09 September 2023 , 13:16
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Ulrika Jonsson has slammed Davina McCall's new ITV dating show, and claimed she had the idea in the first place.
Davina is hosting the new over-50s dating show, titled Your Mum, My Dad, which sees a group of single parents - who have been secretly nominated by their grown up children - move into a luxury mansion to find love. In a cheeky twist, the parents have no idea they’ve been nominated, and are unaware of their kids watching them from a secret bunker outside the mansion, and will try and help in the matchmaking.
Ulrika, 56, is less than impressed with the new dating show, alleging she had come up with the idea first, but was left sickened by the prospect of having her children pick out a suitable boyfriend for her. “It suggests that even in our late 40s and 50s, we need our kids to be involved in decisions about our personal lives,” the mum-of-four fumed, as she said it “sends a signal to the rest of the world” that children have a say “about what we do and who we do it with.”
Ulrika claimed the idea was hers originally (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)“Davina would have you believe this was her idea. But a dating show for the over-50s was first mooted by me years ago - in this very newspaper,” Ulrika claimed in her column for The Sun . The TV personality was left unnerved by the new show, and said the thought of her kids picking out a potential love match for her brings “a shiver down my spine”. She predicted that the new show will be a huge success, but believed it was a “wasted opportunity” and felt it would be “patronising and condescending” to the over-50s.
Her initial idea for a dating show would try to “normalise older bodies and faces”, and while she didn’t want to copy Love Island, she felt “something along similar lines” would be a way to encourage men and women over a certain age to feel empowered about their bodies and looks. Davina has insisted that the show is nothing like Love Island, and was “very different” to the hit ITV2 dating show.
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My Mum, Your Dad starts on Monday (ITV)“The music, the setting, the grown-up kids being involved in their parents’ love lives, it’s very different… Love Island is great, I watch it with my kids, but this is a totally different show and there is room for both,” she explained. But she revealed that the grown up children, who are watching their parents find love, were “absolutely mortified” during certain scenes - however, there will be no cameras in the bedrooms.
And it’s the contestants’ children who will get to decide who leaves the mansion, as there will be no evictions from the show. “They can see that their mum or dad hasn’t made a connection and eventually their grown-up kid says, ‘Okay, I think it’s time for them to leave. They’re not getting anything from this anymore,’” Davina shared.
The official synopsis for My Mum, Your Dad reads: “From humorous moments to heartwarming confessions, the kids will see their parents in a whole new light as they are presented with opportunities to select who they’ll be matched with on one-to-one dates, and who may join the family celebrations for years to come.” The show starts on Monday 11 September at 9pm on ITV1, and will air on consecutive weeknights for two weeks.