Vernon Kay reveals festive tradition his daughters have banned him from doing
TV host Vernon Kay has revealed that his two daughters with wife Tess Daly, Phoebe, 20 and Amber, 15, have banned him from a festive tradition. Vernon, who is currently appearing in the Aladdin panto at the Wycombe Swan, was talking about his Christmas and New Year plans when he shared that his daughters have banned him from having fireworks for New Year.
Following his panto performance on New Year’s Eve in the afternoon, Vernon will be heading home to spend time with his wife and children, his parents and Tess’s mum. “If I'm allowed fireworks, I'll have some fireworks,” he told The Sun. But I think, as it stands, fireworks have been banned by my daughters because I spend too much money. I'll be honest with you, I do like a firework display. I’m like a child!”
Vernon is one of the highest paid celebrities in panto this year, alongside fellow Radio 2 DJ Scott Mills and This Morning star Alison Hammond.
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The DJ rarely speaks about his family life with Tess, but he was moved to tears during his radio show in November during a discussion about who would be the ultimate guest to invite to a dream dinner party. A Scottish listener named Melanie phoned in, and touched listeners’ hearts when she said she would want one more meal with her late mother. She said: "I know that you're asking people to send in famous people that they would probably like to have a meal with, either alive or dead, but I just want to put a vote in for having one last meal with my mum. She is no longer with us and she was the funniest, most ridiculous woman and she is such a massive miss. I would love to sit down at her favourite seafood restaurant and do a bit of people watching with her and tell her how much we all love her."
Vernon, clearly affected by the call, responded: "Is that you or is that me welling up. That was lovely and, Mel, good point well raised. It just goes to show you, and I'm guilty of this as well at times, that we don't spend enough time with our parents, do you know what I mean?”
He continued: "I'm terrible, Gladys is always telling me off, I'll be honest with you, for not ringing. When life just gets hold of you, you jump on that rollercoaster and it just carries you away and you're kind of doing all sorts of things, you've got to do this, got to do that, and all it needs is two minutes.”
"Two minutes is all it needs, 'hiya, you alright? Yeah very good'. And I am the first person to admit that I am guilty of that."
Vernon confessed to his audience that he planned to ring his mum Gladys as soon as he was off-air, urging his listeners to do the same: "Why don't you just pick up the phone, if they're still with us, and say hello."
