AT ONE time, you couldn’t turn on the TV or open the paper without seeing her bouncy blonde hair and wide smile.
But behind the scenes, former Page 3 star and national treasure Melinda Messenger was in turmoil, on the brink of financial and emotional collapse, and desperate to escape the limelight – fearing that otherwise, she could die.
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In her most-telling chat to date, Melinda, now 54, admitted: “It is a bit like you are on a hamster wheel and a bit trapped by your own success, for want of a better word.
“For me, it was like, ‘I need to earn an income, I need to provide for my family.’
“And I did want the work. But inside I just felt awful, and I was struggling.”
Although she was living what looked like the dream life, in reality, she was suffering complete exhaustion and burnout.
“The literal thought was, ‘This is going to kill me. I just can’t do it. I cannot do it’,” she revealed at an event to promote author Bianca Best’s latest book, Big Impact without Burnout.
The star of TV hits such as Cowboy Builders, Melinda made a name for herself modelling before fronting her own shows, including Channel 5’s Melinda’s Big Night In, which aired in 1998.
She was also a reality TV stalwart, taking part in Celebrity Big Brother in 2002 and Dancing On Ice in 2009.
But juggling the pressure of 18-hour workdays with raising three children – Melinda is mum to Morgan, Flynn and Evie with ex-husband Wayne Roberts – took its toll.
The pair, who married in Bali in 1998, divorced in 2012.
She explained: “Back in 1997, most people would know me from various different shows.
“I had three small children. I was really lucky to be doing loads of TV that I really loved and enjoyed, but I was utterly exhausted.
“It got to the point where I would literally do these series back-to-back.
“My average day would be up at 6am, maybe get home about 11pm – if I was not travelling to the next location. So, it was pretty intense… I had a bit of a watershed moment and realised I just couldn’t carry on.”
She added: “It was like a life crisis. Everything fell apart. Literally.
“My marriage ended, and I had a complete financial collapse for all sorts of reasons and lost everything that I had earned.
“Internally, I had a total collapse – really severe depression to the point where I was like …this is hard work.”
After quitting regular television work, she undertook psychotherapy training and has practised since 2015.
Now, as well as running her own psychotherapy practice, Melinda also does dream guiding – using dreams to help people navigate their subconscious.
Part of the Dream Research Institute in London, she is aiming to run retreats and workshops on dreams, energy and Reiki.
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Melinda now says she had a dream that acted as a forewarning of her life collapsing.
“I had quite a pivotal dream at that time – looking back now, it was what was going to happen,” she explained.
“But the upside of that is, I eventually started training as a psychotherapist. I did an MA and then some advanced training, working with dreams because it is a wonderful way of contacting the parts of us we don’t necessarily know a lot about.”
Finding love and burnout
She made a brief return to the limelight in 2023 when she appeared on Channel 4’s Celebrity SAS.
It turned out to be a game-changer for her in more ways than one – she started dating survivalist Dr Raj Joshi, who was a medic on the show.
She had been single for three years before that, following romances with ski instructor Warren Smith, who she met on reality show The Jump, and an eight-month relationship with Royal Marine Chris Harding, who she met on Celebrity First Dates.
It was a whirlwind romance – Dr Joshi popped the question a few months later while they holidayed in New Zealand.
At the time, Melinda said: “That’s the greatest thing that came out the show for me!
“When I came out, I was crying, sweat, blood, tears, and wee, I am not kidding you, in this old sports bra and cycling shorts covered in bruises and yeah, foot rot.
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“The producer was like, ‘Do you want to see the doctor? You may as well. Just pop in and just have a quick chat.’
“We just carried on chatting after that, and that was it!
“So the show changed my life in more ways than one, and I’m truly thankful for that.”
But, just six months after getting engaged, they called it quits, and Melinda has been single ever since.
“This idea has been instilled in women, they do have a sense of got to ‘Do it all’ – have a family during the day and create a business at night… For me, my three children are all adult now…but that was an immense struggle to try and weave together,” she said.
“It seems like for women, this is more dominant than it is for men.”
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The fame game
Melinda also admitted that she dealt with the pressures of TV stardom and fame by compartmentalising it.
“To me, fame is something I don’t necessarily experience. I always felt exactly the same… but the change was in how other people might relate to me. That is how it would show up in my life,” she said.
“Sometimes that would be challenging, and sometimes very rewarding. The pressure I experienced was being very exposed and visible all of the time.
“People would be surprised given what I have done in my past career, but I’m actually very introverted more than I am extroverted.
“So that was challenging – but I was able to keep my children quite separate from fame by choosing a particular type of school to keep things as normal and grounded and in reality as possible.
“The world of fame can be quite detached from reality. I worked hard at that. But I did feel a lot of pressure.”
Melinda explained that her own psychotherapy work has helped her immensely in looking at her own life and what she really needs – it might be a far cry from her glossy heyday, but the star has finally found peace at last.
Melinda was speaking at an event held by author Bianca Best to celebrate the publication of her book Big Impact without Burnout, now in all major bookstores, watkinsbooks.com and biancabest.com
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