X Factor's Dannii named top TV personality 2009

X Factor's Dannii named top TV personality 2009
X Factor's Dannii named top TV personality 2009 (Image credit: PA)

Dannii Minogue has been named Cosmopolitan's Ultimate TV Personality of the Year 2009. The X Factor judge and mentor was honoured at the annual Awards hosted by Fearne Cotton at Banqueting House in London's Whitehall. Minogue credited her boyfriend, Kris Smith, for helping her through the year, saying she never thought she could feel this happy. She said: "When you're having a good time both at work and in your love life, I guess it shows on your face. And it shows even more given that it follows on from some difficult situations last year. "You get into a black hole, thinking nothing will ever be the same and you'll never be happy again, but then good things happen and you finally re-emerge. I'm amazed at my own good fortune, and so grateful for it. I feel euphoric." Her older sister Kylie said: "I'm so proud of my sister for receiving Cosmo's award. She has worked really hard and is shining right now. Doing The X Factor with her this year made me appreciate how hard her job is, and how great she is at it. "The secret to her success is her experience - having started in the business at the age of seven - and her ability to make tough decisions with sensitivity." Other winners included Holly Willoughby, named Ultimate TV Presenter; Girls Aloud's Kimberley Walsh, voted Ultimate Woman's Woman; EastEnders star Lacey Turner, named Ultimate TV Actress; and ex-EastEnders star Brooke Kinsella, honoured as the Ultimate Celeb Who Made Us Care, for her campaigning against knife crime following the death of her brother Ben.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.