Celebrity MasterChef contestant Karen Gibson thanks Royal Wedding for place in the line-up
From performing at The Royal Wedding, to cooking for Gregg Wallace and John Torode on TV, Karen tells RadioTimes.com about her jam-packed past two years.
Five new celebrities taking to the kitchen tonight on Celebrity MasterChef.
Among this week's famous five is Kingdom Choir conductor Karen Gibson, who famously performed at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding in 2018.
Since her wedding debut, Karen's career has only gone from strength to strength, with the musician recently selling out the Royal Albert Hall with her choir.
And she tells RadioTimes.com that she has the Duke and Duchess to thank.
Speaking about the big day, she said: "It brought me onto MasterChef so what more could you want? The experiences that have been brought before us are incredible. Before we did the Royal Wedding, we were rehearsing in my front room and at that time we were very hidden and then we sing at the wedding and everything changes."
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She continued: "We toured up and down America, we sung at the Hollywood Bowl, we sung at the Invictus Games. We sold out the Royal Albert Hall. These things were like another life to us before – a dream! And then we get all this experience. It went absolutely crazy! We got signed to Sony, we did an album – absolutely beautiful."
Now things have picked up for Karen, she's giving back to the community with a special single, named Real Love, from which all proceeds go to domestic charity Refuge.
"We wrote the song last year and everywhere we performed it, it went down a storm. So in the aftermath of covid-19 the world was of turmoil and people just don’t know what to make of it. I thought why don’t we release a single to the world, but also why don’t we donate the proceeds of artist royalties to a charity. It's a very happy song, we hope that people are uplifted by it. It’s been a very uncertain time and I think people need uplifting," she said.
But while she might be called the "Godmother of Gospel" for her singing ability, sadly, Karen tells us the same can't be said about her cooking skills.
When asked if we'd soon be calling her the "Godmother of the kitchen" after her MasterChef stint, she laughed: "No… I don’t think it’ll catch on!"
Real Love, the new song from The Kingdom Choir in aid of Refuge, is out 15th July. Celebrity MasterChef is on Wednesday July 8th at 9pm and continues on Thursday and Friday at 7.30pm on BBC One. To see what else is on, have a look at our TV Guide.
