Kelly Brook inadvertently ignited a long-running feud with TV hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly back in 2009 when she failed to acknowledge their jobs – and the dispute still fascinates fans
Kelly Brook has addressed the long-running feud she has with Britain’s Got Talent hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly after they all worked together again last year. Tension between the trio stretches back to 2009 when Kelly was briefly employed as a judge on the ITV talent show.
Reports have long suggested that 50-year-old presenters Ant and Dec were unimpressed that Kelly, 46, had been hired for the show without their consent. Over the years, the three have taken veiled swipes at each other in interviews, and memoirs.
Last year, the trio found themselves reunited on ITV as Kelly became a contestant on the long-running reality show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! – which Ant and Dec host. And while they all proved they can get along just fine when the cameras are rolling, modelling icon Kelly has once again opened up the old wound in a new interview.
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In the new chat, she addressed the route of the alleged feud – which is said to have stemmed from the fact she didn’t know what Ant and Dec did when she joined the BGT judging panel. And while the boys have repeatedly insisted this is what happened, Kelly has counter protested that his is simply not true.
She told The Sun: “There was no awkwardness at all. Ant and Dec are the sweetest, and they were so excited that I was doing the show. I think they are really involved in the casting of it.”
She continued: “They were really fun and supportive. I was so excited when I saw them for the first time – I was in a helicopter looking down at them. I actually got star-struck, even though I worked with them all those years ago. I’m a massive fan of the show, so it was surreal to suddenly be in there. Plus, Ant and Dec were the least of my worries – I was more concerned with snakes, spiders and the lack of food!”
Her account differs from that of the Geordie duo. Back in 2010, the lads unleashed their autobiography, Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story, in which they laid out their accusations against Kelly.
Reflecting the first day Kelly joined them on the set of BGT, the boys claimed: “Kelly looked nervous, so I told her it was going to be great fun and to just relax and enjoy it. She nodded, then looked at me and said, ‘And what do you do on the show?’
“I looked at Simon, who was sat next to me, he turned to Kelly and said, ‘Kelly, you have seen the show, haven’t you?’ To which she replied, ‘Yeah… well, bits’. I don’t want to sound like an egomaniac, but the last person who said, ‘And what do you do?’ was the Queen when I met her at the party for ITV’s fiftieth anniversary.”
The autobiography also implied that the pair were angered by show boss Simon Cowell for hiring Kelly without first consulting them. They wrote: “We had two questions: ‘Why is there a fourth judge?’ and ‘Why is it Kelly Brook?’ None of them could answer us.
“Obviously, as hosts of the show, we have to justify that kind of thing to the audience, and no one could give us a good reason why Kelly was on board. The simple answer was that Simon, without talking to anyone, had decided it was a good idea. We didn’t agree.”
Kelly previously brushed off the scandal, implying that she didn’t care much for what Ant and Dec thought of her. She said in a past interview: “There was nothing I could do in this country after Britain’s Got Talent. The people at ITV were telling me that I had upset Ant and Dec and that was it.
“I would love to have stayed on the show. I really felt it was working out. Ant and Dec had never been anything but pleasant to my face but, clearly, they didn’t want me on the show. Their egos are such that they were saying to themselves ‘How dare she think she can come on to our show?’, and since then they’ve been very vocal about their displeasure at me being there.”
She went on to suggest that Simon confirmed to her that egos were bruised behind the scenes, and added: “And that’s what it was all about – a clash of egos. My ego was dented, but it didn’t affect the way I am or how I feel about the industry.”
She added: “As for Ant and Dec, good luck to them. They are rich and they are happy, but they won’t be in my autobiography, even if I am in theirs.”
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