Me Life Story

by Scarlett Moffatt

  Fast-forward to Saturday. My alarm went off at 7.02a.m. and I was literally skipping around the house in my unicorn slippers. ‘I just can’t wait for Saturday, ooooh it is Saturday.’ I couldn’t even drink my brew I was that excited. All my friends were texting me ‘Good luck, we will be watching’ messages. My mam, dad and Ava were on their way down from Bishop Auckland to London to watch the first episode live. I arrived at the ITV studios at 9.30 a.m. for the script meeting and rehearsals. Now obviously you can’t really rehearse going in a helicopter and bringing people back into the studio so I just learnt my timings and felt confident; I had forty minutes to do my thing and the rest, well, I would just have to wing it.

  I didn’t have time to be nervous as I was far too excited by the fact I was about to be sharing a stage with Ant and Dec. I felt like I was being pushed to new heights – and then actual heights by spending the first episode flying around in ‘a real-life helicopter’. My task was to tell people watching the show to get my attention if I was in their street. So I had people flashing their lights on and off but they were at the very top of a block of flats and I only had five minutes to do my thing. There were six people waving out of a window but I knew I was only allowed to fit three people in the helicopter and I didn’t know how I would say, ‘Sorry, you three can’t come.’ Then I spotted a house with its living room and bedroom light on. There was a random cat next to the house which was taking a dump – I mean, it is live TV. I knocked on the door and the couple had their TV on delay because they don’t like watching the adverts.

  ‘Would you like to come and watch Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway with me?’ I said to the guy who opened the door. ‘I’ll take you to the studio now in a helicopter!’

  The guy was gobsmacked. ‘Oh my God, yes, let me get my wife.’ Then he closed the door on me and went back in the house. Now it’s not entertaining for anyone to watch me just stood outside a door, so I did what every northerner does in that situation: invite myself in, sit on ya couch and tell you to hurry up and get ready as I’ve got the helicopter parked up without a ticket and there’s traffic wardens hanging around.

  Flying back after I’d accomplished the mission that ITV and Ant and Dec had set me felt amazing. I did it; I had done my first ever live presenting on Saturday Night Takeaway. But I couldn’t get too excited: I had to stay composed in the helicopter and act professional. I did forget to tell the couple they would be scooting off on motorbikes as well but I think adrenaline had kicked in for them by that point and I could have said we were going by elephant and they’d have agreed.

  We made it back to the studio in the nick of time and we sat down on the best seats in the house. So I was watching the show from a sofa. I mean it was just like my old Gogglebox job.

  The End of the Show Show was just an ad break away. Now due to all the travelling, my eyelashes were hanging off and I had helmet hair but I didn’t care. I whipped off my clothes while the amazing hair and make-up team made me look show-ready and I slipped on a little dress and heels. I was about to go on stage and sing ‘Spotlight’ with Ant, Dec, Stephen Mulhern and Oscar-winning legend Jennifer Hudson. ‘Well I don’t like living under your spotlight.’ The light came on me for my bit and I could see my family in the audience – my smile was cheesy because I had to bite the insides of my cheeks so that I didn’t cry with happiness. I mean what a first episode, I will remember that for the rest of my life.

  My first ever Green Room was an experience too. Everyone after the show chills in this room and there’s a little buffet. I was going to get a bottle of Prosecco for myself and drink it with a long straw but my mam said I had to give a good first impression. So I drank the full bottle but out of a champagne flute. Ava got a tour of the studio by Ant, bless him; she said her life was made now. We stayed till about half eleven and then made our way back to my house and ordered a pizza.

  ‘I know I keep saying it, but I cannit believe this is my job.’

  ‘I know, to be honest we are going to come down every week and watch it live,’ said my mam.

  ‘Oh really, I’d love that, Mam. It was nice standing on stage and being able to see your faces. At least I knew three people would be laughing at my jokes. God knows what’s in store for me on next week’s show, I just want it to be Saturday every day of the week.’

  Every Friday at the script meeting it felt like Christmas Eve. I would get that excited nervous tummy knowing that I was just one sleep away from something magical. I felt like I was ten again when I was filming Takeaway. Honestly, I would just constantly be in shock – it says something when you’re twenty-seven but you have to wear a Tena Lady pad because you’re scared that one week you might get a little over-excited.

  I mean I got to do a live sing-a-long with Steps. I was obsessed with them; when I was a kid me and my mam went to see them five times. I still have their board game in me attic. I would get me hair in braids like Faye and as it wasn’t as easy as Googling and printing the lyrics off back then I would listen to their songs on repeat whilst writing the lyrics down. I remember having the rehearsal to practise the ‘Tragedy’ dance on the Saturday afternoon. I said to Mike, who was my fabulous producer, ‘Seriously, I was born ready for this. I do not need any help with the Steps dance moves.’ Mike just giggled away as I started throwing my hands in the air to ‘Tragedy’, shaking everything my mamma gave me.

  I got to clap along in the studio alongside Little Ant and Dec while Ant and Dec joined Take That in a medley. And I played a new game called Game of Phones where I relived my call-centre days. My auntie Kirsty and uncle Mark came along to that show. Now that was a good night in the Green Room; we just plonked ourselves in a corner with a bottle of Prosecco each and people-watched.

  Another week I got to watch the Kaiser Chiefs in the End-of-the-Show Show. That reminds me, I had actually met Ricky a month before this as I’m friends with Grace, his fiancée, who is a stylist. Now she kindly invited me to come along to one of the Kaiser Chiefs shows at the O2 arena, which was amazing. I got a little bit tiddly and ended up with a few others including my friend Showbiz Liz (legend) having a house party at Grace and Ricky’s, leaving at about five in the morning. Now that is late for me, I like to be tucked up in bed by maximum 1 a.m. I am an absolute party pooper. Anyway the following day as I was hungover I ordered breakfast (Domino’s) and I got papped. I knew at that point when my pictures were making the actual paper just from ordering a pizza that it was a slow news day; I mean who gives a flying fuck that a then-twenty-six-year-old girl is hungover and ordering a large pepperoni with seven chicken wings, wedges and four cookies (I was very hungover – I needed carbs)? They’ll be papping me taking my bins out next (oh wait!).

  My favourite ever episode was when I got to take part in Ant and Dec: the Musical. I loved the singing and dancing, and I got to play Ant and Dec’s mother (they were twins in this production) and myself alongside Peter Andre in the jungle scene. Never in a million years would I have thought my dreams would come true of sharing a stage with Ant and Dec and meeting the most amazing talented people who I had watched on television my whole life. I mean I even got to play Sling a Sausage with Peter Andre, a man whose poster I had on my wall as a teenager (it was an online game involving hot dogs and a wall with cut-outs, you dirty-minded people).

  I am so bloody grateful that Ant and Dec and ITV believed in me so much to give me that opportunity. It was a life-changing experience and one I’ll treasure forever. Especially the grand finale in Walt Disney World Florida that was just magical and a real dream come true. See, I have always been a big supporter of the idea that you’re never too old to believe in magic:

  ‘You are never too old to dream a new dream.’

  Chapter Twenty

  BY GUV ’NOR IT ’S MARY BLEEDING POPPINS

  In Disney’s 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast, the beast is a multitude of animals. He is a composition of a lion’s mane, a gorilla’s brow, a buffalo’s beard and head, human’s eyes, a be
ar’s body, a wild boar’s tusks, and a wolf’s tail and legs.

  Dwarf names that didn’t make the cut in Disney’s Snow White were: Jumpy, Deafy, Dizzy, Wheezy, Hickey, Baldy, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Swift, Lazy, Puffy, Stuffy, Tubby, Shorty and Burpy.

  Devices called Smellitizers can be found all over Disney parks. They emit scents in certain areas to match the surroundings, so the smell of baking cookies and vanilla is around Main Street, salty sea air surrounds the queue for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and there’s fresh citrus on Soarin’.

  Disney has always been such a huge part of my life. My friends all say I live life through the eyes of a Disney princess. I always have and hopefully always will. I am constantly singing (in my best high-pitched, birds-tweeting-around-me, old-woman-knocking-on-my-door-offering-me-apples sort of singing voice), I waltz around the house and I always try to see the positive in every aspect of my life.

  As a kid I would endlessly sit on the edge of my bed, eating Parma Violets and watching Beauty and the Beast. It was my favourite thing to do – I watched it that much it got to the point where I could honestly recite the whole script to you. I felt like I truly knew Belle when I watched her, sitting in my bed with my Groovy Chick duvet wrapped round me. That brunette lass from a small village, the one who felt like she just didn’t quite fit in, the one who people thought was slightly strange as she would constantly have her head in a book … I honestly felt like I could relate to Belle. We even had the same scraggly hair. (Up until Belle came along, Disney gave me unrealistic expectations of hair. I mean, whose hair looks like Ariel’s when you get out of a pool? And don’t even get me started on Princess Jasmine – come on, all that dry heat and humidity and not one bit of frizz? That’s not real life!)

  I love everything about Beauty and the Beast. Especially its morals. It taught us girls that just because Gaston is fancied by all the town, that he is a proper lad, that he has rippling muscles, that his arse looks like two eggs in a hanky, that you could grate Parmesan cheese on his abs and he has the glossiest hair ever seen on an animated man, it does not mean he isn’t the bad guy. You can be the most handsome guy in town but can still be a chauvinistic fuck boy. I mean I’m not saying I agree with bestiality either. Or marrying someone that’s locked you up against your own free will (Stockholm Syndrome?). But beauty is only skin deep and that message is important.

  My flat in London is covered in Beauty and the Beast memorabilia. I have Cogsworth the clock, Lumière the candle, a Chip cup, and a Mrs Potts and Chip salt-and-pepper shaker. I have endless Disney quotes in frames. In the spare bedroom I have: ‘Dear Peter Pan, I’ve left my window open. Please come rescue me.’ In my bedroom I have the famous Belle quote: ‘I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell.’ In my living room I have a famous Walt Disney quote: ‘It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.’ I even have one in my toilet, obviously a Winnie the Pooh quote: ‘Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved.’ I know at twenty-seven it’s probably a little extreme but I believe you are never too old for Disney.

  When the Takeaway team first told me, ‘We are doing the live final show in Disney World Florida,’ I could not control my emotions. When they continued, ‘And you will be performing in front of the castle on Main Street, during a parade, dressed as Mary Poppins,’ I knew then that all those years of believing in dreams wasn’t silly: they do come true.

  Waking up on the morning of travelling I experienced an emotion I wish I could bottle up and give to every single person. I literally felt like I was floating on air all the way to the airport. Meeting up with all of the two hundred fans of the show who had won tickets to come and watch the final was unreal. Everyone was on such a high.

  As a treat for myself, I bought some magazines from WHSmith. Now although I love all the normal mags (you know the ones with cool, sexy names that entice you to buy them like Cosmopolitan, Heat, OK!, Look, Closer, Reveal, etc., where you find out all the celeb gossip whilst learning what you should be wearing and how to do your highlighter properly), when I’m on a plane I read things like Take a Break, That’s Life!, Chat and Real People. Magazines that are basically Jeremy Kyle in print, with a few crosswords, and which tell you where the best place to buy your sausages for a casserole and how you can turn eight empty litre bottles of Coke, a piece of plywood and an old blanket into a new lounge chair for your living room. I absolutely love them and they got me through the long flight.

  We arrived at an early hour of the morning at the Floridian Hotel in Orlando. I was with my good friend and producer Mike Spencer (he is one of the geniuses behind Love Island – you can thank him later). I knew I was going to get no sleep. I sat in my Belle pyjamas eating a full marzipan-shaped Mickey Mouse in the dark, knowing that in four hours I had to be up again to start rehearsals at the park. It was intense practising the next morning but I didn’t care because I wanted to make sure I got everything perfect – this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I wanted to remember and feel every single second of it.

  The day of the show arrived – four days of having fun at rehearsals had flown by, and I couldn’t believe the day had finally come. Virgin Atlantic were kind enough to fly my mam, dad and Ava out to watch me. I felt like a movie star. They came to meet me in my very own RV which had my name on the door; it had a little movie director’s seat with a light-up mirror and a fridge which was full of Fiji water (which obviously I had never drank before as it’s about four quid a bottle so I made sure to drink my own bodyweight of it) and lots of chocolates and goodies.

  ‘What do you think, Moffatts?’ I said to my family. Ava hugged me so tight I could hardly breathe.

  ‘This is just unbelievable,’ my dad replied.

  ‘Just think, Scarlett, if you could go back in time and say to those bullies that this is what would happen, or to the time you were nearly over your overdraft. It just feels surreal,’ said my mam.

  ‘It is bloody barmy. I still don’t understand why it’s happening to me but I suppose there’s no point in over-analysing it. Best to just bloody enjoy it.’

  The lovely Josh who was our Disney tour guide showed the family off to their seats, along with my old dance teacher Joan Martin (she was over in Florida by chance and I was delighted at the thought she could come and watch some of my moves).

  ‘Enjoy the show!’ I shouted. After getting my hair and make-up done I was escorted to the back of the stage. The crowd was huge. We were not expecting this; it was like the whole of Disney World had stopped to watch our show. We had Christina Ricci (I know, another childhood memory of The Addams Family and Casper the Friendly Ghost) as our guest announcer, CeeLo Green singing ‘Forget You’ and Cat Deeley (another one of my childhood legends – remember SM:tv Live with Chums and Wonkey Donkey?) as the thief who stole the missing crown jewels.

  Now I have to admit I also wasn’t prepared for the Floridian heat of 38 degrees Celsius. At one point in the show I had to run to the other side of the park to get everyone in the audience popcorn. I literally ran a mile, in the heat, in heels, with seven minutes on the clock live! But I absolutely love the thrill of live TV. Knowing that at any point it could all go tits up keeps the adrenaline going.

  It got to the part in the show I’d been waiting for (well, for my whole life really), doing what I loved: singing and dancing. It was the ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ scene. Ant, Dec, Stephen, me and Little Ant and Dec went down Main Street on a horse-drawn carriage with every single Disney character surrounding us, singing to the rooftops.

  ‘You know you can say it backwards which is “docious-ali-expi-istic-fragil-cali-repus,” I sang to Ant. I was led to the stage by two dancers and with tear-filled eyes I performed my little heart out. It was a thirty-second solo dance break to some, but to me in my head I was the real Mary Poppins on that stage. I could see my family and my old dance teacher Joan Martin in the crowd. The whole audience stood on their feet as Ant and Dec and Stephen made their way t
o the stage. The fireworks went off and the applause was like an army of drums banging.

  The show was unreal and honestly watching Ant and Dec performing in their suits, in the heat, in Florida, LIVE, I just felt so privileged to even be on the same stage as them. I know that I’m the luckiest girl alive to be given these opportunities and to be learning from the best British TV presenters of our generation. We all sat and had a glass of champers afterwards to celebrate; even Holly Willoughby and her husband Dan Baldwin came along as they were on holiday in Florida with their little ones.

  Along with my little sister being born, my dad beating cancer, my graduation day and winning the jungle, that finale show in Disney is and always will be one of my favourite memories so far in my life.

  Me and the family decided to stay on in Florida for another week. We literally went on every single ride, ate in every single restaurant, saw every single show and sang every Disney song possible. Ava even wore a Belle dress one day when we went to the Be our Guest restaurant. One of the waiters said to Ava, ‘Oh Belle, I do apologise, the Beast did not tell us his wife was joining us for dinner this evening. One moment and I shall bring the master.’