Fay Ripley feels like "an idiot" for turning down a record contract with Simon Cowell.
The 52-year-old actress – who portrays Jenny Gifford in ‘Cold Feet’ – says one of her biggest regrets in life is rejecting a deal with the 59-year-old music mogul’s company after her vocal talents were spotted while she was portraying a singer on TV show ‘I Saw You’.
Fay told Radio Times magazine: "I don’t think there’s anything I regret, although I did turn down a record contract once with Simon Cowell’s record company. What an idiot!
"They’d seen me play a singer in a thing called ‘I Saw You’ and wanted me to make an album.
"I didn’t want to be like Robson and Jerome and I’m not that good a singer so I said no. But what I wouldn’t do now to have a little singalong.
"If I could go back to my younger self, I’d say yes to that [the record contract] and I’d say, ‘Stop thinking you’re fat, because when you’re 50 you’ll really know what fat is.’
"I spent a stupid amount of time thinking I was overweight, but now I’d eat my own leg off for that body. What a waste of energy that was."
Despite having career regrets, the actress – who took a break from the hit ITV comedy drama in 2001 so that she could marry actor Daniel Lapaine, with whom she has a daughter Parker, 15, and son Sonny, 11 – considers acting on the show to be a "privilege."
She said: "’Cold Feet’ did change my life, but I think it’s even more of a privilege to do it now. It’s quite easy to take life for granted in your 30s.
"I actually left ‘Cold Feet’ because I wanted to get married and have a baby and there were other jobs I was excited by. I wouldn’t make that decision now."
Fay Ripley turned down Simon Cowell record deal
