Cat Deeley, the statuesque British blonde who hosts the Fox summer hit “So You Think You Can Dance,” is in her Los Angeles kitchen chopping fruit for breakfast, which she announces is the extent of her cooking.
She has just returned from England, where she interviewed cancer survivor Kylie Minogue. “She has this glow about her and looks incredible,” Deeley says. “Her hair is growing back, it’s like baby lamb’s hair, and she is full of life.”
Though the Minogue interview ranks as her favorite, Deeley admits that whatever she has done last shines brightest.
She is a top host in the United Kingdom; here she hosts the show where every kid who ever learned how to plie (and so very many who did not) is convinced he is the next dancing star. Nowhere was that more evident than in the show’s premiere, when a hapless man, whom the judges described as a cross between Tiny Tim and Pee-wee Herman, clumsily undulated and told them his stage name was Sex.
“It was just bizarre,” Deeley explains. “He and his mother truly, honestly believe he has that star charisma.”
Deeley is far more self-aware about her dancing abilities. “My mom used to take me to ballet class when I was little,” she says. “I had two left feet.”
She jokes that her feet are large, but at 5 feet 9 inches tall, it works. Her willowy frame and pretty face led her to modeling. When she asked herself what to do next, she recalled a childhood dream: “When I was 7, I wanted to host TV shows,” Deeley says.
Deeley is one of the rare people actually doing what she wanted to as a little girl. As for what’s next, the only thing Deeley plans is to not plan. “I would rather play it by ear,” she says.
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Hometown: Birmingham, England.
Significant other: “No husband, not at this precise moment,” she says, then laughs. “If I could take it down from the shelves occasionally and dust it off — then I could just use one when I fancy one.”
Children: “No,” she says. “I have shoes and handbags.”
Guilty pleasure on TV: “I do love those trashy talk shows, where my mother slept with my uncle and I fell in love with a whore,” she says.
What’s in her iPod: Franz Ferdinand, Babyshambles, U2.
What she did the last time she was home: “My mom and dad drove down and we had breakfast together,” she says. “And I took my goddaughter to a fairy shop, where they have all things to do with fairies.”
