Yvie Burnett Glam lifestyle is not for me

The singer has worked with numerous clebrities but doesn’t envy their lifestyle.

Yvie Burnett has spent the morning teaching This Morning’s Matt Johnson to sing like Taylor Swift. He’s not a great singer. And Taylor, of course, is a woman.

For Yvie, it’s all in a day’s work, no matter how bonkers it sounds. The trained mezzo-soprano from Aberdeenshire has sung with some of the world’s top opera companies.

But over the past few years, we’ve got to know her from her work on the cream of our reality shows, including The X Factor, The Voice and now Saturday night singing show, Your Face Sounds Familiar.

Some might say it’s a tough job. Yvie’s task is to turn several celebrities into half-decent singers. Even if some of them are not blessed with, shall we say, natural singing talent, it’s up to her to transform the tone-deaf into the tuneful.

Despite the fact the programme has been widely panned by critics, it seems to have struck a chord, with its first show scoring ratings of almost four million. And Yvie’s in no mood to listen to jibes about it.

“It’s fun! It really has been a laugh-a-minute working on it,” she protests. “Look, I remember watching Blind Date, Stars In Their Eyes and all those programmes you could watch with the whole family. Well, this is the same.

“Appreciate it is for what it is proper family entertainment.”

Yvie’s come a long way since her childhood in the tiny Aberdeenshire village of Methlick. She’s been all over the world and is constantly in demand for TV work. But she yearns for the village. “You know what I miss?” she admits. “Bumping into friends in the street.”

Yvie’s parents are dead, but she knows she has a lot to thank them for and says she takes after her mum.

“Mum was a teacher and after she died I got so many letters from former pupils saying they were glad she’d been their teacher. She put her heart and soul into teaching and I get my perfectionism from her.

“And my work ethic comes from that North-East upbringing work hard and be the best you can be. That’s definitely come from growing up in Scotland.”

She’s worked with some huge stars over the years, including Simon Cowell and Susan Boyle. Press reports around the time she left The X Factor suggested she’d been fired by Simon. But she laughs off tales of tiffs and tantrums.

“Well, he got rid of the whole team including himself,” she says, talking of the changes Simon made so he could work on X Factor USA.

“I mean, we don’t speak on the phone or anything, but if I saw him at a do, I’d speak to him. There’s no problem there.”

Plenty of X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent stars that Yvie’s worked with have had 15 minutes of fame before disappearing. But she’s not surprised at the staying power of Susan Boyle, who’s just completed her first Scottish tour.

“Partly it was because she was in the right place at the right time.

“But it’s more than that. She has a beautiful voice and people just didn’t expect it from her. And the Americans, oh, they just love her. It’s because they really believe in that following your dreams thing.

“They see her as a normal older lady, not some glamorous thing in her 20s, who’s tried and tried and tried and made it.

“When I’ve been working in the States her fans have come to see me, just because I was her vocal coach.”

Yvie speaking of glamour reminds me of a newspaper pic of her heading out to a posh restaurant with chums Carol Vorderman and bra queen Michelle Mone.

I tell Yvie they all looked so glamorous in that photo. She hoots with laughter.

“Why don’t you have another look at it?” she laughs. “Carol had been filming and still had her TV make-up on, so she looked amazing.

“Michelle had been in some high-powered meeting so she was super-glam. Me? I’d just had hair extensions, they were the WORST ever and my hair was like straw!

“I shoved on a pair of heels, we went to Michelle’s flat, and we all bent over one mirror, touched up our make-up on and went out They were glamorous, not me.”

She’s wrong, of course. She’s gorgeous and at 44, still turns heads. Does she ever just slob out? In every picture I’ve ever seen of her she looks amazing.

“Ha! Of course,” she says, but goes on to confess that she loves to wear designer heels, even at home.

“Ooh, I do love my red soles,” she says, referring to Christian Louboutin shoes beloved of celebrities. “The thing is, I’m little, so I’m not really good at casual. I leave that to my tall, skinny friends like Carol Vorderman! She wears jeans a lot and looks fantastic.”

What’s the silliest rumour that Yvie’s heard about herself? When I Googled her, I read more than once she was married to Louis Walsh.

“Louis is a great friend of mine and we’ve really played up to that. We’ve held hands on the red carpet. And I’ve read loads of times that I’m going into the jungle to be on I’m A Celebrity. I can’t even go on a roller coaster, never mind jump out of a plane or eat worms!”

She’s a proud mum of two kids Emily, 19, and Ollie, 16. Surely they must think she’s a cool mum?

“No, no, no!” she almost shouts. “It never quite works that way. If you’re Mum, you’re never cool to your kids. I’m handy if their friends want tickets for a show but that’s it!”

Has it been hard working away from them?

“Well, as a family we’ve just got used to it and my husband Gordon has been able to be at home more.

“Of course when I’m away for six weeks during term time, it’s hard. But on the other hand, they’ve both spent whole summers in LA when I’ve been working there and loved it.

“Coming home is fantastic though they like a present or two!”

Talking of home gets Yvie pining for Scotland.

“I love coming back. It totally feels like home and the people are so real. I really do miss it. My husband would love to live in Scotland and I’d love to do some Scottish TV.”

Don’t bet against her doing just that.