Scottish singer Michelle McManus won the second and final series of UK talent show Pop Idol back in the early noughties but unlike some of the other contestants she didn’t disappear into obscurity – here’s what she’s up to these days
When Michelle McManus won the second series of ITV’s singing competition Pop Idol back in 2003, her victory enraged record producer and judge Pete Waterman so much he stormed off the set, branding her “rubbish”.
Music manager Louis Walsh publicly backed him and predicted she would only have “15 minutes of fame”. However the determined singer went on to prove them both wrong with a record breaking number one single and a gold-certified follow up album.
But she didn’t stop there and in the years that followed Michelle, 45, forged a successful media career in TV and radio and on the stage. She has continued to sing and release music and recently performed with Robbie Williams, who has always been one of her biggest supporters. Here’s what she’s up to now.
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After her track All This Time broke records in 2004 by being the first debut single from a female Scottish artist to enter the UK charts at number one, Michelle released her debut album The Meaning of Love. That went in at number three in the UK and number one in the Scottish album charts and was certified gold after selling over 100,000 in the UK. Despite her huge initial success she was dropped by her label Sony BMG for disappointing sales of follow up singles.
From the start of her journey Michelle’s weight had been a constant topic of conversation with Waterman and others in the media claiming she wouldn’t succeed because of her fuller figure. She appeared on an episode of You Are What You Eat with Gillian McKeith which followed her efforts to shed some pounds but her management company 19 Entertainment dropped her the same year. She later told the Loose Women panel she believed it was because of her weight that she was given the boot.
Appearing as a celebrity guest on BBC Three’s RuPaul’s Drag Race last year, she openly talked about the brutal comments she faced as a youngster.
Due to be dressed by a contestant, she said: “I was really nervous to show off my arms. I have a couple of hang ups. I’ve carried so much shame for such a long time.
“I was so naive when I did Pop Idol with all these men around me at 23, going ‘you’re right, I’m so fat and I’m so ugly’. What can I do to make myself more attractive?’ But it’s more just about realising that this is naturally who I am.”
Never one to give in easily, Michelle started guest presenting on Scottish radio station Clyde 1 in 2006 and went on to land her own regular Saturday show. Thanks to her popularity she hosted two series of the BBC Radio Scotland show Let’s Do the Show Right Here and began making TV appearances on shows like Children in Need which saw her reporting from Scotland.
Her TV career began to take off and she eventually became a presenter on Scottish lifestyle TV programme The Hour as well as presenting STV’s Hogmanay among many other shows and appearances. Having become a popular household name in her home country, she was chosen as one of the singers to perform for Pope Benedict XVI on his state visit to the UK in 2010 and started writing a regular column for the Glasgow Evening Times.
It wasn’t just on the airwaves and on TV that Michelle found success, she has also become a highly sought after stage performer with repeated tours on the Vagina Monologues, West End productions and her own one-woman shows at the Edinburgh Festival which she co-wrote.
Music remains one of Michelle’s first loves and she released her second studio album, a Christmas celebration titled Michelle McManus’ Winter Wonderland in 2019 via her independent record label, McMannii. To mark 20 years since her Pop Idol win she also released the single Christmas Glow in 2023 and was the star of BBC Scotland documentary, Michelle McManus: Talent Show Winners.
Robbie Williams featured in the programme having always been a big supporter of Michelle. He backed her when she was being cruelly criticised by other camps, saying he’d “never seen someone take the battering” that she did. The former Take That heartthrob was a guest on her BBC Radio Scotland show and brought her to tears when he invited her live on air to perform with him at the Edinburgh show of his tour. No stranger to sharing the stage with legendary names having sung with Lulu and Rod Stewart, Michelle still described their performance of Relight My Fire last year as the highlight of her career.
Michelle has been married to husband Jeff Nimmo since 2017 and the couple share two children. She has recently made headlines for her substantial weight loss, which she said she decided to embark on for the sake of her kids. She has shared her journey on her Instagram page where she revealed she’d lost a whopping 9 stone in just 17 months.
She also revealed that she’d stopped drinking alcohol as part of the health overhaul: “Before this change of lifestyle, I was stuck in a cycle, endlessly searching for that elusive magic diet wand, believing it was out there, waiting to instantly turn me into the best version of myself,” she wrote. “But here’s the truth, that magic wand doesn’t exist. What I’ve discovered instead is something even more powerful, the right support. I was at a point where I felt completely lost and out of control, unsure of where to turn next.”
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