Dermot O’Leary reflects on a life on the telly and radio: ‘I’m not going to my deathbed feeling over the moon at how many christenings, birthdays and weddings I’ve missed – but that’s the career’-Mel Evans-Entertainment – Metro

Dermot O’Leary reflects on a pretty stellar job he’s found himself (Picture: REX/ITV)

In the upper echelons of UK TV stands a holy guard of mononymous presenters: Ant and Dec, Claudia, Davina – Rylan is certainly on his way. Dermot has remained at the top for decades.

Dermot – O’Leary, if you want to be formal and professional – comes from the TV stomping ground of T4 and the era that saw presenters including Vernon Kay and Alexa Chung cut their teeth on the telly.

From there, he was a part of reality juggernauts Big Brother and X Factor, balancing a burgeoning radio career while also just appearing to be a ruddy delightful figure in the world of celebrity.

To confirm such delightfulness, when Metro.co.uk joins This Morning and BBC Radio 2 star Dermot on a Wednesday afternoon and he’s late, he’s immediately let off the hook when he tells us the reason for his delay is because he was chasing his cat, who had set up home in the neighbours’ yard. You try being mad at such wholesomeness.

We were on course to dissect his up-front-and-centre role as part of the then-happening Radio 2 Live In Leeds festival, which would have seen the likes of Craig David, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Nile Rodgers take to the stage, before the event was cancelled in the wake of the Queen’s death.

However, talk soon turned to Robbie Williams – who was also on the Live In Leeds roster – and their Reel Stories deep dive, his thoughts on fame (getting tables at restaurants isn’t so bad) and the live TV moments he still looks back on.

Get comfy.

Dermot, talk to us about your Reel Stories with Robbie…

Robbie is really interesting, isn’t he? It’s only when you sit down and go through Robbie in your head, you go “yeah, Angels, Let Me Entertain You and a couple of others” but it is killer after killer. Such a great frontman.

Dermot and Robbie come together for Reel Stories (Picture: BBC)

Normally [the series is] a really pleasurable experience, and it was with Robbie, but what’s different – Robbie is an addict, and I’ve got mates in AA, NA, and you get this unbelievable honesty from them that they will tell you their story. Their lives are always in progress. But what comes with, you know, the AA program is this unbelievable…no one’s skirting and no one’s hiding.

So immediately we were talking about addiction, immediately we’re talking about depression, immediately we’re talking about the parable of fame and wanting something but not really knowing what it is you’re after. We were there straight away. And that was pretty much what we talked about for two hours; the story of “be careful what you wish for” parable of fame, redemption, friendship, betrayal, love.

You know, he said this incredible line, “if you made a movie of the second part of my life it would be a love story to Gary Barlow”. It’s also this lovely story of coming out the other side, and the fact he’s got this love for these four other guys, and his wife and his kids and where he is now as a person.

The honesty just poured out of him. And I know Robbie pretty well from X Factor, and meeting him a few times down the years. We have a good relationship, but he was extraordinarily honest and it was a real privilege to interview him.

You’ve been at Radio 2 since 2004, currently hosting on Saturdays, it’s got to make working weekends easier when it’s somewhere like that?

It’s a lovely place to work, Radio 2. There’s a real kind of…you get on with everyone that works…at least I get on with everyone that works there. It’s lovely to bump into the talent as well, because on Saturdays we have such a nice vibe. We don’t get to see all the people during the week, obviously, but you know, from Tony [Blackburn] through to Claudia [Winkleman] then through to Rylan [Clark]…it’s just really fun.

The presenter helmed X Factor in its hey dey (Picture: Tom Dymond/Thames/REX/Shutterstock)

My whole career’s been working weekends. It’s fine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not gonna go to my deathbed feeling over the moon at how many christenings, birthdays and weddings I’ve missed. That’s always a regret, but it is what it is. That’s the career, that’s this position.

How do you approach the idea of ‘being famous’…

I’m very lucky, I’ve got a lovely level of fame that I’m very happy at. Everything kind of happened to me relatively gradually. And also when you’re a presenter, or a host or a broadcaster, whatever you want to call it, it is a kind of different fame. People, they’re not hanging on your every word, like you’ve written a song, or you scored a goal, or you’ve acted in an Oscar winning… so everyone kind of has a real idea as to who you are…

There’s a level of mysticism that isn’t there and I really quite like that because, for the most part, people like you or they don’t like you, they sort know you know, a version of you.

He got his on-air start on T4 in the 90s (Picture: Brian Rasic/Getty Images)

I’ve always taken it with a bit of a pinch of salt. There’s a great Jerry Seinfeld quote, and he said, “You know, before I was famous, it wasn’t that great and then I became famous and it was pretty great”. It’s sort of boring stuff, tables at restaurants, but you take it all with a real pinch of salt.

It’s not about being famous, it’s what you’re famous for, and if as long as I’m happily famous for doing my job and being an interviewer and people kind of like, you know, trusting me to present live TV and live radio and do a bit of writing and all of that then I’m perfectly happy with it. And for the most part, it’s nice when people are nice to you and it’s not nice when people aren’t nice to you. That’s just human nature.

Has there ever been a misconception about you?

Well, I don’t know. I mean, I could ask you that question about me, I do not have a Google alert about me. I’m not too introspective. I’m far too shallow and happy for that [laughs]. So, if I’m honest, I genuinely don’t know. I’d like to think I’m relatively nice to get on with. I’d I like to think I’m good at my job…have you got a misconception about me? It’s a difficult question to answer.

Big Brother is coming back, and as someone who hosted Big Brother’s Little Brother from 2001-08, what are your thoughts on the reboot?

You got very good people working on it. I think a lot of people that used to work at Channel 4 now work at ITV.

The presenter, here with Davina McCall, is of Big Brother stock (Picture: Channel 4)

It’s got to be a bit different, but at the same time, for me, I think it needs to have enough clear blue water between it and Love Island. I do think it needs to be very diverse. I think it needs to be diverse in the people that are in the house, diverse in its thought. I think it needs to have a lot of separation between Love Island and less of a popularity contest and more of a social experiment with a popularity contest chucked in. But I’m excited, I’m really looking forward to seeing it.

Having hosted live TV for many a year now, is there a standout moment that still makes you think, holy c**p that happened on TV?

It’s not so much moments, you look back at the shows. I started out on T4, and that was so much fun and so exciting because we were able to create the show from scratch. We’re all in our sort of early-mid 20s and Andi Peters was our boss and he was very chill about letting us make the TV you wanted, to be celebratory about the shows and the bands you had on, but he also let us be a bit cheeky so that was great. Margherita [Taylor], June [Sarpong] and Fearne [Cotton], and Ben Shephard and then Steve Jones and Alexa [Chung] and those guys, Rick Edwards, it was a talent factory, man.

He’s now a regular alongside Allison Hammond on This Morning (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

The hardest moment on that show, was when we did Party In The Park, which was I guess now what Summertime Ball is. Elton John was headlining with the Backstreet Boys [in 2000] and we’d finished the whole show and said everything that was to be said: our goodbyes, our thank yous, and we’re handing over to Elton John and Backstreet Boys, and Elton comes on stage and sits down at the piano, it’s been pissing down with rain for the last hour, two hours, and the piano’s flooded.

All we hear in our ear, bear in mind, this is like a half an hour set, we hear in our ears, ‘coming back to you, fill for as long as you can’. And I was with Vernon. Vernon’s first ever live TV. We filled for 10 minutes, that was the abiding memory of T4, just literally thinking ‘What on earth are we going to talk about?’

Then working on a show like Big Brother, which was just so much fun and so part of the country’s water cooler moments at that time. That was a wonderful, fascinating show and that show’s so many things to so many different people. There was such an innocence about that show as well, and even five, six, seven years in, this is pre-social media really, so you still have people auditioning or wanting to be in it.

They might want to be famous a bit, but really, you’re still seeing the real them inside the house. That was when I started producing on that as well, so that’s where I got my chops there.

Light Lunch was the show before I started on television, then you get the call to sort of play in the big leagues and then you doing a big entertainment show like X Factor, which was just phenomenal, to be part of this show that 20 million people would watch on a weekend just blew you away. And then all the way through this is this constant love of radio as well. So I feel very, very lucky and very blessed.

Dermot O’Leary is on Saturdays from 8-10am on Radio 2 and BBC Sounds, and is presenting Radio 2 All Stars on Saturday October 15.

Reel Stories: Robbie Williams airs 8.45pm tonight on BBC Two then available on iPlayer.

Got a story?

If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.

Entertainment – MetroRead More