MEGAN McKenna is unrecognisable from her reality TV days. Gone are the fake lashes, the hair extensions and the perma-tan.
Instead, she sits bare-faced with a chic brunette bob while serenely breastfeeding her baby boy Landon. And she looks all the happier for it.
Megan in full glam back in 2017 during her reality TV days[/caption]
“I’m in my mum era,” she laughs. “I just love it. I feel like it’s the best time of my life.
“I’m not really glam all the time. I’ve got my new hairstyle, I’ve gone back to my roots. I feel this is my true Megan.”
Not only does she look different, but her whole life is different.
The 32-year-old swapped Essex for Germany six months ago when her footballer fiancé Oliver Burke, 27, signed to Bundesliga club Werder Bremen.
It’s a million miles away from her early 20s, when she was largely known for dramatic rows on Ex On The Beach, that infamous argument over who was doing the cleaning on Celebrity Big Brother in 2016, and for dating Pete Wicks on The Only Way Is Essex.
“Honestly, I feel like all my stuff before – the reality TV and everything – was just like getting me ready for this sort of life,” she admits.
“I do feel like a completely different person now.
“And sometimes I look back on footage of myself and think, ‘Was I OK?’
“I had this reputation that I was very mouthy.
“I was just so young. I was 22 and going on reality TV shows. TV is very different now.
“When I was on some of the MTV shows, there was a lot of alcohol, too.
“I don’t think they would allow that nowadays.
The wedding is going to be epic. I can’t have some low-key thing!
Megan McKenna
“We would have had a whole jug of tequila to ourselves if we had wanted.
“Back then, I was naive, I was young, and unfortunately some of my lowest moments were played out on camera.”
She had already made steps away from her reality TV life by moving into the music industry.
She won The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019, before travelling to Nashville to work on a country music album, and even performed at Glastonbury in 2022.
But it was welcoming Landon last October – who was conceived via IVF, after tests revealed Megan had a thin womb lining, which meant she was was unable to conceive naturally – that changed everything.
Her music career was put on hold to focus on being a mum – something she’d dreamed of.
“I have always wanted kids,” says Megan. “Since I was young, I wanted to have a family and get married. I’m very family-oriented.
“It’s a real rollercoaster going through the stages of IVF, but it’s the best thing we’ve ever done, and we’ve got another embryo on ice ready to go.
“We 100% want to have more children.”
But before Megan adds to her brood, there is the small matter of tying the knot with her Scottish fiancé this summer.
Oliver popped the question on holiday in Montenegro in June 2023, after just five months of dating.
“We met through a mutual friend who set us up on a blind date,” she says. “We went to Bacchanalia restaurant in Mayfair.
“The moment I met him, I had such a warm feeling. We didn’t want to leave each other.
“I have no reservations about him being a footballer – we both understand each other’s jobs.
“If I need to go away, or he does, that’s fine.
“If you date people outside of the industry and they don’t get it, it can put pressure on your relationship, but I don’t have to worry with Oli.
“The engagement was like a fairy tale. I did not suspect a thing.
“He bought me this beautiful outfit, but I just thought it was because he knows I love to make videos and we were going on a beautiful boat trip.
“I didn’t even know he had the ring in his pocket and he had a microphone on and a drone following us.
“I was oblivious to it and just taking my videos.
Megan is close with sister Millie, mum Tanya, and brother Harry[/caption]
“Then fireworks went off and my whole family were waiting to hear from us.
“He had asked my dad’s permission.
“He had a band playing all our favourite songs and made them a playlist, there were all my favourite foods and favourite flowers.
“There were just pink roses everywhere. It was crazy.”
After such an OTT engagement, what is the wedding going to be like?
“It’s basically everything I’ve wanted in my entire life,” she reveals. “It’s going to be epic, of course it is – I can’t have some low-key thing!
“It’s going to be in the UK and the venue is being built. That’s all I can say.
“I’ve not been a bridezilla at all, I’m very chilled with it. The wedding won’t actually have that many guests.
“I don’t want people I don’t really see all the time there – my circle is small and I like it that way, so it’s just very close friends and family for the wedding.
“I’ve got three dresses – my main one for walking up the aisle and then one for after the first dance and then one for an after-party of the wedding, which is going to be really fun.”
I didn’t expect how awful the mum-shaming would be
Megan McKenna
And how does it feel for her to be officially becoming a WAG?
“It’s funny,” she admits. “I don’t see myself as a WAG, but I suppose I am!
“Oli has an amazing job and he is amazing at what he does. I find it attractive when someone is that driven and has their own career.
“Plus, he’s got an amazing body!
“Oli makes me feel beautiful every day, even when I might not be feeling the best in my post-pregnancy body.”
Living in a country where you can’t speak the language – and as a new mum, to boot – can’t be easy, and Megan is open about the challenges it has posed.
Megan and Oli moved to Germany for his career[/caption]
Megan is constantly forced to defend her parenting methods[/caption]
“It has been the hardest thing I have ever done,” she says. “Being in a foreign country and having a five-month-old.
“I can’t speak the language confidently yet and I don’t have friends here. Thank god for FaceTime, and Oli is amazing.
“My family fly out, and now that Landon is a bit older, I am going to fly back and forth more.
“Ultimately, we will move wherever our careers take us, and we’ll keep our little family together.
“Oli would do the same for me, and he’s always supportive of my career.
Horrifically mum-shamed
“It can be a little scary that we will have to move around, but I feel beyond lucky that I have everything I’ve ever wanted, and my priority will always be family.
“We are going to have a UK home so I can come back and forth, too.”
Not having a support network to help her with Landon led Megan to be horrifically mum-shamed on social media, where she was blasted for trying to teach him to sleep by himself.
“I didn’t expect how awful the mum-shaming would be, to be honest,” she says.
“People come on TikTok and comment on a short video without knowing the whole story – like when I put Landon down to nap.
“He was a very needy baby because of having reflux, and it was really hard.”
She continues: “I’m on my own all the time, as Oli is at training.
“I don’t have my mum or friends around the corner to help me, I am by myself.
“I need to be there with him when he’s awake, so he needs to be put down for some naps sometimes in a day.
“I had spoken to professionals about it and was guided by them.
People judge and comment – I take no notice of it
Megan McKenna
“I got a massive backlash that I should be holding my baby as he goes to sleep every time.
“Do you know what?
“Some babies might go down easily when you rock them, but he doesn’t.
“I could be standing up with him for over an hour. And then if I’m rocking him and I lay him down, he wakes up.
“Sometimes I need to go to the toilet or I need to sleep myself. People judge and comment.
“I’d never in a million years leave him screaming, but I’ve spoken to sleep therapists and I want the best for my baby.
“I put the content out there, so I just know I’ve got to take it, but I take no notice of it.”
Away from mum life, Megan – who has coeliac disease as well as IBS and a wheat allergy – has a passion for cooking.
She even made it to the final of Celebrity MasterChef in 2021, and won Celebrity MasterChef Festive Extravaganza the following year.
My love language
“It’s always been there, because I’ve got allergies, so I had to learn how to cook.
“Apart from looking after Landon, my main thing is cooking and making everything nice.
“Doing Celebrity MasterChef was amazing, as I wanted to showcase the gluten-free food that I cook and show people you can eat gluten-free and it still be nice.”
Megan took part in Celebrity MasterChef in 2021[/caption]
This month, she’s releasing her first cookbook, Love Gluten Free, with 80 recipes for all occasions.
“I wanted it to be around Mother’s Day, because it’s my first one,” she says.
“I’m spoiled enough, to be fair. But I really wanted the book to be about love as well as food.
“I think feeding people is a real act of love. I am a feeder, it’s my love language.”
Megan is so keen to educate people on food allergies and intolerances that she’s become an ambassador for the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation.
The charity was founded by the parents of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died on a flight from London to Nice in 2016, after eating a Pret A Manger baguette that contained sesame seeds that had not been included on the packaging’s ingredients list.
“I met her mum and dad at an allergy show years ago and I wanted to get involved.
“I have heard some of the most awful stories.
Growing up, I didn’t feel normal at school and I didn’t want to eat in front of people
Megan McKenna
“People don’t take allergies seriously enough, but people can and do die from them.
“I want to make it more inclusive so that having an allergy doesn’t feel like a burden.
Megan’s new cookbook launches this month[/caption]
“Growing up, I didn’t feel normal at school and I didn’t want to eat my lunch in front of people.
“I couldn’t eat the food at my friends’ birthday parties.
“Even now, I hate it when I have to ask a million questions at a restaurant about how the food is prepared and cooked, because they’ll say it’s fine when it isn’t.
“It’s such a long-winded process of checking, but I have to do it, because otherwise I’ll come out in hives, my lips will swell up and I can get quite sick.”
Going forward, little Landon is going to be a taste-tester for all of Megan’s new recipes.
“I’m starting on weaning him next week, and I’m hoping it will help with his reflux.
“Coeliac can be hereditary, but allergies aren’t, and I’ve learned a lot about it.
“But if he is, he doesn’t need to worry. His mum is a pro and can look after him! That’s my job.”
- Love Gluten Free by Megan McKenna (£22, Hamlyn) is out Thursday.
