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Celebrity winner set for £2m windfall
Tuesday February 10, 2004
McFadden pasta deal: she's natural, saucy and loves Italy, says publicist Clifford
Kerry McFadden has been lined up as the face of an Italian pasta sauce company after her triumph in I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! - and looks set to cash in on her win to the tune of £2 million.
The former Atomic Kitten star has been inundated with offers since her unlikely triumph in the hit ITV1 reality show, according to her PR consultant, Max Clifford.
The Pop Idol judge, Simon Cowell, wants to use her for a number of TV projects being developed by his production company, Simcow, while ITV bosses will be desperate to build on the popularity of their newly created reality star.
The offer by Italian pasta company Sacla, makers of pesto and tomato sauces, could earn the star as much as £500,000 for a major TV and marketing campaign. McFadden is already lined up for £200,000 after agreeing to sell her story to the Express.
"Kerry has already said how much she loves cooking and Italian things," said Clifford. "When I mentioned Sacla she said she uses it all the time. I know she likes Sacla because she has used it when I have had dinner with her. She is natural and saucy and loves Italy," said Clifford.
But Clifford, who originally advised McFadden not to go on the show, said the singer turned TV presenter was likely to pick her projects carefully.
"In the short term she could make a couple of million, but knowing her and Bryan [McFadden] it will be her family first and second and her career after that. That will be their priority.
"She came across as totally natural and a very nice and caring, sensitive type of person and that was what the British public really liked. If you want to you can build something worthwhile on the back of that."
McFadden has already tried her hand at being a presenter - she has presented on ITV's lunchtime talk show Loose Women, and presented the flop nighttime dating show, Elimidate.
"There are more and much bigger offers of a similar sort of thing [to Loose Women]," said Clifford. "Simon Cowell [another Clifford client] contacted me and is seriously interested in a couple of new projects for Kerry. With his track record and positioning in America, that is something worth looking into."
Clifford said McFadden's "natural health and beauty" would also make her attractive to health and beauty companies and she has been targeted by the natural health company, the Wimpole Skin Care Centre, where McFadden had a short course of treatment last year.
But the PR guru said he would advise her not to return to her music career. "It is difficult to marry the two [music and TV]. A music career is far more time-consuming but who knows?"
On originally advising her not to go on the show, Clifford joked: "How right am I? She is a nice, natural girl and in my opinion that sort of person isn't suited to going on this kind of show. I knew how much she would miss her kids and I thought she would have a miserable time, but she pulled it all together and went from good to brilliant."
Guardian
