Washington - Arabstoday
The ditzy presenter gave birth last week to a boy, Leighton, brother to her four-year-old son Zachary from a previous relationship. Next on the agenda is getting married — and she revealed she was stunned when fiancé Aaron Barham proposed on a romantic holiday to New York, because he has always been anti-marriage. Stacey, who found fame singing on The X Factor and now fronts Sky Living’s Love Machine, said: “I want to take a bit of time because of the baby and also I think it does take a while to plan a wedding properly. “But I know I want loads of flowers at the wedding — I know they just die, but I love them. “And I want my dress to be made out of flowers. That’s the only thing I’ve decided so far. “It will be big because I’ve got a huge Jewish family. I’ll invite every single one of them, all the uncles and cousins, even people I’ve only met once in my life. “I can imagine myself crying. Although there’s a good chance I’ll giggle instead. One of the two.” Painter and decorator Aaron proposed at Christmas. But Stacey, 22, admitted: “It’s so funny because I’d just done an interview saying, ‘Aaron is never going to propose to me’, then he did it that weekend. “He was there when I did the interview but obviously he couldn’t say anything. They must have thought I was a right liar but I didn’t see it coming in a million years. “He’s always said, ‘What’s the point? It’s just a bit of paper’. Whereas I’ve always wanted to be engaged. When you’ve got a child and one on the way, it’s quite weird to say, ‘Here’s my boyfriend’. “It’s a lot nicer to say, ‘Here’s my fiancé’, or ‘my husband’. It makes you feel like a proper family.” Speaking to TV Biz just days before she gave birth, she added: “I don’t think Zac realises the baby is just going to lay there for the first year. But he’s very excited. “He knows he’s going to have to share his stuff, but that he’ll get to have a bath with the baby. We talk about it every day. “I’m completely comfortable with my babies having two different fathers and so is Zachary. “I love my stepmum Karen with all my heart, she looked after us just the same as my mum Fiona did. So it doesn’t have to feel any different. “I love being a young mum, too. It’s not the way I planned it, but when I’m 36, my kids will be grown up and I can start going out again. I’ll be like, ‘Woo!’.” Even before Leighton was born he made news — when Stacey was spotted smoking. She was “very embarrassed” to have been caught puffing on a cigarette while pregnant. Stacey was stripped of her Mum Of The Year title by Foxy Bingo and she apologised after a huge backlash — but insisted she was a good mum. She told Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on This Morning: “I completely understand why people are angry because to some people it’s incomprehensible that you would do such a thing, and I understand that it’s a selfish thing and it’s not good, so I do get the criticism.” Stacey and Aaron met on holiday in Greece just months after Zac was born and Stacey had split from his father, Dean Cox. The timing of their meeting means romance sometimes takes a back seat. She said: “We never really got to go on dates, but now that Zac’s older we’ll go to Nando’s or Pizza Hut then go bowling. Or I love Quasar, that laser game. We did it the other day and it was so scary, it was hilarious. “If I’d been a party girl before X Factor, maybe I would have been tempted by parties and premieres. But I’ve never been like that, so there’s no reason to start going clubbing and getting off my face. “We’re not very romantic but Aaron did cut my toast into heart shapes recently so that was sweet. “He takes Zac to football on Sunday mornings then picks me up and takes us to lunch. To me, that’s romantic. It’s about being a family.” Since coming third on The X Factor in 2009, Stacey’s career has gone from strength to strength. She landed her first major presenting job last year, hosting ITV1’s Sing If You Can with Keith Lemon, and now hosts dating show Love Machine with Radio One’s Chris Moyles. And she is loving her career so much, she does not plan to take much of a break before returning to work. Stacey said: “I don’t know what my body’s going to be like so I can’t put a date on it. “I look like a heffalump now, but what can you do? I’ve never been thin, never exercised. “Nothing interests me less after the whole trauma of giving birth than getting straight into some sort of health regime where you can’t eat what you want. No way.” Stacey also has an album coming out soon — her first since dumping her X Factor management in a legal battle. She said: “I never went on The X Factor thinking, ‘I want to be famous’. “I just wanted to sing, then other opportunities came along and I love the presenting. “I’m so lucky that firstly I got X Factor, then somebody took a chance on me as a presenter. I’m just Stacey from Dagenham!”