‘Come round and let me see your face,” orders Vanessa Feltz, as I wander into a tidy kitchen of pink counters and framed newspaper front pages, where she is sitting with a couple of makeup artists. “You look young and handsome, delightful, naive!” she tells me. “You don’t look like a seasoned hater who’s been doing this for years.” Rapid small talk ensues, covering everything from why she’d be terrible on I’m a Celebrity (she says she has turned them down multiple times, yet they keep offering more money) to questions about my “romantic status”.
To call this a charm offensive would be to imply that Feltz cares deeply about the resulting write-up. Really, she says, she couldn’t care less.