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Denise Van Outen lied on her CV to get role on 'The Big Breakfast'

Tom Beasley
·Contributor
·2-min read
Denise Van Outen admitted she has occasionally been prone to lying on her CV over the years. (SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty)
Denise Van Outen admitted she has occasionally been prone to lying on her CV over the years. (Getty)

Denise Van Outen has confessed to "fibbing" about her qualifications in order to secure her breakout presenting gig on The Big Breakfast.

In her new book A Bit of Me — reported via the Daily Mail — Van Outen joked that she "hadn’t lost my creative streak" when it came to applying for jobs.

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She joined The Big Breakfast in 1996, having been brought in as a weather presenter on the show before subsequently becoming a main host alongside Johnny Vaughan.

"What did I know about reading a weather report? Didn't you have to have the right sort of meteorological knowledge for that?" Van Outen wrote.

Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen formed a double act on 'The Big Breakfast' in the 1990s. (PA/Getty)
Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen formed a double act on 'The Big Breakfast' in the 1990s. (PA/Getty)

She added: "What I did know was that this was a fantastic opportunity, Channel 4 was doing a big relaunch of the show, and that’s where I came in.

"As per, I went all out, fibbing about having taken a meteorological course and assuring them that I’d be able to write my own weather report. No one could ever accuse me of not being a trier."

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The star said her ruse was immediately rumbled by the producers at Channel 4, but that didn't stop them giving her the gig.

"If I could sit there brazenly delivering that level of bull****, I was definitely the girl for the job," she said.

Denise Van Outen broke out into other stage and screen roles after 'The Big Breakfast'. (WireImage)
Denise Van Outen broke out into other stage and screen roles after 'The Big Breakfast'. (WireImage)

Van Outen admitted that the Big Breakfast incident wasn't the only time she massaged the truth in order to try to snag jobs in the entertainment world.

She said she'd look at recent film and TV projects and decide what she "might feasibly have been in", at one stage adding a Roman Polanski movie to her CV.

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Van Outen wrote: "Of course, with Google and the internet, you can’t get away with that sort of thing anymore, but back then I was pretty comfortable bolstering my credentials where necessary."

In the wake of her work on The Big Breakfast, Van Outen became a telly regular, as well as taking on musical stage roles in the likes of Chicago, Sweet Charity and Legally Blonde.

Watch: Denise Van Outen admits she once flashed Prince Charles