My dad is Greek and my mum Jamaican. My grandparents brought me up for most of my childhood, but I saw my mum and dad all the time.
My mum is a big collector of art.
My mum is the funniest and sweetest person I know; my sister’s like my best friend, so it’s great having them around.
My commitment is to my kids and my mum and I’m having a whale of a time.
I am someone who worries a lot. I’m always worrying ‘what if?’ Now I’m a mum – there will be worries for the rest of my life, but they’re not about me anymore.
I feel like a different person since my mum passed away, like I’m driving a ship with my husband alongside me and we’re leading these four children into unknown waters.
I was an accident – my mum was only 16 when she had me.
I went to school because I was supposed to. I did pre-med because my mum thought it was a good idea.
At school I got teased because I was so thin and awkward-looking. But the girls on TV looked similar to me. I would say to my mum, ‘The girls at school are teasing me, but I look like those girls on TV.’
When I was really young, my mum used to make my clothes – I hated that. I liked the way boys dressed – I still do. I wanted to wear what they wore.
The Bake Off’ taps into nostalgic feelings about your mum baking in the kitchen. It’s a big ruddy comfort blanket, and you get attached to the bakers. It also genuinely has a good heart.
I grew up in an era where Dad worked, Mum looked after the family, and if I think of the qualities she brought to that – nurture and support are so valuable.
Mum says that, since I was a tiny baby, I’ve had the most strong-willed and stubborn personality known to man. Although that was a real pain for her, she admired my resolve.
Always treat people the way you would like to be treated. My mum told me that, and it often comes into my mind.
I used to watch ‘Cagney & Lacey’ with my mum back in the day. I can’t remember any of their storylines, but I remember really knowing these two friends like I would know real people.
I’ve got a really great family round me, two sisters and an older brother and my mum and dad. Everybody’s equal.
I feel like a semi-single mum.
If an artist knows you have respect for their talent – which I have to feel to my core, to sign them – they know that you’re in their corner. That doesn’t mean you have to be ‘mum’ on everything; it doesn’t mean you can’t raise your voice.
My mum was raised Jewish, my dad is very scientifically minded, and my school was vaguely Christian. We sang hymns in school. I liked the hymns bit, but apart from that, I can take it or leave it. So I had lots of different influences when I was younger.
I was born Gaynor Hopkins, one of seven children. My mum, Elsie, and dad, Glyndwr, always said they had seven children, although my sister Paulene was stillborn.
As a single mum I have to work, so I’m grateful to have the help of a wonderful and trusted nanny like I had when I was young.
My mum brought me up to think that personal happiness is more important than your family.
My mum loved Joan Armatrading and used to play her records all the time and even took me to see her a couple of times when I was really quite young. I didn’t really like her music back then because my mum was always playing it, but I’ve grown to appreciate it more.
Our house was always full of friends and family and we would all sit down to enjoy my mum’s Caribbean food, which was always a generous and shared experience.
Mum and Dad were both happy for me to do what I wanted.
My Mum always says to have fun; remember that fashion is about fun, and that is the most important thing because sometimes, people take it very seriously. Great advice to remember!
My mum bought discounted tickets for shows like ‘Cats’ and ‘Les Miserables’; I became completely enamoured.
My mum and dad weren’t together when I was born. When I was a teenager, dad brought this girl round: here’s your sister. She was only two years old, and I never saw her again from that day.
My dad lived till he was 78, my mum was in her 80s, and I’ve got two uncles who are in their 90s now.
I think I’d be more relaxed as an older mum, although fundamentally life with a baby is pretty much the same whatever age you are. It’s nappies, crying, feeding.
I was away a lot on ‘Countdown’ when the children were young and I couldn’t have done it without Mum’s help. Because she was at home running all of that, I never had to worry about them.
My mum was a children’s librarian, so I spent a lot of time in the library. My reading life, because of my mum’s work, was evenly split between American, Canadian, Australian and British authors.
I’ve got my dad’s height and smoking habit. But I think I’ve got my mum’s looks and sensibilities.
My son Beau got very ill when he was just four months old in Majorca. He contracted a really bad case of gastroenteritis. Everything feels so much worse when you don’t speak the language, and you need that reassuring conversation as a mum, but you can’t have it.
I don’t get to go home as much as I used to, which is a shame. But I don’t mind because my mum moved over to London to look after me. I rented her a house just around the corner.
My mum actually gave up work to look after my child, which is so touching.
When I was a child, I was always nicking my mum’s jewellery to wear, and I loved to drape a massive Chinese shawl around me from our fancy-dress box. I was obsessed with a feather and rabbit-fur collar from the age of three and attempted to make one with my friend, whose father was a gamekeeper.
My teacher told my mum, ‘I think William has dyspraxia,’ and Mum asked what that meant. She said, ‘Well, if I put a chair in the middle of the room and asked every child in the class to walk around it, William would be the only child in the class to walk into it.’ Mum was like, ‘Yeah, that’s my boy’.
I learnt basic cookery by watching my mum.
I was a bit of a handful when I was a kid because I was quite hyperactive. Even in the house my mum used to put me in my pram because I was so full-on.
My father was very chic. My mum was always encouraging me. Some parents would say, ‘Why don’t you be a lawyer, a doctor, or something more important?’ They never said that.
It’s very nice having my mum as my agent. You know that she’s always doing what’s best for you.
Being mum is a number one job. That takes priority.
Mum is a photographer, and Dad does world music and plays almost every instrument except for drums.
So for years I kept mum about my passion for needle arts.
Ours was a very progressive Protestant family, but my parents were God-loving rather than God-fearing. We went to church, and I still go with my mum and dad when I return home – it’s a family thing. I played flute in my dad’s marching band, but I had an integrated upbringing. We had a lot of Catholic friends.
I started training with school friends and, one by one, they all dropped out. When we became teenagers, it seemed more exciting to go shopping at weekends. My mum told me not to worry about what my friends were doing and to stick at it.
My mum told me that the best thing you could give a woman was attention.
My dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn’t especially religious.
I don’t keep any copies of my books in the house – they go to my mum’s flat. I don’t like them around.
I remember watching ‘EastEnders’ as a kid with my mum, and even my dad would be gripped by the odd episode. So to think I would be part of the show was a strange feeling at first.
When I had my first child, I went back to Ireland to live with my mother. So, a typical day there was me being a mother, with my mum showing me how to do things.
Listen, everything I did in my childhood was competitive. Everything we did my dad made it into a game to win. We used to drive my mum nuts.
People had told me to try ‘The X Factor’ for years, but I thought I’d be moody and hate it all. But it’s what I needed. I asked Mum and Dad to come to my ‘X Factor’ audition, and it was the first time that they’d been in the same room in years.
To be happy, to make other people happy, to get into movie production more and probably to give some other people the chances that I had, to carry on enjoying being a mum and never to stop having flowers bought for me. I’ve still got a long way to go.
For me personally, I have vitiligo, so my whole career, it’s always been this very odd debate: ‘Does she want to be white? Is she white and black? Is her mum white?’ It’s always been this question of my background, my race, and what I stand for.
Growing up, at that time, I didn’t want to be black because I was bullied, and I’d tell my mum that I wanted to be white like everyone else at school.
I know who my dad is, I’ve met him a few times, but I don’t even call him dad. I know it sounds horrible, but I don’t even see him as part of my family, to be honest. If you want the truth, it doesn’t bother me because I don’t know any different. I just know that me and my mum, that was my family.
Mum decided that I could sing a bit, so she put me in a choir, which I hated, and it was just a nightmare. I was a rebellious sort of choirboy.
