Best known as a television presenter and actor, London-based Laura Whitmore is touring in the stage adaptation of Peter James's thriller Not Dead Enough where she plays Cleo Morey alongside Bill Ward. From Bray, Co Wicklow with a degree in journalism, she started her acting career hosting MTV Europe and moved to London and developed a successful career with MTV presenting the MTV Europe Music Awards, Movie Awards, The Brits for ITV and going on to present I am A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Now! from 2011 to 2015. She carried the Olympic Torch in London in 2012 and last year was a celebrity contestant on the BBC's 2016 series of Strictly Come Dancing. She lives in central London.
Describe your interiors style: It is quite representative of my fashion style and how I am. I bought this flat in an old Victorian building with open brickwork in Camden and when my father saw it he said, "It's very you – a bit quirky." I have been here now about five years and I love things like the open fireplace in the bedroom and over the years I have added my little bits and pieces like records and albums and the various awards like the MTV Award and the Olympic Torch. I pick things up from the different countries I have been to and I like cushions from different places – so these random pieces picked up along the way reflect me and my life. And I love lots of candles.
What is your favourite room? My bedroom is my favourite room because that's where I spend most of my time. I call it My Happy Place and it's my little haven when I have friends staying in my spare room. It's very homely because I travel so much and no matter where I am I always bring my favourite candle – Jo Malone's Pomegranate Noir – to remind me of home.
What items do you love most? I have my record player and a lot of different records and at Christmas my dad gave me all my grandfather's records. Records are back on trend at the moment and everybody is buying them or wanting to put music on records.
Over my bed I have a purple and gold painting by Peter Homan called Freedom and it's what he calls a fire painting made with a blow torch. I have another by the graffiti artist Pure Evil of Audrey Hepburn which I bought at a charity auction at a Prince gig and I also have an original Quentin Blake drawing of Matilda by Roald Dahl which was my favourite book as a child.
Who is your favourite designer? I am a big fan of Joanne Hynes who is brilliant and Helen Steele, and I love their prints and colours which are quite quirky. I love bright colour; my favourite being yellow. It's a happy colour and it is nice to be surrounded by colour. A friend who is training as an interior designer has found me a cool yellow chair which will bring even more colour into the house.
Which artists do you most admire? I am going to say Peter Homan because he is a friend and has gone through so much and fought really hard for his work and because you can see whatever you want in what he does. There is a kind of escapism in his paintings. I admire the artist Dan Baldwin and I love the album covers he has designed. I never think of myself as knowing a lot about art, but I know what I like.
Biggest interior turn off? Bare walls. I think everything should relate to you and your life. I have been in houses that have no personality and nothing on the walls and they could be showhouses and I couldn't live in places like that. I couldn't live in a place without anything on the walls.
Travel destination that stands out? Since I am a city girl I love New York and adore its hustle and bustle, but I also love the country and being in the middle of nowhere like the west coast of Ireland. I love these extremes and I spent a lot of summers in Galway, so there is complicity between the two.
If you had €100,000 to spend on anything for the house, what would that be? It probably would be a piece of art or maybe an amazing sound system, but can you imagine that amount of money? When I first bought this place I had no furniture and you pick up things along the way, but now as I get older I am appreciating things more. Everything in my flat has a meaning to it and what I have inside is as valuable to me personally as the very building itself.
