SYKES' SECRETS
Inside Mel Sykes’ extraordinary love life from catching Matt Goss cheating to gondolier toyboy and broken marriages
SHE was the ultimate Nineties ladette and made her name flogging pints of Boddingtons.
And now Melanie Sykes is hoping to boost sales of her revealing new autobiography Illuminated by pouring her heart out over her famous fellas.
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Actor Max Beesley, comedian Steve Coogan and singer Olly Murs have all fallen for Mel’s charms, as well her two ex-husbands and, most recently, a hunky Italian gondolier.
All of the above shared Mel’s love for a good time, unlike her first celebrity boyfriend, Bros frontman Matt Goss, who the model dated when she was just 22.
Mel, now 52, says: “I wanted to laugh and have spontaneous sex and be free, but our lives were not like that.
“Matt was focused on his career and I just wanted to have a fun-loving relationship.”
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The pair dated for five years, Mel seeing both sides of Matt’s fame, the Brosmania years and his subsequent struggle trying to crack America as “the new George Michael”.
Mel eventually moved to LA to live with the singer as a sign of commitment but quickly got bored hanging around in music studios watching him try to write his next hit.
And during that time she had to put up with Matt’s jealousy and his odd ways, including his request that she would always face the wall during dinner dates so he had a full view of the room.
Mel’s world came crashing down when she discovered Matt was cheating on her.
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She noticed numerous random numbers on his phone bill, some calls being made in the early hours, and after calling a few back, Mel was greeted by women claiming to be Matt’s girlfriend.
Describing the moment she found out, Mel writes: “I was dumbstruck, devastated and totally overwhelmed.
“I had been so worried about him being jealous of me, I couldn’t believe for all these years he had been, it seemed, prolifically unfaithful. I went to the bathroom and threw up.”
The Bros star begged for forgiveness, even asking if Mel would marry him in Las Vegas, but she snubbed his pleas and headed back to the UK.
She was almost broke as she had been helping Matt financially, ironically paying his telephone bills and buying extravagant gifts for his brother and ex-bandmate Luke.
‘Dumbstruck, devastated and totally overwhelmed’
The pair eventually split but Mel was happy to move on.
She headed back to the UK in the midst of the 90s Britpop party scene, spending her time in trendy London bars as well as raucous clubs in her native Manchester.
This was much more her vibe and she got well and truly stuck in, embracing her wild existence which she labels “my colossal drug phase”.
Her career was set to rocket, too, after landing the role in the now iconic Boddingtons ads, which propelled her to stardom as the scantily-clad model sipping the creamy beer and extolling its virtues in a deep Northern accent.
This led to Mel landing a presenting gig on MTV which was followed by a stint on cult Channel 4 morning show The Big Breakfast as a showbiz reporter covering red carpet events, while also standing in for regular host Denise Van Outen alongside Johnny Vaughan during the series heyday.
She became a lads’ mag favourite, posing in glossy cover shoots for the likes of FHM and Loaded which were obsessed with her ladette reputation.
But she insists this wasn’t entirely accurate, saying she only “drank pints because I didn’t have to go to the bar much”.
Those boozy nights didn’t stop, meaning she was regularly hungover appearing on The Big Breakfast and hosting a radio show on Galaxy FM.
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However, it wasn’t long before Mel found herself in another relationship, this time with actor Max Beesley, who she was introduced to by Matt.
She liked Max straight away, describing him as “funny, sexy and Northern”, and it was the Hotel Babylon star who got her into football, which meant she became an avid Manchester United fan.
But the romance was short-lived, ending after nine months in December 1999.
She says: “My relationship with Max had developed into a love match, but it wasn’t to be. Despite our crazy chemistry we were on entirely different planes.”
Mel was gutted over the split, but actor Daniel Caltagirone, star of the Lock Stock TV series based on Guy Ritchie’s Brit gangster flick, came on to the scene and changed all that.
They met while he was promoting his series on Mel’s radio show, and he immediately made a winning impression.
“He looked sharp, handsome and utterly charming,” she recalls.
Within the space of nine months, the couple had got engaged, married and were expecting their first baby, son Roman, who arrived in 2002.
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But their relationship was overshadowed by constant arguing and bickering, fallings-out over money and Mel’s “flirting” with guests on her successful ITV chat show she co-hosted with the late Des O’Connor, Today With Des And Mel, which ran from 2002-2006.
They had couples therapy in a bid to get through their issues and had another son in 2004, Valentino, who was later diagnosed with autism — a condition Mel recently discovered she also shares.
But his arrival failed to bring them closer together and the relationship eventually ended in 2009 with a nasty divorce, with Daniel’s lawyer asking for Mel to pay her former husband of eight years maintenance, which was thrown out by the courts.
Mel later enjoyed brief romances, including with a personal trainer, before finding love again with 25-year-old roofer Jack Cockings, who she met on Twitter.
They shared a similar racy sense of humour, summed up by Jack posting a message about their sex lives on social media, which led to the telly host having to apologise to her bosses at ITV.
They married in 2013 but their whirlwind romance finished shortly before she appeared on ITV1 series I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here!
Ahead of her 2014 stint in the jungle the warring couple had a bust-up in their home which led to Mel being interviewed by police and being given a grilling by social services.
After the breakdown of her second marriage, Mel travelled to India on a soul-searching holiday.
It was here she decided to go celibate, believing throwing herself into sexual relationships with boyfriends was perhaps where she was going wrong.
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Following her quiet spell in the bedroom, Mel then embarked on a relationship with Alan Partridge star Steve, admitting she fell badly for the funnyman, describing him as “charming, a total gentleman, silly, fun and super smart”.
Then there was the brief romance with singer Olly Murs, who Mel doesn’t mention by name in the book, but she does admit she told her reps “to lie and say it wasn’t remotely true” when The Sun contacted them about the relationship, fearing the coverage of the story could jeopardise her son’s exams.
The Sun eventually revealed the pair were dating in November 2017, but again, it was only a brief fling.
Mel’s most recent relationship was with another toyboy, a 24-year-old gondolier called Riccardo Simionato she met during a holiday in Venice in 2021.
They were pictured kissing after the hunk Italian asked her out on a date. Mel says: “I thought f*** it, I like him, why not?”
She added: “The chemistry was insane. He was intelligent, funny and respectful and we were really into each other.”
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Mel added: “I left Venice so sad to say goodbye.”
She wasn’t the only one.
Chef's bitter taste
MEL has a successful TV career spanning four decades.
But it came to an end after she met Gregg Wallace.
In her new book Illuminated she says she quit telly because she was left so unimpressed by the Celebrity MasterChef judge when she was a contestant on the show in 2021.
Gregg got off to a bad start by asking Mel: “So, models, do they eat?” during their first introduction, before she accused him of “peacocking around” and “holding court” backstage.
After leaving the competition she bumped into Gregg, who told her “Appearing on this will do a lot for you”.
Mel recalls: “I didn’t know what to say, so I smiled and said ‘yes’, but I was really thinking. ‘Yes, you have finally helped me decide to end my television career once and for all’. I was done.”
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