Lorraine Kelly’s daughter is a fourth year at Napier

Edinburgh Napier students might not know this, but they have a member of television royalty in their ranks. 

Lorraine Kelly’s daughter, Rosie Smith,  is a fourth year journalism student at the university and whilst preparing for her dissertation she is already making strides in the media world. We met Rosie to find out what life is like being the daughter of a national treasure.

Mummy’s girl

When Rosie first went off to university, Lorraine said she wanted Rosie to remember to do her laundry. Some people might be embarrassed by that, but Rosie is anything but. She said: “I think it’s quite sweet really. She’s never said anything about me in public that should be kept in private.

“Sometimes when we’re out shopping together in Dundee old people come up to my mum to say hello, and some of them actually know my name as well. It’s pretty weird but I guess she does mention me a lot and she shows pictures of us together.

“The weirdest thing was at the premiere of the Minions film, someone shouted my name at me.”

In the past people have commented how similar Rosie looks to her mum, so does she ever get people making the connection without knowing about it?

“Everyone I know in Dundee knows who my mum is so they wouldn’t comment on it. I never got bullied for it, no one ever tried to make my life difficult because of who my mum was. Maybe if she was more controversial or someone who got her tits out then it would have been different.”

“Not all my friends know who my mum is actually. Obviously, I have a different surname to my mum so not everyone clocks it.”

Despite having a very successful mum, she doesn’t see her mum the inspiration of her potential career in the media.”I don’t really see my mum as an inspiration, I mean she’s not the reason why I’m studying journalism. My dad is a cameraman, that’s how my parents met actually, whilst my uncle is in advertising and granddad worked in the television industry too. So I guess it’s in the family.”

At the Minions premiere

“I had no idea what I wanted to do at uni, but my family know a lot about journalism and the media. I also see it as fun rather than work which is important. I’ve still not decided exactly what I want to do.”

Rosie’s appearance on her mum’s show could be seen as the most daunting work experience gig ever.

“It was really good fun, but quite hard work. We worked on it for ten hours, I didn’t write that much of it, I basically just hosted it.”

As she makes her own foray into the media world, she boasts a fantastic CV but Rosie is keen to do it on her own. She said: “I’ve worked for a media company, a PR company, The Evening Telegraph, Sunday Post and STV.

Rosie with the Head of Showbiz at the Sun, Dan Wooton

“My mum gives me contacts, but I’ve organised all the work experience I’ve had so far. Even when I appeared on her show, she didn’t actually know about it. The producer contacted me about hosting the segment without telling her.

Rosie and the fam on holiday

Rosie admitted there are many perks of having a celebrity mum. She said: “I got to meet Elton John at his house in France when I was eight. I didn’t really realise who he was at the time but I’ve got a photo of me with him in my room. I also got to meet Blue backstage at gig which was pretty cool and get to go to film premieres and awards nights occasionally.

“The most amazing one was going to the premiere of the last Harry Potter film where there was a red carpet all the way from Trafalgar to Leicester Square.”

Most importantly though, Rosie just wants to show us that she’s a regular girl. Her favourite nights out in Edinburgh are just the same as yours. She said: “I like going to Liquid Rooms and Cab Vol on Fridays. I really like the Three Sisters pub, they have these huge double pint glasses which are awesome.”

Her most scarring moment in Edinburgh though was when she went to Hive sober, painting people’s faces to raise money. She admitted: “You can tell even more how grim it is when you go sober. We got people asking us to paint dicks on their friends’ faces for a tenner which was funny.”