How Rochelle Humes went from child star to being tipped to host This Morning – her meteoric rise to fame
THIS week Holly Willoughby sensationally quit her This Morning presenting role after 14 years.
The star, 42, thanked her viewers as she shared an emotional statement revealing she had left the ITV show.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Holly wrote: “I have let ITV know today that after 14 years, I will not be returning to This Morning. To everyone who has ever worked on the show over the years, thank you so so much.
“This is such a difficult goodbye, you are incredible and I forever will be proud of what we’ve done together. I will not be returning to This Morning.”
Since Holly’s exit, the search has already begun to find her permanent replacement on the flagship award-winning daytime show.
There are a lot of star names lined up to potentially take spots on the permanent presenting roster, including Rochelle Humes, Alison Hammond, Josie Gibson, Ben Shephard, Ruth Langsford, Rylan Clark and Vanessa Feltz as potential favourites.
Rochelle Humes will forever be known for being a member of the girl group The Saturdays, alongside Frankie Bridge, Una Healy, Mollie King and Vanessa White.
But despite her singing past, Rochelle, who is originally from Barking, England, has now switched to a career in television.
Born Rochelle Wiseman, she has been married to JLS singer Marvin Humes since 2012 and has been a part of the roster of This Morning presenters since 2013, when she and Marvin joined the programme as fill-in presenters.
Body language pro Judi James previously revealed the six secret signs Rochelle could be gunning for Holly Willoughby’s seat – so here, we take a look at Rochelle’s meteoric rise to fame – from how she went from a child star to being tipped to host This Morning.
S Club Juniors
Rochelle started her career as a pop star, in the S Club 7 spin-off group, S Club Juniors in 2001.
Rochelle joined S Club 8 (originally S Club Juniors) when she was just 12.
The group’s members, including Rochelle, were chosen from thousands of hopefuls on the television series S Club Search in 2001.
The group was originally intended as a support act at Wembley Arena on S Club 7’s S Club Carnival Tour, but their first single, which was called ‘One Step Closer’, reached number one in the midweek charts.
Soon after, the band released their debut album Together , reaching number five in its first week of sale and selling 40,000 copies.
Not only this, but the group also had its own documentary series, S Club Juniors: The Story, before the band went their separate ways in 2003.
Children’s TV
After her stint as a child star, Rochelle then briefly moved into children’s TV presenting.
She began her TV presenting career by co-hosting the kids’ TV show Smile from 2004 until 2006.
Rochelle co-presented the Sunday morning BBC show alongside Barney Harwood and Kirsten O’Brien.
The show had celebrity guests, interviews, performances, games and ‘built in’ CBBC shows and cartoons, and was Rochelle’s first taste of presenting.
The Saturdays
Following her S Club Junior stint and role on Smile, Rochelle went back to her musical background.
The Saturdays were created in 2007, through Fascination Records, a sub-division of Polydor Records, and Rochelle, along with her old bandmate Frankie Bridge, became members.
As soon as the contract was finalised, the band went on tour with Girls Aloud during their Tangled Up Tour.
The band then released their debut single If This Is Love a year later.
Over the course of the next seven years, The Saturdays had 13 top 10 singles – including Missing You, Ego, Higher, Notorious, Issues and All Fired Up.
Their debut album Chasing Lights reached platinum status and they hit the top of the charts with What About Us, a collaboration with Sean Paul.
But despite the band selling over eight million records in the UK and Ireland, the band have been on a hiatus since 2014.
TV gigs
After The Saturdays announced their hiatus in 2014, Rochelle went on to forge a successful TV career.
She has since scored high-profile prime-time ITV gigs including Ninja Warrior UK in 2015, where Rochelle was a co-host alongside Ben Shephard and Chris Kamara.
In June 2015, Rochelle was confirmed as a new co-host of The Xtra Factor, replacing Sarah-Jane Crawford.
She also hosted the twelfth series with her Sweat the Small Stuff co-star Melvin Odoom in 2015.
By 2016, Rochelle co-presented a new Sunday night entertainment series for ITV called The Next Great Magician, alongside Stephen Mulhern.
In the summer of 2018, Rochelle stepped in for Lorraine Kelly during her annual break as the sole presenter of Lorraine.
Not only this, but Rochelle also sat in for Emma Willis on Sunday Morning Breakfast with Mulhern on multiple occasions on Heart London.
In 2018, Rochelle took over Saturday early evenings (reformatted as Saturday drivetime) from Emma Bunton.
If that wasn’t enough, in 2019, Rochelle co-hosted a music quiz show with her husband Marvin on BBC One called The Hit List.
This Morning
Throughout her various TV gigs, Rochelle has been a part of the roster of This Morning presenters since 2013, when she joined as a fill-in presenter.
She was personally picked by Phillip Schofield to fill in for Holly on the show when the star was called to sub for Ant McPartlin on I’m A Celebrity between November and December 2018.
But now, it appears that Rochelle could be a favourite tipped to steal Holly’s This Morning seat, after body language pro Judi James recently revealed to Fabulous the six secret signs that Rochelle could be gunning for Holly’s seat.
This week, alongside Craig Doyle, Rochelle Humes broke the news about Holly’s exit on This Morning, where according to Judi, Rochelle appeared “confident.”
Judi told Fabulous: “There were clues Rochelle might be gunning for Holly’s spot.”
Amongst these six secret signs were Rochelle’s raised eyebrows and empathic chin.
According to Judi, Rochelle had “wide eyes, raised brows and smile at the start of the show, next to Craig’s sad look, suggesting she was clearly capable of carrying on professionally despite everything.”
The body language pro analysed that Rochelle showed “confidence and status” during the opening segment, where she claimed “Holly loved her job here” and “she is quite rightly putting her family first.”
The body language expert also said this was achieved by showing “wide smiles” and “emphatic chin raises”.
But what do you think? Do you think Rochelle will take Holly’s role as This Morning presenter?
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