Journalist Rosie Kelly Smith: ‘My mum doesn’t really think of herself as a celeb’
By Hannah Stephenson, PA
When Rosie Kelly Smith was growing up and her mum, TV presenter Lorraine Kelly, was making her name on GMTV, she never came into contact with the A-listers who were interviewed by the popular presenter.
“I just didn’t know any different, I didn’t have celebs coming in and out of the house, it just wasn’t that kind of environment at all,” recalls the journalist and podcaster.
“We didn’t live in London, we always lived in the sticks, then when I went up to Scotland, we were also on a farm for a bit, which was mad. We had a thing about having cows. We had cows in the garden.
“My mum doesn’t really think of herself as a celebrity and my dad (freelance cameraman Steve Smith) is just the most grounded man in the world, very Scottish, very grumpy but very lovely.”
Kelly Smith, who has appeared with her mum on Celebrity Gogglebox and co-hosted the podcast What If? with her, interviewing famous guests, now lives in Berkshire, a six-minute walk from her parents’ home. “My dad’s ecstatic because he doesn’t have to come into London at all,” she says.
She is mother to 18-month-old Billie with fiancé Steve White, a car insurance operations manager, and has now penned a book, Mother To Mother, exploring motherhood through generations of women in her family.
From her mum Lorraine’s birth in 1959, to her own in 1994, and to her daughter Billie’s in 2024, Kelly Smith shares her thoughts about the changes surrounding motherhood through the generations, from an age when things weren’t really discussed, to today, when different approaches are made and myths are debunked, but some of the old advice remains relevant.
She covers everything from the early days of pregnancy, to feeding, finding friends, navigating relationships, body image and weaning – and what we can learn about parenting from our own mums.
She is well aware of the ‘mum guilt’ experienced by working women who have to leave their young children in someone else’s care when they go to work. Kelly Smith remembers that her mother said “the guilt and being a working mum go hand in hand and it never got any easier”.
In the book she recalls: “My mum said leaving for work when I was awake was horrendous. When I was tiny, I’d be up when she would be going to the studio and she would then spend most of the journey there in tears.”
But Kelly Smith, 31, does not recall big absences when her TV presenter mum was working.
“I remember her saying she had a job with Talk Radio and I was doing the nativity play, I was Mary – probably the last big role I ever had.
“She said to them (her employers), ‘I’m sorry, this is the day I can’t be here and that’s it. There’s no way I can come to work on that day. They were really awkward about it but she had boundaries. I never felt that she wasn’t there.
“She later said, ‘I can’t remember a single person that I interviewed when I did that show, but I vividly remember every second of the nativity play’. That just shows you it’s just knowing what’s important that matters.”
She recalls: “In the mornings I was at school and my dad was there, so I always had a parent there. When we lived in Scotland, Mum used to fly down on a Sunday and come back on a Tuesday night. She would record the shows and then be back.
“When she had to do it live, she would fly down Sunday night, come back Thursday night and we’d always have the weekend.”
Kelly Smith also used to sometimes accompany her mum to work at the GMTV studios to see bands and recalls a famous incident when she was six, obsessed with Westlife and wouldn’t let go of Brian McFadden.
“The show was going live and they went on air with me hanging off him like a koala bear. That’s probably my funniest story.”
She and her mum are very similar in their outlook, she muses.
“My mum’s always said to me, ‘I just want you to be happy. I don’t really mind if you’re a rocket scientist, as long as you’ve got pals and you’re happy.
“At every parents’ evening, the teachers would always be like, ‘Oh, she’s got this in her grades. Blah, blah, blah.’ My mum’s like, ‘I don’t really care. Has she got friends? Are they nice to each other?’ It’s exactly the same for Billie. I just want her to be happy.”
Kelly Smith had anxiety with every step of her pregnancy to birth – and it’s something she is still tackling.
“It’s something that’s always in the background. I’ve always been anxious. I’ve had it since I was tiny. I wish I knew that it was amplified when you’re pregnant.”
She found great solace in friends and family.
“You just have to talk to people. For me it was my mum but it was also other mums around me, especially friends who had been mums.”
After her daughter Billie was born by caesarean, Kelly Smith was referred to a postpartum nurse and also to a CBT therapist, which helped.
She doesn’t know where her anxiety comes from, but she’s had it all her life.
“I remember going to school and thinking, ‘No-one’s going to pick me up’, even though no-one ever forgot to pick me up. It’s just always there.”
She writes about generations of women who have viewed childbirth and parenting with very different eyes as times change. How does she differ from her mum as a mother?
“Not that much. When my mum had me she was effectively sacked (Kelly was dropped from GMTV shortly after returning from maternity leave, but only temporarily, as it turned out).
“I think her plan had been to take six months off but she couldn’t. She had to go back and try to find a job, so she kind of missed the whole newborn thing, going to baby classes and all that stuff.
“For her it’s been lovely to see Billie more and have that time. She always feels quite guilty that she never had that time with me.”
Today, Lorraine Kelly, 66, is a doting grandmother, and has introduced Billie who she described as “beyond adorable” to TV viewers on her show.
With her self-titled ITV show being cut to a half-hour slot and down to just 30 weeks a year, it will surely give the presenter more time to spend with her granddaughter and free up more time to help her daughter prepare for her wedding this summer.
Their podcast, which has featured celebrities including Sir Michael Palin and Craig David, has also been really enjoyable, says Kelly Smith.
“It’s just so easy with my mum because she’s so easy to talk to. Everyone who has been on the podcast has already probably spoken to her and feel like it’s a safe space.”
What advice has Kelly given her daughter on motherhood?
“Be kind to yourself is the number one thing she’s always told me. She just likes to keep it simple and I think that’s the best thing to do.”
