AUTHOR, T.V. PRESENTER AND PROUD MUM JANET ELLIS ON DAUGHTER SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR'S SUCCESS AND LIVING WITH HER 20-YEAR-OLD GRANDSON

If you’ve watched the hit film Saltburn, the chances are you’ll remember the graphic scene featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s disco track Murder on the Dancefloor and actor Barry Keoghan’s extraordinary nude dance.

- EMILY HORAN

Sophie’s mother, actress, writer and former Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis, certainly does.

“I saw the film at a screening at 10.30 in the morning, sitting between Sophie and my grandson,” she says with a knowing smile, joining Hello! for this exclusive interview.

“If I’m honest, I thought the song would come over the end credits, but in fact, it’s an actual sequence – and a particularly memorable sequence, too.”

Her grandson’s reaction, she adds, was “a little less voluble than me, but he enjoyed it”.

Janet, 68, couldn’t be happier that her daughter is enjoying a career renaissance thanks to Saltburn, with the song storming back up the UK charts 23 years after its original release.

“She’s extremely talented, a lovely person and gorgeous, but also she handles all this really well,” she says.

“She is always asked – and so am I – about the split between work and family and for Sophie, it’s all bound up in the same thing. She’s living her best life.”

DREAM ASSIGNMENT

So, too, is Janet, who is writing the second draft of her third novel. Her first two – The Butcher’s Hook and How It Was – came out in 2016 and 2019.