CityLife

Carol comes clean

TV presenter Carol Vorderman certainly knows how to use her natural blessings of brains and beauty to their full advantage.

The Countdown hostess has been virtually unstoppable ever since 1982 when her mother spotted an advertisement in the local newspaper for an attractive, intelligent TV presenter.

The 43-year-old has carved out a niche for herself as the quintessential thinking man's crumpet and is now one of the highest-paid women in British television, having earned an estimated £4.2 million in the past year alone.

But, as a self-confessed workaholic, she admits she may have pushed herself too hard in the past and she is now beginning to take things easier, giving her more time to spend with her children, Katie, 11, and Cameron, 6, and her journalist partner, Des Kelly.

She says: "We have just signed a new Countdown contract until summer 2006, and I am not going to be doing much more than that."

One project she is still keen to complete this year is a fashion series for Channel 4, tentatively called I'll Wear What I Bloody Well Like!.

The show, which may be co-hosted by Sven-Goran Eriksson's girlfriend Nancy Dell'Olio, was Vorderman's own idea and is clearly her revenge on TV's style police Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine who put her on a list of worst-dressed women and called her "an overdone nightmare".

At the time, Vorderman got her own back by describing Woodall as an "anorexic transvestite" and Constantine as a "carthorse in a badly-fitting bin liner".

She explains: "I just don't like arrogance and hypocrisy. I was brought up to say what I think, so couldn't possibly just sit back and say nought.

"As far as I was concerned, if they were going to dole it out, they would have to handle a bit back.  And I just thought, shut up you two, you look like a bag of spanners yourself!"

Vorderman is used to dealing with the brickbats of celebrity. In September last year, she was rushed into hospital for an emergency operation, and a month later a newspaper ran the story that it was a cover up for the fact she'd had cosmetic surgery.

She says: "I went in to hospital for a medical problem, and, frankly, it's nobody's business what it was.

"But the thought that you are whisked into A&E of an NHS hospital for an emergency facelift is too ridiculous for words.

"We had to cancel all that week of Countdown - if you were going to have cosmetic surgery, surely you would pick a better time to do it.

"But, for the record, I haven't had a facelift and I haven't had a boob job."

Three years ago, Vorderman provoked plenty more bitching when she stepped out in a very revealing turquoise minidress at the Bafta awards.

But, as it turns out, she was to have the last laugh. She says: "Can I just say on that point, no matter what anyone thought of that dress, it sold a million detox books."

Advocate

Vorderman became a fan of detoxing four years ago when a friend of hers, a leading advocate of naturopathic nutrition principles called Ko Chohan, developed a plan which changed her life and appearance.

"For many years I was diet obsessed and counted calories, but once I had my daughter Katie, I couldn't move the weight, and I ended up at 11 stone and a size 14.

"Eventually I started going to the gym and lost the weight, but after I got pregnant again with Cameron, it started to pile back on again.

"Ko, who was helping to look after the children, persuaded me to try a detox diet and I lost weight without calorie counting at all. After two attempts, my size dropped to 8-10."

Vorderman's new eating philosophy has certainly made a big difference to her own life. Once dismissed as the "mousy, brainy one" on Countdown, she has attained such sex siren status that she has even been asked to pose naked for several publications, including a lad's mag.

She says: "The best offer I had was from the Daily Sport. The letter was hysterical because it promised they would do it in the "best possible taste". I politely declined."

Vorderman says she owes her success to the strength of character and work ethic inherited from her mother, Jean.

When her Dutch born-father walked out on his family in Wales, Jean was left to bring up her three children on her own. Money was so tight that she often had to take on part-time jobs to pay the bills.

Vorderman says: "I had to share a bed with my mum until I was eight or nine. But even though we had no money, we had lots of good times, and I have never felt at all sorry for myself.

"However, the one thing it did make me was very conscious of financial security. I have to know that, whatever happens, I can look after my family for the rest of their days."

Last year Carol was finally reunited with her father after more than 40 years of refusing to meet him, despite the fact that her mother and siblings had forgiven him.

She says of the reunion: "It was nice because it took me full circle, and I laid my demons to rest. At some periods in my life it was at the forefront of my problems, and now that's gone and I have no more anger."

Vorderman has always lived with her mother, even while she was with her second husband Patrick King and living in Maidenhead.

The couple's 10-year marriage ended three years ago, and last summer, Vorderman and her children moved into a luxurious flat overlooking the Thames. Jean moved into another flat in the same development.

"My mum absolutely loves it. She doesn't drive but because she is in the city centre, she can get a bus everywhere.

"She never gets bored, even looking out of the window, because there is always something going on, whether it's the river or bridge or Houses of Parliament."

Carol Vorderman's Detox Recipes with Anita Bean has just been published by Virgin Books, priced £11.99.