Vernon Kay became star thanks to drunken afternoon at The Clothes Show roadshow

Vernon Kay only ended up a star thanks to a drunken afternoon at The Clothes Show roadshow.

The TV host, 46, was working at a DIY store when friends pestered him into going to see The Clothes Show and his life changed forever, first with modelling then TV presenting.

ITV viewers saw him showing off his catwalk poses on Saturday and talking about working as a model.

In a podcast interview before he entered the show, Vernon explained his lucky break: “I was working in my cousin’s DIY shop.

“I was a stereotypical kid living for the weekend.

“A friend of mine said look ‘why don’t you get the day off’, cos I used to cut wood panels in my cousin’s DIY shop, and he said ‘get a day off work, we’re going to the Clothes Chow?’

“I’m like ‘clothes show, what do you want to go there for?’, he went ‘come on it’ll be great fun’, I went ‘no it won’t’, he went ‘come on it’ll be brilliant’, I’m like ‘why’, he went ‘my sister went she said it were brilliant’, I went ‘yeah your sister!?”’.

“While we were at the show I got scouted by a modelling agent.

“He went ‘You’ve got a quirky look, do you fancy giving it a go?’ I was like ‘nah that’s not for me mate’.

“We’d had a couple of beers and my mate Adam said, ‘if you go on this catwalk thing, I’ll get the beers for the rest of the afternoon’.

“I said ‘yeah alright I’ll do it, cos I didn’t have a pot to p*** in.”.

The move paid off and Vernon, 46, went on to be a model for several years, enjoying the partying side of things.

On the Humans XS podcast, he added: “The following Friday I was living in a bed and breakfast in Paddington and never came back.”

After modelling Vernon moved to T4 where he established himself as a presenter.

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Vernon Kay