Cat Deeley is prepping for a major life change - she is set to become the new four-day-a-week co-host of This Morning alongside Ben Shephard.
But with this exciting new challenge comes the weight of balancing her family life, something she has opened up about in an exclusive interview with HELLO! this week.
© ShutterstockThe TV presenting veteran, 47, moved back to the UK in 2020, having lived in Los Angeles for 15 years while she presented the popular dance competition show So You Think You Can Dance.
© InstagramShe swapped her $5 million family home in Beverly Hills for a £4.9 million five-bedroom house in Hampstead which she shares with her husband and host of The Late Late Show on RTÉ One, Patrick Kielty, 53, and their two sons Milo, seven, and James, five.
© InstagramCat is taking the pressures of her upcoming comeback to permanently presenting British TV in her stride. Sitting down with HELLO!, the star admitted: "I drop the ball all the time. I’m exactly the same as everybody else."
She explains how she has accepted that striking the balance can be difficult. "I do the juggle – the juggle is real, the struggle is real," Cat said. "You know, we know, we’re all just trying to make everything work. It’s all a juggle; it’s juggling the things that make you feel good."
© InstagramAs well as a busy mum-of-two, a wife and a TV presenter, Cat also balances her commitments as an ambassador for Ella & Jo Skincare and has created a new fragrance oil with E11even.
Making the move back to the UK wasn't just about pursuing a role in British daytime television. Cat has also admitted that it was important for her and Patrick to move back whilst their boys were still young.
© Instagram"We had always thought: 'Our boys have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins they adore, and they adore them right back'," she told Lorraine Kelly following their move. "It’s such a special moment in time and you don’t get those times back."
Cat has been open about wanting to inspire her boys through her work. The former presenter of SMTV Live released a children's book, The Joy in You, in 2020 which she said in a This Morning interview is "a series of feelings and moments and thoughts and emotions and it’s kind of top and tailed with love."
© InstagramShe explained that the book was born from "an idea of what would I like to say to them when I can’t find the words and I’m completely inarticulate and I can’t string a sentence together."
The CD:UK star went on to say that the book served as a message to her boys when "like every other mum at the end of the day once you’ve fed them and they’ve been in the bath and they smell delicious and all of those things, you are completely exhausted."
© InstagramShe also spoke about how her children inspire her to feel "seven and three quarters sometimes and try new things", adding that "we're never too old to try new things and sometimes the things that scare us a little bit are good to try too."
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