Well,
this is weird. Katherine Jenkins – supposedly the most diva-ish diva
this side of Nancy Dell’Olio – has arrived for our interview brandishing
not a list of demands, but a Tupperware box filled with homemade
brownies and flapjacks.
She made them herself, she declares proudly. ‘I love baking. I’m a feeder.’
Not
an eater, though, at least not today. While she encourages me, her PR
guy, the photographer and everyone in the vicinity to pile in (and it
would be rude not to), she politely declines her own wares.
Katherine Jenkins says that she is ready to put her career on hold and have some babies
‘I had one yesterday,’ she says, with steely sweetness, which presumably goes some way to explaining the size 8 figure.
What’s
with the baking? Is she after an invite on the next Celebrity Bake Off
or is she, as she claims, simply a convert to the joys of domesticity?
She does have the air of a woman who has just discovered she has a
kitchen.
‘Don’t
get me wrong, when you travel all the time it’s lovely to eat in
restaurants and hotels and have room service and all those things. But
sometimes you just want to make beans on toast, or a roast dinner. I got
into baking because I find it stress-relieving.’
Let’s
hope her new husband likes cake. Just a few weeks after we meet – when
she’s still professing that no date has been set for the wedding and
laughing off any idea that she’s in peak bridezilla mode – she ties the
knot in a rather elegant do at Hampton Court without so much as a glossy
magazine deal in place.
Katherine and Andrew on their wedding day outside Hampton Court Palace
This
doesn’t seem terribly Katherine Jenkins. Isn’t she supposed to be the
ultimate attention-seeker? Even George Clooney – who got hitched on the
very same day in Venice – has dutifully posed for Hello! and no one has
ever accused him of being a publicity junkie.
When
I track her down after the event, still in a whirl, she says, ‘Thank
God for George Clooney! When we found out we’d chosen the same day, we
knew we had a chance of keeping our day under wraps as all eyes would be
on them!
I
always said I would never sell my wedding and that’s why ours was a
celebration of love surrounded by 200 of our family and closest friends.
We released one photo in aid of Macmillan as our fathers both died of
cancer.
‘It
was an absolute fairy tale – being walked down the aisle by my mother,
marrying the man of my dreams and feeling such love from everyone and
then absolutely rocking it on the dancefloor with our families!’
Katherine with her mother Susan earlier this year
It
transpires that the actual plan was for them to get married in secret
and only release the news afterwards. Unfortunately, a local paper in
Wales got wind that something was brewing – and the wedding was
confirmed just the day before it happened.
She
does admit that the romance thing has been a bit fast, even by showbiz
standards. This time last year she was steadfastly single and still, in
the public view at least, recovering from her last (failed) engagement
to the seemingly perfect former Blue Peter presenter Gethin Jones.
That
one broke the Welsh nation’s heart. The word was that she was simply
too set on global domination to think of settling down.
Then
she met Andrew Levitas, an American artist and film producer, and –
before anyone had much of a chance to ask ‘Who?’ – she’s the new Mrs
Levitas and talking expansively of, er, how she’s ready to settle down.
There’s a lot that’s been written about it that was just wrong. I don’t want to go into it again, but I was heartbroken.
‘Is
it a whirlwind romance? I suppose it is,’ she agrees. ‘I‘ve usually had
very long-term relationships. I’ve had three relationships over five
years. So yes, for me, this is quick. But when you know, you know. And I
absolutely know.’
So
how did they meet? ‘We were introduced by our friend in LA, someone who
knew that even though we both do jobs within the media world we have
shared values. We’re both very much family people. He has a close family
too, like me. We didn’t go out on a date for a long time, But then when
we got together, we just knew. It’s one of those things. It’s funny. I
know that it’s meant to be him. He’s lovely.’
She’s
been wearing a stonking great engagement ring that dazzles even more
than her teeth (which is quite something). ‘Andrew picked it himself. I
didn’t know. He did very well.’ He proposed, fairytale style, by going
down on both knees at his family home (complete with pool) in the
Hamptons.
‘The
family wasn’t there, it was just the two of us. It was private,
perfect, intimate – just the way it should be,’ she says. Now motherhood
seems to be firmly on the agenda. We move, with some speed, from
talking about brownies to babies.
Her
sister Laura has just become a mother, to baby Rhys, and she says
that’s made her broody. ‘He’s gorgeous. I’m obsessed with him.’ At 34,
she sounds ready to be a mum herself. ‘I’m ready for it,’ she agrees.
There’s a problem, though.
Divas
(of the songstress kind) don’t really get maternity leave and she
doesn’t seem to be contemplating the taking-babies-on-the-road option.
‘I don’t want to be a mum who’s dragging children on planes around the
world. I’d like to just stop and have some family time. When I decide to
have children I’d really like to take a little bit of time off and
enjoy being a mum and putting everybody else before me. I can’t wait for
that.’
Maybe
all the criticism of her putting career above family, whether real or
perceived, has hit a nerve. Most women of her age hedge around the
subject of whether they want kids. She’s practically binning the career
in front of me. ‘I’ve read a lot that I put work before everything else.
I don’t think that’s the case. I read stuff about global domination and
me being so ambitious. But if I don’t have a family I think that will
be a real disappointment to me. It’s one of my most wanted things.’
Is
it the career or the shift in personal circumstances that’s driven the
striking change of image we’re seeing today, though? Katherine’s look
has always been on the fluid side. She started off a wholesome
modern-day Dame Vera Lynn, but somewhere along the way became quite the
sexpot. Her hair got blonder and blonder, her teeth more startling.
Katherine split up with her long term boyfriend Gethin in 2012, allegedly because she was unable to comitt
Today
the hair’s a little darker, the clothes floaty rather than overtly
sexy. She jokes about how she’s just getting older, then admits that
there’s a deliberate change of image. ‘I didn’t plan to go that blonde,
but you know what happens. You have some highlights, then some more.
Suddenly, it was quite… bombshelly. It was fun, for a while, but I feel
more authentic like this. I’m kind of going back to my roots.’
In
all ways, it seems. Her new album, while still straddling that
classical/pop divide, is ‘definitely more classical’ and she talks a lot
of her career coming full circle. ‘Did I think about getting more and
more sexy? Probably not. It was just something that sort of evolved.
'I
mean I started off as a schoolteacher! But then things get more and
more glamorous and you get nice dresses and actually it’s quite fun. But
you do have to be careful. I’ve done photoshoots where there’s been
skimpy stuff, or booby stuff, and I’ve felt, “I’m not going to do that.”
I always tried to stay on the glamorous side.’
Her
wedding dress was classic and classy; her jewellery discreet. It was
about as anti-bling as you can get. Today, she’s softly spoken (to the
point where you sometimes have to strain to hear her) and very sweet –
but not as sickly as you might imagine.
'There’s
an iron edge there. When I nervously approach the subject of why some
people don’t seem to like her very much (in the flesh this is a bit like
stamping on a kitten) she throws her head back and laughs. ‘If I read
some of the stuff that’s been written about me, I don’t think I’d like
me very much either,’ she says. ‘If I read someone was a diva and
attention-seeker and ambitious and cut-throat and all these things, I
wouldn’t like her either.’
What’s
the worst thing she’s read about herself? It seems there’s quite a
list. She famously took to Twitter when Mail columnist Jan Moir had a
pop at her running the London Marathon looking like she was on a
catwalk.
You can have something untrue said about you – and then it goes worldwide. You can’t control it.
‘I
was peeved about that because I was still walking backwards because my
legs were so sore. It wasn’t the make-up thing that was the issue. If
I’d run it with clown’s face make-up, so what? It was the implication
that I was doing it for attention. That’s just wrong. There are easier
ways of getting attention than running a marathon. And I wasn’t asking
the paparazzi to follow me on my 20-mile training run in the snow, you
know.’
She
was also very miffed about the way her most recent career developments
were reported. The tabloid version is that she was dumped by her record
company Warner Music because of her diva-ish tendencies (she’s said to
have had someone fired for criticising her figure and once allegedly
hurled her phone across the room when someone told her to go easy on the
make-up) and has had to accept a much less lucrative deal for her new
album.
She
disputes this, seizing on the clear inaccuracies in the detail. ‘I’m
sure this must have been a misprint, but one UK paper said I spent £1.5
million a day on hair and make-up. My make-up artist said, “I think you
owe me some money.” It’s crazy that people think I could spend that
much. It gives the impression that on a day when I’m not working I have
to have a hair and make-up team, which is ridiculous.’
It’s
also sexist, she says. ‘The male equivalent of me would not be accused
of that, yet he will have a groomer and a stylist. Why does this stuff
never get thrown at the men? A woman is an easy target.’
But
let’s clarify. She wasn’t dumped by her record company? ‘My contract
was for three albums, which I did. When you come to the end of the
contract you consider the options, and at that point Decca [her very
first record company] was an option.
'I
knew they understood my type of music better. It really was that
simple. There was a lot of stuff at the time about how Warner had got
rid of me because of my diva demands. There’s not one bit of truth in
that. But I had to ride it out. I couldn’t talk about it at the time.’
Whether
one is the dumpee or the dumper is a bit of a theme here. I try to
raise the thorny subject of Gethin and their split at the turn of 2012.
Katherine describes it as a ‘shock’ which suggests he did the dumping.
But didn’t their relationship fall apart because she was the one who
couldn’t commit? She just purses her lips.
‘There’s a lot that’s been written about it that was just wrong. I don’t want to go into it again, but I was heartbroken.’
The
two years that followed proved problematic for Katherine’s career for
several reasons. First she headed to the States and signed up for
Dancing With The Stars, the US version of Strictly, which was seen as
confirmation that she was after global domination rather than babies and
brownie-baking. ‘That wasn’t the case. I just wanted to have fun,’ she
says. ‘I was heartbroken. This chance came up and I thought it would be a
way to heal myself, and it was. It worked.’
It
didn’t necessarily endear her to her core fans, but she’s frustrated at
any idea she should know her place in the showbiz hierarchy. ‘I don’t
think I should have stayed in the box and just been a singer,’ she says.
‘Sometimes you have to try and do new things.’
So
miffed was she that, she reveals, she thought about quitting the whole
showbiz shebang. ‘Yes, there was a time last year when I did. The person
I was seeing in the papers was so different to the real me, I thought,
“I’m fighting a losing battle here.”’ What stopped her? ‘My mum. I
called her and she said, “Come back to Wales. Have a cwtch,” which is a
Welsh cuddle. She said, “Let it pass, put your head down. It happens to
everyone at some point.”
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