Danielle Lloyd's Column

26th October 2006

X-Factor, Keiton and Madonna

My feet hardly seem to have touched the ground this week but it’s been great week. I thought I was going to have a quiet weekend but a friend invited me to go and watch X Factor live and I’m such a great fan of the show that obviously I couldn’t say no. It was fantastic – of course much better than watching it on TV. All of the performances were brilliant but Ashley is still my favourite, its really sad to see any of them voted off but I guess that’s just part of the competition and something you have to take as a performer. I took my friend Leeandra and we had a lovely evening – clapping and singing like kids! At the break in the filming, I bumped into Louis (Walsh) and Simon (Cowell) in the green room bar – it was really nerve racking for everyone waiting to see what happened with the voting, you really feel for the contestants and their families. Louis asked me if I could sing and I said no but that he and Simon could probably make anyone sound good (– even me!) Simon’s cheeky response was “No Danielle, I could NEVER make your singing sound good” – it’s a good thing I never dreamt of being a pop star or he’d have shattered my dreams too!

Ted’s been away a lot this week with work and I’ve had loads of work on so I’m looking forward to having a relaxing weekend and watching Ted play on Sunday – come on you Hammers!

The campaign continues to help save Keiton Knight the 7 year old mixed race boy whose mother Paris I met we few weeks ago. Keiton has been suffering from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia for almost 4 years. He relapsed in the last month of treatment in July this year with a different type of cancer called Acute Myeloidblastic Leukaemia which left specialists baffled, as it is very rare for this to happen. After an exhausting search for a suitable bone marrow match, surgeons have recently informed Keiton’s family that his bone marrow type is so rare that a match may never be found They were also told that due to the aggressions of Keiton's cancer they don’t think he will live past 6 months without some type of stem cell treatment.

The best option is for Keiton to have cord blood transplant (stem cells from the umbilical cord of a new born baby) which does not require the extremely close tissue-type matching, which is why one has now been found for Keiton. However the UK is not very experienced in this type of transplant, and it is now apparent that to give Keiton the best chance of survival he needs to go to the USA where they specialise in this. This operation is going to cost £500,000 and we are trying to raise funds for this to happen.

On Monday the Sugababes put on a concert at the Hammersmith Palais which was attended by over 1000 people and footballers Jermaine Defoe and Shaun Wright Philips. Sugababes did a fantastic performance and so did many other artists including Fundamental. An auction hosted by KoJo raised over 10k towards the fund and we sold out of Keitons Army T shirts. So many people were generous to this, Keisha from Sugababes bought an Aquamarine watch and some tickets to Flowetry. Jermaine Defoe came with his girlfriend Charlotte and he bought a signed copy of Rios biography for him mum to read, sweet! and a Jamaica signed football shirt. Everyone who attended gave donations to Keiton’s fund and even though Ted wasn’t able to come with me that evening as he was away at a game, we’ve donated directly to Keiton’s account, their details are on his website www.keitonknight.com. It didn’t matter what the auction lots were, at the end of the day we were all there for Keiton and had a great time too. Paris, his mum has been so strong and with the help of their family and Warren her brother they really are a great inspiration. The support people are giving is wonderful but the family still need more. As I write this so far they have raised £40k – we still have another £460k to raise so please – get online or even text KEITON to 88100 and £1:50 goes straight into his account. Ill keep you updated on Keitons progress and that of the fund on this site but please dig deep.

As the week has gone on everything seems to be happening at once - I have been named the Lipsy Girl of 2006 by the fashion label Lipsy (www.lipsy.co.uk) which is a great honour and on Wednesday night they held a celebration party at the store in Berners Street. The Lipsy clothes are always so up to the minute and very sexy too! Ted came along with me to celebrate and the two of us had a fantastic dinner afterwards at Hush in Lancashire court which is owned by Geoffrey Moore, Roger Moore’s son - Very appropriate since my nickname for Ted is Mr Bond (because he is so suave of course!). I was introduced to Yuki Oshima Wilpon by a mutual friend and she was also in there with her husband Bruce Wilpon whose father owns the New York Mets and Music mogul Lisa Voice who was giving Bruce some advice on his records.

I’ve just got back from a morning in Sheffield Santa Pod drag race track where we saw a Fire Force Jet car demonstrated and I love my cars but these are something different – and I even got a ride in one of their FIA Top Fuel Dragsters, it was absolutely amazing.

I’m so shocked by the way the media have been treating Madonna and controversy that her adoption of the baby has caused. I think they should be left alone to settle in as a family. When the story first broke it was so clear that people were looking for angles to criticise her on but I personally think what she has done is fantastic, she has gone through a long application process according to the information she has given out and yesterday said that he could see his father frequently as he wished and no one has any reason to doubt this. The life expectancy of this area in Malawi is thirty something, and by his own fathers admittance he couldn’t afford to keep him at home and its likely his son may have predeceased him. Now this baby will grow up in a family home rather than in an orphanage and will have so many opportunities in his life he could never have dreamed of. Madonna has never struck me as someone who would take something like adoption so lightly and I don’t think she has done, I am also sure that she will make every endeavour to ensure David grows up with full knowledge of his roots, family, culture and country.

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