Denise Welch: ‘Embarrassing your kids is one of life’s great joys’

Denise Welch is a woman of many talents from Loose Women to the stage, and now she could be our new Christmas number one.

However, self-described ‘disruptor’ Denise, 67, was never going to release any old ordinary festive track.

Instead, she dropped a hyper-pop anthem — Slayyy Bells — with Celebrations, putting on the performance of a lifetime as a superstar diva in the music video.

Clad in red leather with giant fashionable black sunglasses, this is the former Coronation Street star as we’ve never seen her before.

‘[I was] thinking about what my kids would think,’ Denise told Metro, looking every bit the part on a Zoom call from her lush holiday in Los Angeles.

‘Because embarrassing your kids is one of life’s great joys. It’s why we have them, let’s be honest.’

‘Listen up huns’ she announces in the song’s opening line, declaring ‘we’re doing Christmas a little different this year’.

Slayyy Bells is Christmassy, chaotic, and camp, with insight into her family traditions as well as promising to ‘serve looks not turkey’.

At one point, she sings how they have their main meal on Christmas Eve because ‘nana did it that way’.

‘We lost my mum 13 years ago, but we always had dinner and still do on Christmas Eve,’ Denise shared. ‘We never knew why, but it really, really works.’

Turns out the Christmas Eve tradition is Scandinavian, but Denise joked her late mum had ‘never been as far as Norway’.

‘It really works,’ Denise insisted, adding that ‘nobody is slaving over a hot stove’ and missing the Christmas Day fun.

That is, unless you’re ex-husband Tim Healy, and his sous chef Lincoln (Denise’s current husband), who puts on roast ham and peas for the family.

Denise laughed: ‘My sister comes out of pescatarianism for one day a year. She is a full-on non-meat-eating pescatarian for 364 days, but the only meal she gives it up for is Tim Healy’s ham. So that says a lot for the ham.’

Family is incredibly important to the former Corrie star, with ever supportive son Matty Healy simply writing ‘lol’ in the music video comments.

As mother to The 1975’s frontman, Denise finds herself regularly rubbing shoulders with certified ‘cool’ artists like Charli XCX.

‘It’s very funny that none of them have invited me into the studio,’ she told us. ‘But you know, I’m sure that time is imminent.

‘I’m sure that they realise they can’t resist it anymore, because I will basically be snapped up by others if they don’t.’

This isn’t her first brush with pop stardom, having previously gone to number 23 in the UK with You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me from Soldier Soldier.

Despite this initial success in 1995, Denise insisted a festive number had ‘never, ever, ever entered my head, ever in the history of my life.

She explained: ‘Celebrations wanted to shake things up a little bit and try a new campaign. I’m known for shaking up the status quo now and again. I thought it was hysterical.

‘Why are they not going to someone from Little Mix? Why are they coming to me? But I was very flattered. So, I pretended to be this sort of pop star, because I know a few pop stars.’

Slayyy Bells is part of a ‘third act’ that the Loose Women star is embracing, after becoming ‘queen of the huns’, coined by cult-followed Instagram account Love of Huns.

Denise recently flexed her new image while interviewing celebs as GQ’s Man of the Year party correspondent, dressed up in a fashion-forward leather fit with a bow.

‘It’s quite funny being this ageing fashionista at my age,’ she laughed. ‘I know nothing about high fashion, literally nothing.

‘I’m enjoying it because I really am seeing this as a sort of third act. I really do feel that there’s some kind of change as happened, and so I’m embracing it as this new era for me, especially returning to my acting roots.’

Amid her growing status as a fashion icon, Denise also has the rare accolade of having appeared in every British soap.

Turns out, she’s got a lot of fans in some surprising places – including a random town called Tallinn in Estonia.

While on a cruise, she and husband Lincoln decided to go to the town where part of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was filmed with a local tour guide.

‘She went to me, “Oh, my God, I don’t believe it”, and I said, “What?” She said, “You[‘re off] the Waterloo Road school”,’ Denise laughed.

‘Apparently, they got Waterloo Road in Estonia. She was going to people, “She’s off the Waterloo Road school”, and all these people were waving at me.

‘That was quite bizarre. To think that I’m quite a name in Estonia. I love that.’

Denise teased that she has some big plans for next year, including comedy Stepping Up and a return to Waterloo Road.

There is, of course, Matty and Gabbriette Bechtel’s wedding coming up, although they’re all keeping very quiet about any plans.

‘I don’t have an outfit, but I’m talking to a lot of people,’ Denise coyly revealed. ‘Now I’ve become the number one fashionista of the United Kingdom, I feel that there’s a lot of pressure on me to perform fashion-wise.

‘And as you can imagine, most designers are now beating a path to my door. So I’m going to really take things slowly, and Lincoln’s going to have to up his game.’

We’ll expect to see Lincoln in an avant-garde suit designed by only the top fashion houses if he’s planning to take some snaps with his legendary wife.

With a potential number one on the way and a new fashion following, there’s no chance Denise is slowing down any time soon.

Beaming, she concluded: ‘Always leave them wanting more.’

Denise Welch’s Christmas collaboration with Celebrations, Slayyy Bells, is out now.

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