Interior Design Masters judge Michelle Ogundehin hits back at critics
Michelle Ogundehin is always confident in her choices saying "I am always right!"
Interior Design Masters judge Michelle Ogundehin has hit back at viewers who have criticised her decisions, telling Yahoo: "I am always right."
Some viewers at home have been "upset" about the judge’s decisions over the series but as a professional interior designer with plenty of experience, Ogundehin holds her ground. Always confident in her choices, the head judge explained she doesn’t make her decisions lightly. Playfully Ogundehin said, "I don't have favourites."
She told Yahoo: "Number one, I am always right. I am the one that is there, I am the one that has seen the project. I’m the one who has spent an hour talking to them."
"I know why I made my decision and anyone watching the programme before they get upset will see that I conclude very clearly why I've made my decision at the end. So that's the number one thing and I don't make those judgements lightly."
The designers on the sofa each week is always a huge talking point of the series, which is fronted by Alan Carr. Behind the scenes, Ogundehin revealed they can be filming those sofa segments for an hour. Interior Design Masters viewers were divided over her decision to send Domnall Starkie home instead of Francesca Kletz when they worked on the cafe together earlier in the series.
Following the fallout online, Ogundehin explained why she chose to give public support to Francesca on Instagram. She said: "I made a public comment about it on my Instagram only because people were being really nasty to Francesca and I just thought that was completely out of order.
"I literally just made a statement that said this was a joint project. These designers, I don’t expect them to get it right, that is the process but Francesca put her hand up and owned her mistakes. Domnall refused to and that is why I sent him home."
She continued: "I did not make a mistake. I absolutely stand by my decision. I also said he’s very talented but he had a big lesson to learn."
Interior Design Masters final
Each week Ogundehin had to choose who to send home and it's not an easy decision. "I very deliberately almost try not to get to know them too much because it's not what it's about," she said. "Alan does all the interacting with them." She added: "As the show goes on, it gets harder and harder to send them home because what you see is the ones that are really learning. And they learn quickly."
But nothing is more difficult than choosing the winner out of Roisin Quinn and Matt Smith-Wood, who go head to head to transform the holiday lodges at Blenheim Palace. Ogundehin said: "I do remember thinking that we have two of the nicest people in the final."
Without giving anything away, she added: "They're both just so lovely and eager and keen and lapping it all up and working so hard as well. So although they had different styles to start off with it, I wouldn't have been able to tell you before I'd seen their rooms.
"And it was very hard because also, it becomes a bit nit-picky. You have to find the bit that they just didn't do quite as well. And that's tough because you actually just want to celebrate everything that did do well and being in the final."
Michelle Ogundehin off-screen
As Interior Design Masters comes to an end on our screens, Ogundehin has been busy working on other inspiring projects for homes. Having recently moved herself, the TV judge has put together a foundational colour palette for the home using Graphenstone air purifying paints.
She explained: "One of the things that I found was that maybe someone falls in love with one colour and they buy that and then they go, 'OK, what do I use it with? What do I do next door? What colour goes with this?'
"So the idea is that it's 16 colours that are all designed to work together. Any which way you combine them. I absolutely 100% guarantee that they will work together because that's what I spent all the time doing.
"It's about the undertones in them and the precise shade, but that's the point of it, to make creating a beautiful home easy. And then the paint, of course, itself is one of the most eco certified paints that exists. The paint literally cleans your air."
She added: "My mission is to empower people to create environments in which to thrive."
The BBC star puts our environment at the heart of everything she does too. "The planet is a finite resource," she said.
"We cannot keep plundering it. We can't keep merely going on our way and buying stuff without an appreciation of that. Every time you buy something that cannot either be reused or recycled, you are chipping a piece off the planet, and we need to see it that."
Interior Design Masters is streaming on BBC iPlayer.