her husband seems to have learned his lesson. Today Claudias here, in a north London studio, so Kris has changed his diary to watch Jake in a swimming competition at school.
Childcare is absolutely 50-50 now. Look, I dont purport to be an expert. Now its good. Of course, there are some things, like when the little one wakes up at! 4am and I think, Oh God, Im so tired. I must tell you my son hardly slept at all last night. Then, at quarter to five, my daughters first wobbly tooth came out. I woke up to find her this close [she puts her hand to her cheek] saying, Mummy, something very important has happened.
So I apologise if Im a little bit slow.
Which shes not at all, but she is wobbly emotionally understandably so. This is her first day back at work since having Arthur and shes missing him dreadfully.
Claudia presenting Strictly Come Dancing The Results
Im obsessed with the other two but theres something about him, she says. I could talk about him until your ears bleed. Last night we went for a Chinese with friends. I left before Jake went to bed, which is incredibly rare. I always try to put him to bed. There was this feeling of absolute guilt over leaving them. I thought,
Im not going to earn any money and Im not with you. What am I doing?
She shows me a photograph of Arthur on her mobile. This is the longest Ive been away from him, she says. Look, hes only eyes. Which he is eyes he gets from his mum. He hiccups all the time so we call him Hiccups. Claudia,
Winkle to her friends, has nicknames for all three children Jakes Owl, while Matildas Tink and she lights up like Blackpool pier when she talks about them. She says having babies was what she was born to do. Her mother Eve, who was a hugely successful newspaper editor and devoted mother to Claudia and her half-brother Ollie, told her to earn a living and have a baby. Job done, says Claudia. Mum worked a lot but she was also very present. Shed come home, put me and Ollie to bed and then go out again to work.
I read the other day that a woman can be a mother and have a social life, or be a mother and work, but you! cant ha ve all three. I dont really remember my mother having a social life. She worked and she had us. Somethings got to give. She was never in the pub. She was at home reading to us and doing my history homework. My mum wasnt the person you saw doing What The Papers Say. The children call her Grandma Bonkers. She arrives in a flurry of stickers, singing and having fun.
The thing is, neither of my parents [her father is publisher Barry Winkleman, who separated from her mother when Claudia was three] ever felt important. Nick [Sir Nicholas Lloyd, a former newspaper editor and now head of a PR consultancy] didnt either. They were doing a job. They never felt they were irreplaceable, which is one thing they taught me. They earned a living, came home, filled the fridge and chatted about other stuff. My mum always said, Its only work and thats the most freeing thing. Claudia has her own ways of coping when life gets too frantic.
When Im working like a lunatic, which I do sometimes, I make sure Im nice to myself. I make a mug of tea and sit down to read a book or watch ten minutes of Nigella. I cant go all the time without stopping. Im not that sort of person.
Which is why shes agreed to support the Twinings Tea Gets You Back To You campaign, which encourages busy mothers to take time out to relax and refocus. She insists shes much more relaxed about everything these days. Even the pressure to stay at the top of her profession.
There will come a time when they [her TV bosses] say, Sorry, your face is on the floor love, can you leave? And thats fine. Or, when somebody else comes along and does the Radio 2 Arts Show better than me. Im sure that will happen as well. But she doesnt look particularly bothered about it. In fact, this whole going-with-it lark rather suits her. Getting older is a lovely thing, she says.
I! ll be 40 in January and I know it sounds bizarre but I think Ive spent my whole life waiting to be 40. I dont give a monkeys about ageing. When youre older theres less angst. I wouldnt be 18 again for anything. When youre younger you think, Am I pretty enough? Am I funny enough? Have I read that book? Now I dont care.
My friends are the same. If youve got a bunch of 40-year-olds sitting around with a Caesar salad and a Diet Coke and you go up to them and say, Would you be 22 again? Theyll say, Do me a favour.
Claudia was a studious goody two-shoes who excelled at school, securing a place at Cambridge where, she says, she was never the brightest or the prettiest or the loudest. I didnt have my first boyfriend until I was 17, she says. Actually, I was so good you could even argue I didnt have my first proper boyfriend until I was 21. I had no strong ambition. You know when youre asked, what are you going to do when you grow up?
Mine changed every day.
She ended up in the fashion cupboard at Vogue and Tatler before moving to Live TV and then ITVs This Morning, where her career took off. Although she says having babies is the only thing I was supposed to do. She was 31 when she had Jake, three years after marrying Kris in the south of France.
When I saw his little face, I couldnt believe it, she says. It was like suddenly everything made sense. When Mum sees me kiss Arthur,
she says, Thats how I feel about you. It never goes. Arthur, of course, was conceived shortly after that sticky patch. Was he a lets-make-a-fresh-start baby?
Oh no, she says. Its just to do with me loving babies and seeing the other two growing up so fast. I thought, No, no, no. We need to slow this down.
We were on holiday and there was a family with three children there. I just looked at them and then looked at Kris. I couldnt help myself. The pregnancy, though, meant handing over the presenting of Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two to Zoe Ball.
It broke my heart but Zoe ! is absol utely brilliant, she says. I couldnt do it because I knew Arthur was going to be too little, but I couldnt leave Strictly completely so I do the results show. It sounds ridiculous, but I feel emotional about it. I started when Jake was about six months old.
Kris and I watch it together. This is what we do from September to Christmas. We become obsessed by the foxtrot and I adore him for being obsessed, because Im on a train. He can either get on it or
The or is left hanging. Claudia looks at her watch. Its time to dash. I left the house at 8.15am and its five to one now, she says. I can barely breathe. I just want to go and get in the car, get home, get naked and cuddle him. Unfortunately for Kris, she means the baby.
Claudia is working with Twinings on its Gets You Back To You campaign, www.twinings.co.uk. See her on Strictly Come Dancing tomorrow at 7.25pm.
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