11 March 2024 , 21:55
955
0
Cat Deeley had a storming This Morning debut alongside Ben Shephard, despite being reminded of a decades-old TV disaster.
The day before the debut on Monday, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash had accompanied Ryan Gosling at the Oscars. And Ben recalled Cat’s nightmarish live children’s TV encounter with the rocker.
It was on Saturday morning kids’ show CD:UK in 2000 that Cat, perhaps unwisely, asked Slash about the worst rumour he’d ever heard about himself. She turned pale when he told the young audience about a sex act.
The TV hosts with Jools Holland and Sir Rod StewartMoving quickly to questions from the studio audience, a kid asked if he’d ever been hurt by one of his pets – and the sozzled musician said his iguana once “bit the f*** out of me”. But Cat was not put off by the memory.
She and Ben were welcomed into their new roles by her old SMTV pals Ant and Dec. Ant warned Ben in a video: “She might be all sweetness and light but that girl can party.” Cat admitted that her motto in life was to “work hard and play hard”. This suggests that if they one day win an award for this show, we can expect them to keep up the tradition of hosting with a hangover the next day.
Six teachers open up on 'difficult' strike decision - and why they are doing it
The pair seemed relaxed working together, to the point that relationship expert Mel Schilling told them they looked like they’d been “doing this together for 100 years”. Steady on, Mel, Cat’s only 47 and Ben’s 49. The banter was on point. When Ben told a story about a woman whose lunch-hour bum-lift went horribly wrong, Cat quipped: “It would take a lot longer than that to lift my bottom.”
The show was jam-packed with fashion, food and famous faces including Barbara Windsor’s widower Scott Mitchell and his new love Tanya Franks. Guests seemed genuinely thrilled to be there, none so much as Gyles Brandreth, who told them: “We feel like we’re taking part in broadcasting history.”
So well done to Cat and Ben. No one swore, always a plus on live daytime TV, and there wasn’t an X-rated anecdote in sight. Now, how’s day two looking?