Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Leeds Live
Leeds Live
Entertainment
Ella Doyle & Megan Shaw

The ex Emmerdale actor who is married to Melanie Sykes

BBC's Celebrity MasterChef is back on our screens once more for its 16th series as 20 hopeful celebrities battle it out in the kitchen.

This year's star-studded line up promises to provide a huge amount of humour and entertainment, featuring the likes of Katie Price, Megan McKenna and Melanie Sykes.

We all love watching along and pretending to be cooking experts but how much do we really know about this year's MasterChef stars?

READ MORE: Emmerdale star Paige Sandhu opens up about struggle to find work before landing Meena Jutla role and anxiety battle

Melanie Sykes is a TV and radio presenter best known for co-hosting Today with Des and Mel alongside Des O'Connor and Let's Do Lunch with Gino D'Acampo, MyLondon reports.

She also co-hosted Going Out with Alan Carr on BBC Radio 2 with Alan Carr between May 2010 and March 2012, later returning with Alan Carr for Alan and Mel's Summer Escape from 2017.

Most recently Sykes co-presented Shop Well For Less on BBC One earlier this year.

To get the latest email updates from LeedsLive, click here.

And while this new challenge will see Melanie on the opposite side of the contest, it's not her first reality TV gig as she took part in season 14 of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2014.

She nearly got to the end, but just missed out on the crown, coming in at third place after biking champion Carl Fogarty and TV personality Jake Quickenden.

The 51-year-old also did a long stint as a panellist on Loose Women, featuring on the show between 2005 and 2013.

But when she was little, Melanie seems to have had different career prospects. She played the baritone horn seriously, and her whole family were in a brass band together.

However since then, she’s had her feet firmly placed in the TV world.

The mum-of-two married English actor Daniel Caltagirone in 2001.

Daniel has had a long career in both film and television, and has appeared in A Touch of Frost, Emmerdale, Death in Paradise and even an episode of Friends.

Though the two divorced in 2009, they appeared together on ITV’s This Morning to speak openly about the struggles they faced finding an appropriate school for their autistic son, the Express reported.

Melanie then had a shorter marriage to Jack Cockings who she married in 2013, after he apparently slid into her DM’s on Twitter.

But the pair hit the headlines after Melanie was arrested at her North London flat on suspicion of a common assault on her then-husband.

She received a caution, the Mirror reports, but Jack didn’t require treatment in a hospital. The two divorced in 2016.

To get the latest email updates from LeedsLive, click here.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.