It’s little wonder, then, that the perception of her as a man-eater is often a source of exasperation.
“Since my 20s I’ve been constantly put with men. Half of them I’ve maybe only interviewed or been at a party with but never really known them other than that, and I’m vilified for apparently being some kind of sexual predator, which is absolutely laughable,” she says.
“It’s like I can’t even be seen with a man without somebody asking: ‘Oh, are you f**king him?’ And it’s like: ‘Wow, no, he’s a mate!’”
She recently travelled to India with her best friend Adam, documenting what turned out to be a life-changing trip on Instagram, but found some people were more interested in questioning why they weren’t in a relationship.
“But, we are in a relationship! He’s been my friend since we were 19. What, you think if we f**ked that would be better? What is wrong with you and your mind? Honestly, it’s every time I’m photographed with a man.”
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For the last few years and since her divorce from second husband Jack Cockings, Mel, who turned 48 this week (happy birthday!), has point-blank refused to talk about the specifics of her personal life in interviews. So reports linking her to Olly Murs and, lately, the golfer Martin Kaymer are not up for discussion today.
“I don’t want to confirm or deny speculation because that means I’m talking about it,” she explains firmly.
“I read a lot, I’m very interested in art, in films, I love to cook, but it all comes down to what I’m wearing and who I’m having sex with. And I’m tired of it.
“It doesn’t hurt me any more because I know the truth, but I do worry about the boys [sons Roman, 16, and Tino, 14] because they’re teenagers and they don’t want people going up to them at school and going: ‘Ooh, is your mum seeing this person?’ It’s so embarrassing for them.”
She says the stirring Maya Angelou poem Still I Rise moved her profoundly and has helped her learn to care less about other people’s hang-ups and judgements.
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“The first few verses of that poem about constantly being shamed for being a vibrant, sexy, strong character and people trying to drag you down because of it really spoke to me. It’s like a big ‘f**k you’.
“I’ve just got to rise above it because I know who I am and everybody who knows me knows who I am, and I shouldn’t feel shame about that.”
Amen. Every woman needs a mate like Mel in their life. Pragmatic, forthright and honest to the point of bluntness, she’d know exactly what to do in a crisis, would never shirk away from being cruel to be kind and she would definitely tell you if you had lipstick on your teeth. She’s a woman’s woman, despite her aforementioned reputation to the contrary.
She says she’s started training in a female-only gym and finds it much more comfortable.
“I like it. You’re in no fear of being gawked at. It just takes that edge out of it. I know when I go in there, nobody is going to take a cheeky picture or look at me. It’s nice to train around the ladies.”
The last time we met, Mel spoke powerfully about having to spend an awful lot of time “telling men how to behave around women” and why it was important that inappropriate conduct and language was called out.
It proved rather prescient with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements coming just a few months later, however today she wonders if it hasn’t all gone “too far”.
“If a man can’t even say you look nice any more, I think that’s bulls**t. Because that’s just human interaction, and where would we be without being able to admire another human being?” she says.
It’s about tone and context, though, isn’t it? There are very different ways to tell someone they look nice.
“Oh yeah,” she agrees. “And we all know when it feels uncomfortable and we know when it doesn’t, and we should be the judge of that.
“Obviously there’s a difference between admiration and crossing boundaries into being sexually aggressive. They are two completely different things, and I think we’re blurring them, and that’s a problem.”
She’s as self-assured and combative as ever – there’s no let-up during an interview with Mel, and you come away feeling slightly punch drunk – but there’s a new sense of calm about her. She seems happier and more relaxed.
It’s down to that India trip earlier this year, when she visited her mother’s birthplace in Gangapur City and returned to the UK irrevocably changed. It also left her feeling unable to reconcile the peace she’d experienced there with the craziness and chaos of London life.
“I’d stood on that soil, I’d heard the birdsong, I’d smelt the environment and felt the heat and couldn’t believe I was where Mum was brought up. And it was just really, really grounding, in a way that will never ever leave me. I felt at home, and I wasn’t sure I could reconcile those two worlds – what I do for a living and who I actually am. I didn’t know how to maintain the calm and spirituality I’d discovered in India when my real life back here was so at odds with that.”
The day after she landed home, she went back to work on Channel 5’s Blind Date, and executive producer Michelle Langer asked how the trip had been. Suddenly overcome with emotion, Mel shared her confusion with Michelle, who it turned out is also a meditation teacher. She recommended Mel come along to a two-day course.
“And now I do it every single day and I cannot stress enough how vital it is to having a calmer existence and being more in the moment. For me it’s not a case of being Zen particularly, but what’s good is if you’ve got an issue, you can process it while meditating, and when you come out the other side you’ve got a solution.
“The more you do it, the better you get and the more you get from it. It’s so embedded into my routine now that I don’t even have to crowbar it in. I’m just a person trying to live a life. I ain’t killed anyone, and what I do isn’t who I am.”
This discovery of meditation has coincided with a new health kick (although Mel is scathing of this terminology, preferring to use “health evolution” instead). Having ditched cigarettes years ago and alcohol last year, she’s now quit coffee and meat and reckons she’s the healthiest she’s been in her life. She looks – as always – incredible.
“It’s mad because I was a huge carnivore and I drank loads of coffee, but I’m just moving forward all the time, it’s a big old evolution. And everything I’m doing is taking out the anxiety and the stress, and I don’t know if it’s a combination of all the things that I’m doing, but I’m definitely more relaxed.
“I’ve just discovered beetroot lattes – they’re my favourite thing in the world. I’m not getting any younger, and I just want to be healthy because I enjoy my life. So it’s crucial that I do, for the kids and for me.”
Roman and Tino have picked up Mel’s healthy-eating habits and neither of them are into junk food or sugary drinks.
“They’re not the kind of guys that you’ll see with a can of Coke, and they don’t ask me for it. It’s not part of their life. They have water with their dinner because that’s what we’ve always done.
“I think all that starts in the home. You feed them, it’s nobody else’s responsibility. And it’s habit-forming – they only do what they see.”
And then she makes it clear in a very Mel Sykes way (short, sharp and with a hint of an eye roll) that she’s really not interested in discussing this any further, thanks all the same.
“Look, I’m not out here to change the world. All I’m saying is if you wanna do this, this is how you keep fit in your 40s. If you don’t, stay home, have takeaway pizza every single night. I don’t actually care because that’s your life choice. But good luck to you. I don’t care for trying to change people – people are who they are and that’s their life.”
I go out and have a life. Some people find that hard to comprehend
There are talks about launching a fitness programme for the over 40s, and Mel is about to narrate her fourth series of Sam and Billie Faiers’ hit ITVBe reality show The Mummy Diaries. But it’s her regular summer gig on Radio 2 with Alan Carr where she’s clearly having the most fun. Their friendship and humour translates into a genuinely heart-warming show every Saturday morning.
“Ah, it’s amazing!” she smiles. “We just have a laugh. We’re both strong characters and it works. There’s no: ‘You do that, I’ll do that.’ It just is what it is and it happens very naturally. We’ve been working together for eight years it is now I think, and it’s always been the same. It’s an absolute treat.”
Mel laughs as she recalls taking Alan to a Liam Gallagher gig – not his natural habitat – earlier this year.
“That was just funny. Because you know Alan is used to a certain VIP lifestyle, whereas I’m not – I just get my tickets and go. And so he had to slum it with me a bit, which was funny to watch. He was juggling two pints of lager and I just kept laughing at him!”
Could she see the partnership transferring to TV?
“Yeah! I mean, we’d both love to. It’s just coming up with the right project really. He’s a one-man band and I’ve done my own stuff as well, but together it does create something else.”
Away from work, Mel amicably co-parents Roman and Tino with ex-husband Daniel Caltagirone, 46, as she has done since their split in 2008. Roman has just done his GCSEs. For Tino, who has autism, the future is less certain – Mel doesn’t know if he’ll ever live independently – but it’s her boys who bring her the greatest joy.
“They’re the reason I do what I do,” she says, her voice softening. “They’re just everything.
“They live with me and Daniel has them every other weekend and we split it up over the summer. He’s equally a parent, and I’m lucky because I know so many women have the father disappear off the face of the earth. I miss them when I’m away, but there’s no point in me sitting in my flat twiddling my thumbs while they’re with their father, so I go out and have a life. I’m allowed to! I know some people find that difficult to comprehend.”
Given her weariness with the more irritating aspects of life in the public eye, does she ever regret going into the industry in the first place?
“Well I didn’t pursue it, remember? It pursued me. It was a career change I kept going with and I was extremely reluctant to.
"I wanted to stay modelling but when you’ve got executive TV producers and channels saying: ‘You’d be really good for this! Honestly, trust me, we’ll teach you!’ and my model agent saying: ‘Go, it’s a good move…’ [I was] literally bullied into it!”
She laughs.“It’s honestly never been a case of jazz hands with me or a need to be seen, a need to be onstage. I’ve been doing this forever and a f**king day, but it’s not where I’m my most comfortable.”
She stops herself for a second, perhaps conscious that she doesn’t want to moan. Mel might like the odd vent, but she’s not a whinger.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she says. “It’s been good – I’m not knocking it. I love what I do and I’m at a stage in my career where I really can choose.
There’s so much in my life that is joyful and I just had to learn how to get rid of all the crap. And I’m there! I got there.”
- Listen to Alan And Mel’s Summer Escape, Saturdays, 10am, BBC Radio 2.
- Make-up: Chase Aston using Laura Mercier and Vita Liberata body blur
- Hair: Vicky Demetion @ Larry King using Dyson
- Styling: Lynne McKenna
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