It's Jen's kitchen

Jun 7 2004

by Nick Murton, Liverpool Echo

JENNIFER Ellison wants to conquer Hollywood after emerging triumphant from Hell's Kitchen.   The Liverpool starlet's victory in the ITV reality show will give her a chance to relaunch her career, she said today.   The 21-year-old from Croxteth Park told the ECHO her next step was to have another crack at the pop charts, then go full throttle towards the big screen.   She thanked Brookside creator Phil Redmond for putting her on the path to stardom many years ago, but said she would never return to soapland.   Redmond offered Ellison the prime role of teenage tearaway Emily Shadwick after spotting her star potential. The then teenager was handed a series of juicy storylines.   Today she thanked her mentor saying: "I will always owe Phil Redmond for giving me my first break.   "I loved being in Brookside. It was my home for five years and I had great storylines.   "My house blew up, my dad died, my sister was raped, I got married at 16 and I was held hostage by drug dealers." Jennifer has sought to break from her TV roots in recent years embarking on a pop career, and carving out a reputation as one of the nation's most sought-after models after posing for men's lifestyle mags such as FHM.   She told a packed Liverpool chipshop at the age of two: "My name's Jennifer Ellison, and I'm going to be famous."   Her first single Baby I don't Care stormed into the charts in June 2003, but follow-up singles met with lukewarm reaction.   Now Ellison is hoping to re-ignite her assault on the lucrative pop charts, with a follow-up albumplanned in the next year.   Her film debut, a Hollywood version of Phantom of the Opera in which she plays a ballet dancer, will be screened in November.   "I came out of the womb born to sing and dance. I always wanted to be a performer and I'm quite ambitious.   "I couldn't believe it when I read about me supposedly going to Hollyoaks. It's a load of rubbish.   "I believe you should never say never, but I think I have done all I have to do in soaps for the time being."   Gordon Ramsay, the man behind Hell's Kitchen, said of favourite Ellison: "I have never seen a girl of 21 be so obsessed with food."