Davina McCall backs Olly Murs after he was axed as The Voice judge
Davina McCall has thrown her support behind Olly Murs after he was axed from The Voice, saying: “He’s a brilliant panellist.”
Pop star Olly, 39, revealed in September that he had been dropped from the ITV show after six years. He has since gone on to land a guest slot on The Masked Singer – but panellist Davina says she was surprised to learn he’d been let go in the first place.
She says: “I’ve known Olly his entire career so it feels like he’s part of my work DNA. And he’s a brilliant panellist. I really enjoyed having him on the show. He knows so much about music, he’s great at picking out voices and he’s lovely. We didn’t talk about The Voice, but he didn’t seem down – he was absolutely chipper.”
She adds: “I was surprised about [The Voice decision] because I often look at Olly and think he’s as good a TV presenter as he is a singer, and it’s very difficult to get those two things right.” Davina reckons Joel Dommett, who hosts The Masked Singer on ITV, has the same magic. “He’s as good at comedy as he is at hosting,” she says.
TV favourite Davina, 56, who has been a panellist on The Masked Singer since 2020, has a really close bond with Joel and his wife Hannah, who she says have become like her nephew and niece. They are so close that Joel told Davina Hannah was expecting a baby before he told his own mum. In the past year, Davina has also grown closer to fellow panellist Rita Ora – even partying with her in Ibiza.
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Olly Murs and will.i.am sang a mash up of their songs Troublemaker and Heartbreaker (ITV)She says: “I have different relationships with everyone. Jonathan Ross I speak to a lot by text – we check in on each other. Then my partner Michael and I are a bit like Joel and Hannah’s auntie and uncle. We hang out quite a lot and spent New Year’s Eve with them last year. Hannah had found out she was pregnant that day so it wasn’t as rip-roaring as we intended it to be but we were so excited, obviously.
“And then Rita… weirdly, Rita and I have become closer this year, I see her a bit more often. Previously she was never here because she is the busiest woman in the universe. Mo [Gilligan] is the same, always flying around. But Rita and I did manage to hang out in the summer. I went to a party she had in Ibiza and I felt really cool. It just so happened we were on holiday with the kids, and we said to them, ‘Please can we go to a party, kids?’ They were like, ‘Are you kidding me? Can we go?!’ And we were, like, ‘No!’ It was really good,” she cackles. The Masked Singer returned to our screens last night, with hilarious new characters including the Eiffel Tower, Bubble Tea and Air Fryer.
Davina says: “Although the show format began in Korea, it feels like such a quintessentially British notion – being really silly. This series we have a guest panellist every week and I really enjoy it because they can’t believe how nuts it is.
“Jennifer Saunders was brilliant to have on because she’s one of my heroines, so to sit next to her was
an actual joy. And she was at her funniest when she was rude… her dry sense of humour was hilarious.”
Filming can be hard work, with each episode taking up to four hours to record – but Davina says everyone is still buzzing at the end, which is a “really good sign”. And, she says, fans should brace themselves this year for “the most incredible reveal”.
“I had the biggest shock of my life,” Davina admits. “I’ve never been as surprised as I was at one particular unmasking. I’m not telling you any more, but you’re going to love it.”
The past year has seen controversial figures Matt Hancock and Nigel Farage take to reality TV in a bid to win over the public. But Davina insists she wouldn’t see red if a similarly polarising figure was unmasked on their stage. She says: “Other shows are a bit different because people can talk… they can be controversial. But on The Masked Singer, they’re not being controversial, they’re just there to entertain us. Off the show, I’ll have my own opinion about you, but on the show, it’s just, ‘Thanks for giving us everything you’ve got’.”
Away from The Masked Singer, 2024 will see Davina return to host the second series of ITV dating show My Mum, Your Dad. Her online fitness platform Own Your Goals is also going from strength to strength and she hopes to give older women a boost by launching her lingerie brand Sessi in February.
She says: “It’s really exciting. At times, it’s almost been like therapy trying to get midlife women into pretty underwear. They say, ‘What’s the point? No one is going to see it’. But the really big point is that they see it and feel it. Lingerie should be saucy and fun whoever you are, and that includes women of all shapes and sizes. In future, I want to make lingerie for women post-breast cancer and cervical cancer, and make them really pretty and sexy. We all deserve to feel great – not for a man, but for us.”
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