Kim Woodburn

Kim Woodburn (born Patricia Mary McKenzie; 25 March 1942, Portsmouth, Hampshire)^[1] is an English television presenter and expert cleaner who is best known for co-presenting the British television programme How Clean Is Your House? and in 2007, starred in the Canadian series Kim's Rude Awakenings.

Career

Early career

Born in 1942 in Eastney, near Portsmouth, as a child Patricia was fascinated by her grandmother, a charwoman, who taught her how to clean. She undertook many jobs in her adult life. She worked for a time as a social worker to teenage girls also as a member of staff in children's homes in Liverpool, in retail, and as a Littlewoods model in Liverpool in the late 1960s. In 1983, she made her first appearance on television on Pebble Mill at One, demonstrating knitwear. This was her only television appearance for the next 20 years, while she worked as a house cleaner in the UK and US.

Fame

In 2002, she auditioned for Channel 4, while earning £1,000 a month as a cleaner. She was hired as a presenter of new show How Clean is Your House?, which began in February 2003, and eventually became the highest paid Channel 4 female presenter. At the age of 61, Woodburn was catapulted into stardom as the show became an instant success. ^[2] In 2008, the sixth and final series of How Clean is Your House? was aired. From 2007 - 2009, she filmed a version of How Clean is Your House in Canada, called Kim's Rude Awakenings.

In 2006 she wrote an autobiography, Unbeaten, which detailed her early life and was the first time she revealed the death of her baby.^[1] This revelation led to a police investigation, which she readily assisted with.^[3]

She has also appeared in pantomime with TV co-star Aggie MacKenzie, at the Theatre Royal in Brighton.. Since then, she has appeared in various pantomimes all over the country, but without Aggie MacKenzie.

In August 2009, Woodburn announced to Now Magazine that she would not be making any further series of How Clean Is Your House?^[4] and Channel 4 announced soon afterwards that the show would be cancelled.^[5]

In December 2009, Woodburn was placed runner-up on ITV's reality show, I'm a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here!. She finished runner-up to TV chef, Gino D'Acampo.

Her success on I'm a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here!, led to a stand in role as host of This Morning.

In March 2010 she appeared in Celebrity Come Dine With Me on Channel 4 alongside Claire Sweeney, Darren Day and Tom O'Connor.

In 2011, Woodburn became a regular panelist on Big Brother 2011 spin-off show, Big Brother's Bit on the Side. In November 2011, she entered the Big Brother house to set a shopping task which she also judged, while berating the housemates for their lack of hygiene.^[6]

In February 2013, Woodburn teamed up with chef, Rosemary Shrager, and the pair appeared on the fifth series of Let's Dance for Comic Relief as contestants. They danced to Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend by Marilyn Monroe. They were eliminated by the panel of judges.

In 2014, Woodburn appeared as a contestant on one of The Chase (UK game show) Celebrity Specials. A famous blooper was made during her appearance when she selected the wrong answer, by accident - she intended to select answer C, but instead selected answer A.

In March 2016, Woodburn took part in the second series of Famous, Rich and Homeless for BBC1. Her controversial comments on the lives of rough sleepers and some of them that she met, led to a big dispute between her, the public and the other volunteers on the show.

In April 2016, Woodburn and her husband, Pete, appeared on Channel 4's A Place in the Sun: Winter Sun in order to find a holiday home on the glamorous Costa del Sol, which was to be their home during the winter months. Their budget was £320,000 and they were shown five two-three bedroom penthouses.

Personal life

Woodburn says that she was constantly beaten by her mother throughout her childhood and neglected by her father, who, she claims, later attempted to molest her as a teenager.^[1] Woodburn has one sister and one brother, and several half-sisters and half-brothers born to her mother and various men. Her mother died in 2000.^[1]

After leaving home and moving from job to job, aged 23, she became pregnant by her then boyfriend. He soon left her. In February 1966 she gave birth three months prematurely to a stillborn boy. Terrified of the stigma of being an unmarried mother and alone, she buried the baby's body in a nearby park.^[1] After this, she changed her forename to Kim to try to break with her past.^[7]

Her first marriage to a policeman ended in divorce in the 1970s.^[1] She has been married to Peter since 1979, who is also a former police officer and three years her junior. They never had any children together. They own two properties, one in Old Oxted, Surrey, the other in Crowborough, East Sussex.^[8][9]

Bibliography

• How Clean Is Your House? with Aggie MacKenzie (2003) ISBN 0-7181-4699-9
• Too Posh to Wash: The Complete Guide to Cleaning Up Your Life with Aggie MacKenzie (2004) ISBN 0-7181-4769-3
• The Cleaning Bible: Kim & Aggie's Complete Guide to Modern Household Management with Aggie MacKenzie (2006) ISBN 0-7181-4906-8
• Unbeaten: The Story of My Brutal Childhood (2006) ISBN 0-340-92221-4
• Hotel GB channel 4 (2012)

References

External links

• Kim Woodburn at the Internet Movie Database