Successfully bringing up three energetic boys aged eight and under while pursuing a podcasting, writing and performing career would floor a less grounded human than Giovanna Fletcher.
But the 37-year-old I’m A Celebrity winner, who next month celebrates her 10th wedding anniversary with McFly star Tom, takes it all in her unflappable, optimistic stride.
“If I’m honest, there is a lot of juggling,” says the best-selling author.
“We’re lucky that the majority of things that we do are from home, but it is very much a group effort.
“Tom’s family are with us so we’ve got a great support network around us, and we wouldn’t be able to do it without that.”
Despite being outnumbered in the frenetic Fletcher household, Giovanna has no plans to redress the family gender imbalance.
“When I was pregnant for the third time with Max, and we found out that he was a boy, I was like, ‘Amazing’.
“Not one part of me thought, ‘Oh what a shame’.
“I feel really lucky to have three healthy boys and we’ve got a female cat called Leia, who is definitely on my side.”
“G” and McFly frontman Tom share their £2.5million family home in North London with sons, Buzz, eight, six-year-old Buddy and Max, three.
And when their youngest started nursery this year, the Fletcher household had a comforting peace to it after eight years of nappy changing and sleepless nights.
She said: “Me and Tom came home, and we just sat there and listened to the hum of the fridge.
“As you can imagine having three boys is a noisy business. They’re constantly jumping around and swinging from anything they can swing from.”
Parenting certainly hasn’t always been so easy for Giovanna, and she admits it was her early struggles that inspired her podcast.
“The whole Happy Mum podcast actually stemmed from me being really unhappy,” she explains.
“I was really struggling with breastfeeding, and I can just remember Emma Willis saying to me, ‘You know, you don’t have to do this. You’ve got to remember that the most important thing is your mental health. Happy mum, happy baby’.
“And that little phrase stuck with me.”
Giovanna’s podcast is now on its ninth series with some of the world’s most famous mums – and dads – joining her on it.
But out of all her celebrity guests, two stand out.
“Davina McCall was so wise. And when Amanda Holden came on to talk about losing her son Theo, who was stillborn when she was seven months pregnant, that was just the most humbling experience.”
Giovanna’s most famous guest has been the Duchess of Cambridge, who opened up about the guilt she felt when away from her children.
“I couldn’t actually believe she said yes,” admits Giovanna. “We ended up talking for an hour and a half and it just reinforced exactly what I knew the podcast is about. And that’s the fact that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do; so much of motherhood is a universal thing.”
Relatability is central to Giovanna’s appeal and it’s why she triumphed on I’m A Celebrity in 2020. And after watching Tom on last year’s Strictly Come Dancing, she hasn’t ruled out following him on to the dancefloor.
“I have never been tempted before to do it but seeing Tom’s love of it, maybe one day.”
But one environment Giovanna feels more than confident in is the kitchen. And she’s teamed up with Ocado to help launch their Disney inspired School of Magical Mealtimes to encourage children to get more engaged with cooking at home.
“I think it’s important to encourage healthy food habits with children and using different characters like Moana, 101 Dalmatians and The Lion King are a great way of engaging kids and it’s definitely worked with mine.”
For more on Ocado’s School of Magical Mealtimes inspired by Disney search Ocado on Universe.com.
