Brenda Edwards has revealed she went back to her old day job when her singing work dried up during lockdown.
The Loose Women star, who has carved out a career in the West End after finishing fourth in the second series of The X Factor in 2005, is currently starring as Killer Queen in We Will Rock You at the Coliseum.
Despite her success – and stint as a regular panellist on the daytime show – she found herself having to go back to her old job as an accounts payable manager during the onset of the pandemic.
Speaking on the ‘White Wine Question Time’ , she told Kate Thornton: ‘I’m still Brenda from accounts! When I’m not singing and I need some money, and I haven’t got any work in.
‘I went back to accounts in lockdown. I went back because there was no work on the theatre side so you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.’
Meanwhile, the 54-year-old star also revealed her ex-husband Patrick who inspired her to sign up to the X Factor.
At the time, Brenda explained she had been struggling to make it and it was her then-husband who helped to land her what became her first big break.
‘I was trying but that’s the thing. I was trying, but unsuccessfully. I knew I wanted to sing, that’s the whole thing of it really. I knew I wanted to sing,’ she recalled. ‘It was my ex-husband who entered me for it in the first place. It wasn’t me!’
It was her ex who approached researchers with a ‘funny sense of humour’ and convinced them to let her audition.
She added: ‘He said to the researchers “Oh, my wife thinks she’s a bit of a bird. Can she get in the queue?” Yeah, he had, well, he’s still got a very funny sense of humour.
‘But yeah, “My wife’s a bit of a bird. She thinks she can sing, can she audition?” So yeah, the rest was history. But I’ve always sung as long as I can remember and I’ve always enjoyed singing.’
