Christine Lampard is sitting in the driving seat of a 1966 convertible red Mustang worth £100,000 for our shoot with her. It’s a world away from her usual car trips, heading up the M6 with the kids to visit husband Frank.
“He’s away more now than ever,” she says of the Everton manager who lives at their second home in Liverpool. “There are people with partners on the other side of the world, so I don’t dwell on it. We make it work.
“I’ve been doing this drive since Frank went in January and it can be intense. It took me four hours last time, with the two kids and the dog! But when we get there, it’s brilliant. The distance means Frank and I are still excited to see each other.”
This week, the 43-year-old returns to stand in for Lorraine Kelly on ITV ’s Lorraine for the summer, disrupting her work-life balance even further.
Luckily, their London home is just a short drive from the studios, so she can leave at 6am and be back with her children Patricia, three, and 16-month-old Freddie by 11am.
“I’m blessed to live close to the studios,” says Christine. “We’ve often thought about moving out of London, but on my drive in at 6am I think, ‘No way!’
“We have a babysitter, but I’m home by 11am and that’s me done for the day. I couldn’t do 12-hour days like I used to.”
When she was introduced to Frank by Piers Morgan at the Pride Of Britain Awards in 2009, she was TV’s hottest star as host of The One Show, while he was at the height of his playing career.
Soon after they married in 2015, though, she stepped away from our screens to focus on family life.
Her family, including her musician dad Frederick, retired accountant mum Mina, and sister, Nicola, who live in Northern Ireland, and two stepdaughters, Luna, 16, and Isla, 15, from Frank’s previous relationship with model Elen Rivas, are her world. Patricia is named after Frank’s late mum and Freddie after her dad.
“I stepped away because I decided to have children. I spent my twenties and thirties doing anything I wanted, but when they came along I realised it was a new chapter. I’ve turned down a lot of opportunities because it would have meant being away from home for too long.”
In 2007, Christine, who studied politics at Queen’s University in Belfast, was plucked from regional broadcasting in Northern Ireland to replace a pregnant Myleene Klass as host of The One Show with Adrian Chiles. “It was my first experience in London,” she says. “I remember getting off the Tube in Shepherd’s Bush and going, ‘Oh my God, where am I?’ I lived in a hotel for the first six months.”
Christine was born in 1979 in Newtownards, near Belfast, during the Troubles. Because of her childhood, she says she has real sympathy for what people are going through in Ukraine today.
“It’s a very different set-up, but to see all those people fleeing their homes is just awful. I remember a bomb going off when me and my sister were outside playing. We were very young. There was a sound like an earthquake and then we were surrounded by smoke.”
During those dark times, she says she learnt to live her life to the fullest. “My first trip abroad was when I was 17. I’d started at the BBC as a runner and was sent to New York to film a children’s show.” When she later moved to the city with Frank, after he signed for New York City FC in 2015, she remembered this time and felt her life had come “full circle”.
“When I went back, I felt like that excited 17-year-old again,” she laughs. “Those two years we had in New York were fantastic. It was before our children and it was fabulous. We basically ate and drank our way through Manhattan. It was magical.”
By the end of 2015, Christine had married Frank at St Paul’s church in London’s Knightsbridge, at a ceremony attended by their personal Cupid, Piers, and a host of famous guests. She remembers her dad playing with Ed Sheeran when another special guest grabbed the mic – Frank’s cousin Jamie Redknapp.
“We’re very lucky to be mates with Ed,” she says. “He moved mountains to be with us on our big day and we’ll be forever grateful. My dad drummed with him and Jamie got up and did a rap!”
Our conversation about football legends soon ricochets to Love Island and 21-year-old Danica Taylor ’s concerns after hooking up with footballer Jamie Allen on the show. “I think she’ll be fine. I’m not worried about Danica,” says Christine, although she admits she doesn’t know if she’d have dated a footballer at that age.
“I definitely met Frank at the right time,” she says. “I was 29 and at that point where you roughly know where you are. We’d both done a lot of stuff and had forged our own careers. We were just a bit more grown up.”
When Christine first met Frank, his two daughters were still very young. Now she’s a co-parent to two teenagers and admits she struggles with knowing how to protect them from social media.
“I love that I’ll find an old photo from school and there’s just one image and everything else is in my brain. Whereas their entire lives are catalogued for all to see. I just don’t think it’s a good thing. It must be very intense for a teenager.
“It’s very difficult to control, too, as they got their own devices. Parents have a tough job now and teenagers have a tough job living normal lives. I wonder if it will all implode at some point. I’m just grateful I didn’t grow up with it.”
Despite not exercising, Christine is in great shape and says her body confidence is sky high. “I’m happy,” she says. “Considering I’ve given birth twice and breastfed them both. I put on 3½st during pregnancy. I was massive! It’s amazing what the female body can do.”
Following England’s triumph at the Women’s Euros, Christine says her daughter Patricia is a little Lioness in the making as she has football legend dad Frank to guide her.
“Patricia’s so good at kicking a ball, she goes to a football class every week. And my little boy loves kicking a ball too. They kick the ball to each other.”
The next big occasion for the siblings now is their joint christening. “We were about to have Patricia christened when Covid hit. Then Freddie came along, so we thought we could do them both together, so that’s what we’ll do.”
Once the baby years are over, does Christine see a return to full-time TV? “At the minute, I’m doing two big daytime shows. Patricia watches me on TV and does a lot of jumping at the telly, going ‘Mummy! Mummy!’
I took her into Loose Women recently and she got very shy and nervous, but she loved it.
“I don’t think of myself as a role model. I think of myself as a mummy who cooks, cleans and wipes bottoms a lot of the time. The most important thing is I’m doing something I love and that’s perfect for me right now.”
