Rochelle Humes reveals I’m a Celeb bosses give stars special treatment with secret texts… and why she refuses to do show
IN the showbiz world, couples rarely manage to last more than a few years.
But Rochelle and Marvin Humes have discovered the perfect solution for any famous faces struggling to make their marriage work – I’m A Celebrity.
When Marvin, 39, went into the jungle last year, it was the longest he and wife Rochelle, 35, had gone since they started dating in 2010.
“It’s a good way to add a bit of, ‘Oh, my God, I actually did really miss you. I do really love you’ back into your relationship!” Rochelle says in an exclusive interview. “Not seeing each other’s one thing, but zero contact…I’d never want to do that again.”
The TV presenting duo tied the knot in 2012, and are now parents to Alaia-Mai, 11, Valentina Raine, seven, and son Blake, four.
And it was thanks to their young children that she got slightly special treatment when it came to contact with Marvin on I’m A Celeb.
“I did get a text from the producer every day in the morning, as a courtesy, giving a little synopsis of what’s going to be on that night’s show so I could then decide whether the kids would watch it.
“She’d also be like, ‘Everything’s fine,’ which was so weird, another woman telling me my husband’s okay!”
She continues: “I messaged her one day, like, ‘His head’s peeling. He needs to put sun cream on,’ and she was like, ‘I assure you that he’s got it on.’
“I’m like, ‘No, because his head’s never peeled before!’
“It’s so weird, you’d never have that conversation with somebody on behalf of your own husband!”
After a few weeks away from each other, Rochelle finally got to be reunited with Marvin – and he was seen telling her how “grateful” he is for their family.
And Rochelle confesses she’s started using a clip of their emotional reunion as a way of winning any argument.
She laughs: “The other day, he was like, ‘Rochelle, what have you done that for?’ And I literally went down his Instagram Reels, pressed it, and was like, ‘Remember when you loved me this much?’
“It’s set the barometer of ‘Don’t be silly. You love me really.’ It was so lovely.
“We really missed each other; us two, but as a family too.”
‘Violently sick’
And even though Rochelle has been asked to take part in I’m A Celeb numerous times, she insists it’s not for her – aside from the fact she never wants to go that long without speaking to Marvin again.
She says: “I’m sure it would be good telly to see me crumble, but I did it the best way.
“I’ve been to Australia, I got to stay in a nice hotel, I’ve experienced the camp, I know what it looks like.
“It’s so much smaller than you think, and they sleep, sit and do everything there. I would be out of my mind there.
“I can’t be there. It’s just too real for me.”
I literally called Marv from the [Strictly] dressing room like, ‘Do you think they’ll hate me, our friends at the BBC, if I say that I don’t feel well?’
Rochelle Humes
Another show Rochelle refuses to do is Strictly Come Dancing – having done the Christmas special in 2013, and felt “violently sick”.
“There’s not much that makes me nervous,” she says. “But I felt like I was going to throw up.
“I literally called Marv from the dressing room like, ‘Do you think they’ll hate me, our friends at the BBC, if I say that I don’t feel well?’
“I love the show, I’ve grown up with it in the house and I’m a big fan, so to be there and really not be very good, it’s not natural to me.
“I just felt like I was going to be violently sick.”
‘Well-protected’ in S Club Juniors
Rochelle and Marvin met at the height of their pop star careers in 2010, while she was in girl band The Saturdays, and Marvin was in JLS, who shot to fame on The X Factor two years earlier.
But Rochelle had been in the music industry long before then – having first found fame in S Club Juniors at only 11 years old.
However, while she finds it “crazy” she was the same age as her eldest daughter is now, she explains there was a good reason why neither she or her bandmates – including Frankie Bridge – have gone off the rails.
“We were so well-protected,” Rochelle recalls. “It was probably annoying for the management and record company, but our parents were so involved to the point it actually gave me a false reading of what it was like to be in the music industry.
I'm A Celeb 2024 rumoured lineup
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“When we started The Saturdays, I’d be like ‘What time’s our break?’
“We were so well looked after. I don’t regret it. I don’t feel like I was too young.”
But, in the wake of Liam Payne’s tragic death at 31 last week, she notes how her life may have turned out very different had S Club Juniors been around just a few years later.
“I think if it was now in this age, it’d be different,” she says. “Social media is around and everything looks a lot different. I’m pleased I did do it then.
“I think life is harder because social media exists for young people, so to be in the public eye at a young age and be exposed to that, I just don’t think I’d be an advocate for it.”
‘Emotional’ motherhood
When it comes to her own kids, Rochelle admits she can see the girls following in her and Marvin’s showbiz footsteps.
She laughs: “We’re constantly having to buy tickets for some show Valle’s doing at home, and Alaia’s managing her, and selling her tickets!”
But she won’t be letting them anywhere near social media just yet.
“They don’t need it, and I think I’m very clear on that,” Rochelle says. “I didn’t post my kids at all until Alaia was seven.
“I just wanted to find out what this world was before I put my kids on it. so now I just do posts here and there.
“My kids are a big part of my life, so they will have a presence, but, for now, they don’t have social media.
“Alaia just got a phone and that’s because she started secondary school and I kind of held that off for as long as I could. But it doesn’t have apps. She can just call me.”
Alaia’s leap into secondary school isn’t the only milestone Rochelle and Marvin have just reached with their kids, as Blake celebrated his fourth birthday earlier this month.
“My kids just always make me emotional,” Rochelle says. “And I just can’t believe he’s four.
“I was 23 when I had Alaia. I was young. So I’ve really soaked up every drop of him a bit more than maybe I did with the others.
“I feel like with him, where I know he’ll probably be my last, I’m savouring everything a little more.
“I know that birthday will also probably be the last birthday I spend all day with him, because he’ll be in school next year, so I’m holding on to all the moments where I can.”
With three school uniforms to maintain from next year, it’s a good thing that Rochelle is now the ambassador of premium colour and care detergent, Dylon.
“I don’t know why, but school uniform just fades in the wash. I don’t know how it’s made or what happens, but it just does,” Rochelle says. “You have to wash it constantly, and I’m talking a hotwash as well.
“Especially my son, he’s in preschool and he’ll come back covered in paint or bolognese.
“It’s a full on wash, so Dylon has really helped me with making sure the uniform is back to what it was and has got its mojo back.”