by FIONA PHILLIPS
The top TV presenter talks to Glitz Showbiz Editor NEIL BONNER
Although she loved her 12 years on GMTV, Fiona Phillips certainly isn’t going to miss the early starts – nor having to dress fashionably every working day.
In fact, she says her dream would be to appear on TV with no make-up and wearing the first thing she grabs from her wardrobe.
Which is why she enjoys presenting her Sunday afternoon radio show so much. “I pre-record it, sitting in the Smooth Radio studio looking like hell,” she reveals. “I wear an old tracksuit, with greasy hair and no make-up. It’s wonderful! I’d never dress up for radio, unlike Jonathan Ross.
“I’d love to appear on TV in casual clothes and no make-up. I hate that whole thing of ‘what do I wear today?’ At GMTV I had a clothes budget of thousands of pounds but I don’t have a huge wardrobe, just a few basics.”
Fiona, 47, says that having someone do your hair and make-up isn’t such a treat either. “TV make-up is so thick and brown, it gets all over my flannels and pillows, it’s disgusting,” she groans.
She has also had to put up with viewers sniping at her and one who even gives her marks out of ten for the outfits she wears.
But all this is about to change as Fiona gets her old life back, having quit the morning show - and the whopping salary that goes with it.
“My decision to leave GMTV after all those years on the sofa was the hardest I have ever had to make,” she says. “It was like jumping off a cliff and hoping someone would save me half way down….and yet hoping they wouldn’t.”
Well, it’s too late for second thoughts now.
So she is looking forward to new career challenges – and there have been plenty of offers – but mostly she can’t wait to lead a less stressful life; one that will allow her more time with her sons Nathanial, who’s eight, and six-year-old Mackenzie, as well as her GMTV editor husband Martin Frizzell.
“Twelve years ago when I first sat on the sofa alongside Eamonn Holmes I was a single girl just back from America, after completing over two years as GMTV's LA
correspondent,” recalls Fiona...
“Since then I've got married, had two children, nursed my mum through a long and tortuous battle with Alzheimer’s and juggled several jobs and a ton of guilt, along with running the house.
“My husband and the children all wanted more of my time and something had to give – and it had to be the job.”
She’s going to miss it. But not the personal jibes from a section of viewers.
Fiona appears a little ruffled when told what some people have been saying about her on Facebook.
At one point there were 642 members in the Shut Up Fiona Phillips group and 37 in Fiona Phillips Is An Evil Witch. Twelve people have joined Fiona Phillips Is Our Hero.
One supporter says: “Fiona is great fun, talented and full of charisma”, but others describe her as “irritating, fake, talentless and incredibly patronising” and “rude and cringeworthy”.
Oh dear, Fiona is not impressed.
“I wouldn’t look up my name on the Internet, that would be a rocky road to nowhere,” she insists. “I don’t know anything about silly Facebook sites. It’s rather pathetic. “I do get sent some vile emails, which can be hurtful – I’m only human. They’re all anonymous, they’re not brave enough to admit who they are when dishing out venom.
“I seem to polarise opinion. I’m just myself and not everyone will like that, but I am genuine and sincere. If you don’t like me, don’t watch!” 
Fiona is actually delightful – bright, friendly and great company. Which, along with her journalistic experience, is presumably just what GMTV was looking for when they first took her on?
But she is vulnerable, too. How would you like to be given marks every day for the way you dress?
What does she think about the actions of viewer Ian Codpiece, the writer of these sartorial reviews?
“I laugh about it now,” says Fiona. “But the people at GMTV are keeping some of his letters, just in case he turns out to be not as humorous as we think,” she reveals. “If anything happens to me, his door will be the first they knock on!”
So what of the future?
Well, it certainly won’t be long before we see her back on TV. But don’t worry, she’s bound to be wearing make-up!
Katie Price, aka glamour model Jordan, says she wants to have SEVEN children – one more than Angelina Jolie.
And after giving birth to another four, she then wants to adopt!
Katie, 30, already has three children – Harvey, six, from her relationship with former Aston Villa footballer Dwight Yorke, plus Junior, three, and one-year-old Princess Tiaami, with her pop star husband Peter Andre.
Now she says she would like to go one better than Angelina, who has three children of her own, including twins, and three adopted.
“I want at least four more children,” says Katie. “I want more biological kids, and then I’d adopt one.”
Its 16 years since Vicki Michelle and co made the last episode of `Allo `Allo but she still looms large as sexy Yvette in peoples’ memories - especially since reviving the role for a UK touring version of the show.
Says Vicki: “People still come up to me and say: `Listen very carefully, I will say zis only once’ and then laugh and apologise. And I still get asked to say `oooh Rene.’
ACTION GIRL JENNI
Lottery show presenter and GMTV showbiz reporter Jenni Falconer is a bit of an action girl in more ways than one.
As well as enjoying fast cars and ski-ing, she organises her life so that nothing tends to bog her down.
“I make lists of things that need doing and I’m irritatingly efficient at getting through them,” says the amiable Scot.
“I might not always get things done but I aspire to do everything quickly.”
Now that the phenomenally successful family tree show Who Do You Think You Are? has come to an end, who can we look forward to seeing in the next series?
Well, the BBC keeps such things under wraps. But Kevin Whately is definitely heading for the dusty archives.
HOT WORK
Cold Feet actress Fay Ripley once worked at a gym where George Michael was a regular.
After his work-outs, she’d collect his sweat-ridden towels and frame them!
“I used to give them to friends,” she says.
PRIME CRIME
Writer Lynda La Plante has finally revealed how she felt about the way her creation Prime Suspect was ended.
“I was very disappointed,” she says. “Helen Mirren was marvellous throughout but I didn’t like the way they turned her Jane Tennison character into a boozed-up wreck.
“I didn’t write that final episode because I didn’t like the way they wanted it to end.”
Stephen Merchant, the lanky writing partner of Ricky Gervais, is himself finally beginning to break through in America.
It’s taken our cousins from across the pond a long time to latch on to the man who co-created – with Gervais – The Office and Extras.
But he has now landed a role in a new Hollywood comedy, The Tooth Fairy, opposite Julie Andrews.