When Melanie Sykes took part in the Celebrity Juice comedy show back in October 2014, she was horrified by the experience.
The model-turned-TV presenter had joined the now defunct ITV2 show as a panellist – but the second the cameras stopped rolling, Melanie called friends to express her disgust at how she had been spoken to by host Leigh Francis.
‘She was not impressed,’ one of Melanie’s pals tells me. ‘She felt he had said some pretty rude things to her, and that it was all a bit beyond the pale.
‘That’s what the show is, of course. She would have seen others go on. But it could be very unpleasant when you actually experienced it [for yourself].
‘Melanie was not happy at all. She was furious with how she had been spoken to and ridiculed.’
So that might explain why Sykes once again lambasted Celebrity Juice – which starred Holly Willoughby and Fearne Cotton as team captains alongside Francis as his alter ego Keith Lemon – earlier this week. But this time she did it in public.
In May 2013, Melanie Sykes married roofer Jack Cockings who was 15 years her junior in a glamorous ceremony at Sherborne Castle in Dorset
The model-turned-TV presenter has hosted shows such as the Big Breakfast, Today With Des And Mel as well as finishing third in I’m A Celeb back in 2014
Speaking on her own YouTube channel, Melanie said: ‘Celebrity Juice was an abomination – the industry creates monsters.’
Referring to her time presenting ITV’s Let’s Do Lunch alongside the embattled Gino D’Acampo between 2011 and 2014, she said: ‘I remember once when Gino said to me he can just go up to the powers-that-be and knock on the door and go in. He doesn’t need a meeting.
‘He was quite pleased with himself that he could do that.’
She added: ‘I feel like I was in a war zone in that industry – 24 years of battling through an industry that didn’t feel right to me anyway.
‘If you’re spending all your time cleaning up people’s s***, just clean the house, clean out the house and start again, that’s all I’m saying.’
It’s probably fair to say that Melanie is no fan of the television industry.
In fact, in 2021 she quit working in TV after 24 years. She has recently revealed that the decision came not long after a remark from the now-disgraced MasterChef host, Gregg Wallace, that she felt was inappropriate.
Melanie enjoyed a six-day fling with a handsome gondolier who she met while on a trip to Venice. Melanie was 50, Riccardo Simionato was just 23 – less than half her age
Melanie was then briefly linked to singer Olly Murs, 14 years her junior
After being catapulted to fame in the mid-1990s as the face of Boddington’s beer – in which she was famously seen pulling pints of beer in an ice cream van – Melanie went on to host shows such as the Big Breakfast, Today With Des And Mel as well as finishing third in I’m A Celeb back in 2014.
But why exactly did she choose to walk away from such success?
Those who know Melanie, 54, tell me she was certainly ‘feisty’ behind the scenes, that she could ‘more than look after herself – and that if you crossed her then you were done’.
But friends of the star wonder if there might have been more to it than that. And whether her feelings about the way she was treated at work might be linked, not just to her decision to strike out alone, but to the very colourful love life she then chose to lead, which included a string of much younger men.
‘Melanie took no c**p but she was most definitely marginalised by the patriarchy at times,’ said one. ‘Perhaps that’s because she stood up for herself. And when it came to men, particularly those much younger than her, she decided to do whatever she wanted.
‘We would often think that being treated unfairly at work drove her to be more independent and feisty in her relationships.
‘In the jobs she was in it is difficult to have a sturdy love life – many women of her generation who have done well have been the same.
‘But Melanie takes the view that if men can go out with younger women, then why can’t she date younger men?’
Before marrying Jack Cockings, Melanie was married to actor Daniel Caltagirone – the father of her two sons, who are now 23 and 21
Melanie presented ITV’s Let’s Do Lunch alongside the embattled Gino D’Acampo between 2011 and 2014
In May 2013, Melanie married roofer Jack Cockings who was 15 years her junior in a glamorous ceremony at Sherborne Castle in Dorset.
Having been married once before to actor Daniel Caltagirone – the father of her two sons, who are now 23 and 21 – she opted to wear peach not white.
It wasn’t just the wide age gap that left Melanie’s friends concerned, but the fact that she had only known Jack for a year after meeting him on Twitter where they would often divulge intimate details about their sex life.
In one of the racy posts she tweeted that she had ‘the giddiest knickers of my life’ and told Jack: ‘I’ve got the raging horn, please take me.’
In another, smitten Melanie wrote: ‘Jack the rabbit I need some bunny love so hop to it!! Xxx boing boing!!! Loooooool xxxxxxx,’ to which he replied: ‘Only if I can bounce into your face! Xxx’, to which she asked: ‘Will you fill mine? Xxx’.
But their marriage ended after just seven months in December 2013, shortly after Melanie was arrested and cautioned for common assault by police. The caution was later revoked and deleted from police records. But she continued with the divorce and later admitted she had ‘married the wrong person’.
Although, despite all this, I am assured she is a doting mother.
Guests from her wedding were hardly surprised, with one telling me: ‘It was a beautiful wedding but a hard one, we were just like, ‘What on earth is Mel doing?’
‘There was a lot of talk on the day about how it would end in tears, but if Mel wants to do something, she will do it.’
In 2020 she shocked her friends again, this time enjoying a six-day fling with a handsome gondolier who she met while on a trip to Venice. Melanie was 50, Riccardo Simionato was just 23 – less than half her age. At the time, Riccardo, who still lived with his parents, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Beauty is relative.’
Melanie was then briefly linked to singer Olly Murs, 14 years her junior, and German golfer Martin Kaymer, who is 15 years younger.
Back in 2017, in a rare comment about her interest in younger men, Melanie said: ‘Men of my age tend to have shut down in some way, or they’re not as confident.
‘One of the reasons I think I end up with [younger men] is because they don’t seem to have a problem approaching me. They have a bit more about them and they’re more confident, and I need someone with confidence.’
There was, though, one older man that Melanie adored: her former co-star Des O’Connor.
The pair hosted ITV’s Today With Des And Mel between 2002 and 2006 and became firm friends.
‘He gave her some hope that not everyone was a horrid idiot,’ said a friend of hers. ‘She adored him, she loved spending time with him and he was always there for her.’ Melanie was devastated by his death in November 2020.
‘Melanie is a strong woman,’ said the friend, ‘and she just thinks, ‘Why not?’ She can get young men. It’s all a bit like Madonna: why not if you can?’
