How Mel Sykes led generation of glam 90s pin-ups still earning millions – from lingerie range to incredible bikini body
IF the Nineties feels like yesterday, you’re not going mad.
The decade is back on trend, with baggy jeans, retro footie kits and even Buzz Lightyear making a return.
But the era’s glam female pin-ups have never gone out of style.
Model and Heart radio host Kelly Brook showed she still makes news recently when she announced her engagement to Jeremy Parisi.
And she’s not the decade’s only beauty thriving today. In a new series, we celebrate the Nineties power women with the secret to long-lasting success.
Today, we look at beer ad beauty turned TV star Melanie Sykes.
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“Do you want a flake in that, love?”
It was the line that launched Mel Sykes’ career — that and her cleavage-revealing pink dress, model looks and down-to-earth northern accent.
The 1996 ad showed her manning an ice cream van and serving a frothy pint of Boddingtons to a sweaty runner who had legged it across a desert to get to her.
In 2017, the Lancashire beauty, now 51, appeared in another commercial for the brewery looking barely a day older.
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She captioned the pictures on Instagram: “Grinning like a Lancashire cat at my reunion with Boddingtons Bitter 21 years later. I am buzzing and so happy to be part of the team. Brings back great memories.”
A lot had happened between.
In her 20s, she swiftly became a lads’ mag favourite, showing off her fantastic figure in the likes of FHM and Maxim.
In 1999, she was voted 10th in FHM’s 100 Sexiest Women poll. Then, Sarah Michelle Gellar, star of the TV series, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, was No1, followed by Louise Nurding — now Redknapp — and Kelly Brook.
But she always refused to pose nude — until 2011 when, after deciding she was in the best shape of her life, she stripped off for Esquire magazine.
Mel’s presenting career began with stints alongside Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast from 1997 onwards.
Then in 2002, she joined forces with late TV legend Des O’Connor for their daytime show, Today with Des and Mel.
After Des died, aged 88 in 2020, Mel posted a gushing tribute, which read: “When he chose me to be his co-host, it was one of the greatest days of my professional life.
“We worked long hours but always laughed lots, not least because when it was showtime he would always tell me I looked like a robber’s dog!”
The show ran for four years and was axed in 2006.
By that point, Mel had become a mum to two boys, Roman and Valentino, with her first husband, actor Daniel Caltagirone, who she married in 2001.
They separated in 2008 and divorced the following year.
Mel was a few months shy of her 43rd birthday when she married toyboy Jack Cockings, then 27, in May 2013, after meeting on Twitter.
But in November that year, Mel was cautioned for common assault after police were called to a dispute with the roofer.
The caution was later withdrawn and removed from official records.
Mel has since said: “I’m not a violent person, I’m not capable of it.”
She and Jack split after seven months, but they didn’t divorce until 2016, by which time Mel said she had been “fine for quite a few years", and that the divorce was the “easy” part.
The hardest was: “Being married to the wrong person.”
Work-wise though, Mel has gone from strength to strength.
She first appeared on ITV’s Loose Women in October 2005, and has been a regular guest anchor and panellist ever since.
Her impressive telly CV also includes hosting The Great Pottery Throw Down, appearing on Celebrity MasterChef and winning The Great Celebrity Bake Off in 2018 with a cake that looked like Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
She said at the time: “It has taken 47 years to win something. Hopefully I will be on a roll now.”
As well as Des O’Connor, she has been a double act with comedian Alan Carr, with whom she presented a BBC Radio 2 show from 2010 to 2012, and has enjoyed a long-running partnership with chef Gino d’Campo.
She and the Italian TV personality made four series of Let’s Do Lunch with Gino & Mel on ITV, as well as three spin-off Christmas versions.
In 2014, she headed to the jungle for the 14th series of I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! Mel finished in third place, behind X Factor singer Jake Quickenden and winner, superbike racer Carl Fogarty.
And last year, she and Love Actually star Joanna Page were announced as the new presenters of BBC One’s consumer series, Shop Well For Less.
But Mel isn’t just a talented TV and radio host and cake baker.
She has been a brand ambassador for companies Head & Shoulders, Matalan and Morrisons.
Incredible bikini body
Mel also used her business brain to launch her own range of underwear and lingerie with the former high street giant Debenhams.
Of course, it helps that she has kept her incredible bikini body.
She had a boob job in 2011, and says she owes a lot of her youthful looks to genes. Speaking in 2014, she said: “Both my mum and my grandmother still look amazing so I am hoping to grow old gracefully.”
Diet-wise, Mel has a daily celery juice to aid digestion, shuns dairy and watches her sugar intake.
In 2020, she celebrated three years of sobriety.
For exercise, Mel alternates yoga sessions with weights, stressing that core strength and flexibility is the key to a “happier, active life.”
She got into fitness while still married to Daniel, because it gave her some time for herself away from a hectic work and family life.
She wrote last year: “I’ve just celebrated my 51st birthday and I just keep feeling better and better.” She also uses daily affirmations and meditates to help her anxiety. As for her love life, well there have been ups and downs.
In 2017, The Sun revealed she had been dating popstar Olly Murs — 14 years her junior — for a year.
A source told us: “They have both been determined for nobody to find out. It’s been a bit off and on and there’s a real physical attraction between them.”
Two years later, we reported that she had been secretly seeing Alan Partridge comic Steve Coogan after the pair hit it off at the launch party for his film Stan & Ollie, about comedy legends, Laurel and Hardy.
Mel was rumoured to have called it off, supposedly because Steve was a “bit set in his ways” and wouldn’t commit.
A source told us at the time: “They were together properly for at least six months.
“They were close but it never got too serious.”
In 2020, she said she would love to find a “good man” but added: “Sadly, in all realms of life, most, not all, but most men are pretty basic and disappointing.”
However, that same year she enjoyed a holiday fling in Venice, Italy, with handsome gondolier, Riccardo Simionato, then 23.
They reunited in London last September and looked very loved up, strolling along the street holding hands and hugging.
Her pal, Alan Carr, recently joked that her romance will have encouraged British women looking for love to fly to Italy.
He said: “I rang her up and said, ‘I hope you’re being paid by the Venetian tourist board’.”
‘Lots of trauma’
This year, she has started painting and just last week, posted one of her watercolours to Instagram — it was of what looked to be a scene in Venice with a row of gondolas.
Most recently, Mel has courageously opened up about being diagnosed with autism.
She said last November: “I know what makes me autistic and it’s the fabric of who I am and who I’ve always been and I think I’m great.”
She added that she didn’t talk about the condition for “column inches” but because she wanted to help “everybody that has been diagnosed who’s a bit embarrassed about it.”
In an Instagram post earlier this month, Mel revealed she was suffering from agoraphobia — the fear of open or crowded spaces — after “lots of trauma and a breakdown back in January.”
She went on to say that she used meditation beads, CBD — the non-psychoactive ingredient in cannabis — and breathing techniques to get through it.
The serene picture showed her staring out from a pool onto the stunning mountains around Val Gardena, northern Italy.
She added: “My late diagnosis of autism has changed my life for the better.
“I just needed to do the work and will continue to do it. For once, I come first.
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“For anyone who is feeling stuck in any way right now, know you are not alone and know you will reach better horizons.
"If I can, you can.”