'RELATIONSHIPS NEED FRIENDSHIP, SEX, RESPECT AND TRUST'

FORCE OF NATURE DAVINA MCCALL ON THE SECRET TO A PERFECT ROMANCE, BEING AWARDED AN MBE, AND HOW HER BEST FRIEND CHANGED HER LIFE

-  JEN PHARO

She’s a TV presenter, fitness guru, best-selling author, documentarian, podcaster, influencer, mum and partner – Davina McCall does it all.

The television star lives her life at 100 miles an hour, and even her downtime is filmed for Celebrity Gogglebox, in which she watches TV shows with her hairdresser boyfriend, Michael Douglas.

But Davina’s success is no accident, and now King Charles is awarding her an MBE for services to broadcasting.

“I’m 55, I’ve been in television for 31 years, and I’m still hustling,” says Davina. “I get let down a lot because I hustle a lot and things don’t happen, but I’ve got quite resilient. Now it’s like water off a duck’s back. I’m like, ‘That one didn’t work out – let’s try something else.’”

Davina’s fame and fortune is all down to her sheer force of personality, positivity and professionalism. But when she heard she was getting an MBE, the news was so overwhelming, she burst into tears.

“Oh, my God!” exclaims Davina. “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am. I’m almost embarrassed at how thrilled I am. You think, ‘I should probably be a bit cooler about this,’ but it’s a massive honour.”

Davina is endlessly passionate about her work, and you get the sense that none of her projects – even her ground-breaking documentary Davina McCall: Sex, Myths And The Menopause and her subsequent book Menopausing – are done with awards or accolades in mind. So, when she was informed of her royal honour, she didn’t immediately compute the initials “MBE”.