Alison Hammond struggled to pay her bills in the years after she found fame.

Alison Hammond struggled to pay the bills in the years after she found fame

Alison Hammond struggled to pay the bills in the years after she found fame

The 49-year-old presenter became known to the public when she appeared as a contestant on 'Big Brother' in 2002 and subsequently joined ITV's 'This Morning' where she hosted the competition segments but work dried up in the years that followed and she had to get a job in a hairdressers to make ends meet.

She told The Observer: "There was a time when I couldn’t pay my mortgage and I was really famous. I’d answer the phone, do a few blow dries. It’s not all good all of the time. "

These days, the former 'I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!' contestant - who has 19-year-old son Aiden with her ex-husband Noureddine Boufaied - is one of the regular main presenters on 'This Morning' and also fronts 'The Great British Bake Off' but admitted that if it all ended tomorrow, she would manage as she has done before and would happily work in a supermarket if she had to.

She said: "But I was all right, you know? That’s television, it’s fickle and it’s part of my journey, part of my power.

"I know I’ll be OK, because I’ve been OK before. I’ll go and work at Tesco and people will still love me."

As a child, Alison joined the Central Junior Television Workshop in her hometown of Birmingham and recalled just having a desire to be "in front of the camera" even at that early age.

She said: "It was being in front of other people that thrilled me. I would just show up in front of a camera. I’d do cartwheels, though I was a big girl. And I liked the fact that people would say, ‘Wow, look how big you are – and you can do that!’ I liked surprising people."

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