Scarlett Moffatt wants to stay on Gogglebox ‘forever’ and reveals her plans for a Katie Price style wedding
Scarlett Moffatt cannot lie.
The quick-witted armchair telly pundit has been watching I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! with her mum and dad since she was 10 years old, but as the bubbly Geordie takes part in her only photo shoot before jetting to the Aussie outback, she reveals the real reason why she’s so jump-up-and-down excited to be entering the jungle.
“I’m obsessed with Ant and Dec, to the point where it’s properly stalker-ish – when they first started following us on Twitter I started crying. That’s not normal, is it?’” laughs Scarlett, 26.
“I tweet them all the time to say that I love them. They’re Geordie heroes. I can’t believe I’m going to be standing next to them. I’m freaking out because my mam keeps saying: ‘Please don’t embarrass yourself and cry when you meet them.’ I think I’m going to.”
Hopefully she’ll manage to contain herself as there is something she’d like to ask them.
“When Ant and Dec tell us that we’ve got to shout: ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!’ to stop a trial, I want to ask if I can just say: ‘I’m sometimes on the telly, get me out of here!’” says Scarlett.
“I hate the C-word with a passion. I don’t want to say it, it cringes us. Saying it makes you sound like you think you’re better than other people when you’re not.”
There’s little chance anyone will think that of Scarlett.
After three years brightening up our Friday nights with mum Betty, dad Mark and sister Ava on Gogglebox, along with the success of her autobiography Scarlett Says and a gig hosting Capital FM’s North East breakfast show, she reached a point nine months ago when she was able to give up her day job of helping disabled students secure funding for university.
But her feet – snuggled cosily inside those fluffy slippers – are firmly on the ground. “I only quit my job because of the radio gig. I can always go back to it if I have to. I don’t know how long this is all gonna last, so I’m just trying to take every opportunity,” she says.
“This still seems a bit surreal. I find it mental when people come up to me and know my name. I get overwhelmed that people just know who I am. The fame side of things means it’s never boring on a night out because we get to chat to lots of people.
"But honestly, if someone said: ‘Do you want a night out or do you want to stay in with a cup of tea?’ I would much rather stay in. I could never fit into Geordie Shore. I’d get kicked out for being too boring.
"I never watch that, actually – I prefer Antiques Roadshow. I’d rather find out how much a Fabergé egg is worth than watch people get drunk. I’ll probably be lynched for saying that!”
One thing the County Durham star won’t be short of as she heads into the jungle is support from in and around Newcastle.
She’s much-loved to the point where she finished joint third with Alan Shearer in a poll in the North East to vote for their favourite home-grown stars to be faces carved into giant Halloween pumpkins. “I wanted to put that on my Twitter bio,” she says, clearly chuffed to bits.
“My mam was like: ‘Don’t be stupid.’ I said: ‘This is my biggest achievement to date!’ It went Robson Green first, [pop star] Cheryl second, then me and Shearer. It’s the proudest I’ve ever seen my dad. He rang us up: ‘Have a look at The Chronicle!’ I was like: ‘Bloody hell, Dad, calm down.’”
“I tweeted loads when Vicky was in the jungle to try to get people to vote for her. It is
a good thing about the North East – everyone is really supportive. I think because there
aren’t as many opportunities up north as there are down south, everyone loves it when people do well,” says Scarlett.
“Hopefully I won’t let County Durham down. Three weeks is a long time to lie, so all you can do is be yourself.”
If there’s a secret to her success, that’s it right there. Self-deprecating Scarlett has always been herself, even when she was bullied at school because she didn’t really fit in.
“I think it was the monobrow, and teeth that could chew an apple through a letterbox,” she laughs.
“I was a bit weird. Even as a kid when I was 11 or 12, I would watch shows like Bottom, The Young Ones and Red Dwarf.
"I went metal-detecting with my dad. I liked going to watch Roman re-enactments. I wasn’t like the other kids in the school – I still wore my hair in pigtails. In hindsight, my mam should probably have not done my hair in pigtails…
“That was in year nine. But once I moved schools and puberty hit over the six-weeks holiday, all of a sudden I got boobs, my mam let me wax my eyebrows and I went and got my hair done. I just had this new-found confidence. I thought: ‘I’m gonna go to this new school and I’m just gonna be me.’
"I still didn’t try to fit in but, luckily, everyone was nicer there. You can’t please everyone
all the time. It’s best just to be you.”
She’s true to her word even in the face of body-shaming on social media from outspoken columnist Katie Hopkins.
“Katie is just controversial for the sake of being controversial,” reflects Scarlett. “She hurts people’s feelings. If she’d met me and then formed an opinion of me, I’d be like: ‘That’s your opinion, fine.’ But she just judges people on what they look like. She’s a nasty woman.
“Most of the body-shamers on Twitter are men, though. Although it’s 2016, men still think they can form an opinion based on what women look like. I’ll be honest, sometimes it does hurt when they say stuff. When you get it a lot, it’s impossible to say that it doesn’t bother you. I have learnt to never read the comments on websites. Vicky gave me that advice.”
A former ballroom and Latin dance champion who trained from the age of six, Scarlett is no longer a size 16 – the 5ft 1in star is almost unrecognisable after 14 weeks of dieting and fitness training; she’s now a size 10 and weighs just eight stone. Her forthcoming New Year weight-loss DVD, Scarlett’s Superslim Me Plan, will no doubt be a bestseller.
“One of the questions people keep asking – ’cos obviously I’ve lost weight – is: ‘Do you
get more admirers now?’” says Scarlett.
“But I’ve got a boyfriend [Luke Crodden] so I wouldn’t even notice if people were looking at us. Plus, I don’t view myself as a sexy person. I cringe when people ask questions like that. I can feel myself going red.”
Not as red as she’ll be when she meets Ant and Dec tomorrow night…
MORE ABOUT LITTLE MISS MOFFATT'S WORLD
Scarlett on… her boyfriend Luke
“I knew Luke from years ago, but we met up again randomly on a night out and started chatting about aliens and I was like: ‘I’m gonna marry him.’ One: you’re ginger. Two: you like aliens. You’re for me. My little sister loves him because even though he knows nothing about Pokémon, he pretends that he does. He Googles stuff before he comes to the house. That’s nice, innit? It’ll be weird sleeping in a hammock in the jungle without him. That’ll be sad. I’ll be spooning meself.”
Scarlett on… getting married
“I’ve already told Luke my ring size and what ring I’d like, just in case he would like to pop the question. I would arrive on a unicorn. I’m aware they don’t exist, but I would like a white horse with a horn on it. That sounds wrong! I’d like a proper Katie Price wedding. Luke would be wearing the same outfit as the beast off Beauty And The Beast. And I would be wearing yellow. I would want people dressed as singing candles and everything. You’re getting us excited now!”
Scarlett on… jungle campmates
“Someone like [Corrie star] Helen Flanagan would be the worst person for me to be stuck in the jungle with. Only because I’m quite drama-free so I don’t really understand when people are like princesses. I don’t get why someone can’t cope without wearing make-up and stuff. I’m like: ‘That’s what you look like. That’s your face.’”
Scarlett on… her 10-year-old sister Ava
“I had to explain to people: ‘We don’t stick her in a freezer and defrost her when we want her.’ She does have the option to watch telly with us. She’d just rather sit with the Gogglebox crew in the dining room and watch us. She’s really not bothered. But if we’re watching something that she likes, she’ll come in.”
Scarlett on… her Gogglebox future
“I’ll definitely do the programme for the foreseeable future. I could see myself doing Gogglebox till I’m in a nursing home – I want to do it for ever, really. I’ll be doing it with my own kids.”
Scarlett…On her preparation for the jungle
I suppose the only mental preparation I’ve been doing is I’ve been watching it since I was 10. It’s funny because I was talking to the I’m A Celeb production and everything’s top secret. They were like: ‘We can’t tell you when you’re going out.’ I was like: ‘Well, it starts on a Sunday every year. And it has to fit in with The X Factor.’ They were like: ‘You know too well.’
Scarlett... on Vicky Pattison
Well, I daren’t tell anyone that I’m doing it. I did chat to her once she’d got out and obviously she did amazing. I wish I could ask her some tips. All you can do is be yourself. Three weeks is a long time to lie.
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