Big Brother
THE ROYAL MUM IS BACK TO PUBLIC DUTY AND ADJUSTING TO THE VOID LEFT BY HARRY AND MEGHAN’S DEPARTURE FROM ROYAL LIFE. SHE’S ALSO FACING PUBLIC PRESSURES AND EXPECTATIONS AS FUTURE QUEEN
Big Brother surprised him with the video call after a heartfelt diary room confession where he explained he was missing Cannon.
“I didn’t think we’d be seeing any loved ones throughout the whole time in the house,” Gorringe explains. “And then to see Ana’s face on the big screen and actually be able to interact with her and just get that assurity that I do have the same feelings as she has for me was massive.”
Despite vowing to Cannon that he wouldn’t talk about her on the show, the former footballer’s promise lasted less than a day before filling his fellow housemates in about his lady love back home. “It took about 20 hours for me to break that,” Gorringe laughs. “It’s crazy; you wouldn’t think that 20 hours would be long time to go without talking about the one thing that you’re not supposed to talk about. But when you’ve got nothing else to do in the house … I thought, bugger everyone, I’m going to talk about Ana and it was non-stop from that first time I spoke about her.”
The couple had split late last year, with Gorringe revealing on the show that was a “dumb and immature” decision on his part. “I wish I could’ve seen what I see now, that I did need to do a little bit more for the relationship and take responsibility for what I was contributing,” he tells WHO.
As luck would have it, it was Cannon who encouraged
Gorringe to apply for the show.
And it seems the reality TV separation was the best thing for the pair. “I think in a relationship, you probably take for granted what you have and when that gets taken away from you and then you have a complete break from any contact with that person, all you do is think about how much you miss them and how much they mean to you and your life,” Gorringe admits.
“The Big Brother house definitely made that a lot more clear.”
It will come as no surprise then that Gorringe’s first port of call after leaving the house was Cannon. And now that the pair are
aback on and going strong Gorringe hints that an engagement isn’t exactly off the cards. “I definitely know that she’s the one that I want to spend the rest of life with,” he gushes. “I think first and foremost we get through the Big Brother experience together and once we’ve come out the end of that, then we’ll reassess. But for me, she’s definitely the one I want to be with forever.”
As for the show, while Gorringe admits he didn’t have a game plan going in, he’s a favourite to take out the win in the coming weeks. It’s something many fans put down to his loveable, down-to-earth nature.
“Just being myself and being honest, I think that’s what I do throughout the whole experience and whatever was going to happen was going to happen,” Gorringe adds. “If being myself wasn’t good enough to get me as far as I could in the game, then that was fine with me because I didn’t want to be anything that I’m not.”
“I’ve got a real soft side to me” –GORRINGE
continues Sun. 7pm, Mon.-Tue. 7.30pm on Seven
Marking her first public outing in 91 days, Duchess Kate toured a Norfolk garden centre on June 19 with a smile. “It’s good to get a structure and a routine back, isn’t it?” Kate, 38, told the owners of Fakenham Garden Centre, where she had stopped by to encourage others to support local businesses as they start to reopen after a three-month pandemic lockdown. As for so many families, ‘routine’ amid coronavirus has been wildly readjusted for Kate, Prince William and their children Prince George, 6, Princess Charlotte, 5, and Prince Louis, 2. The family’s palace home base in London shifted to their country estate in Norfolk, royal engagements were cancelled, and the kids were launched into homeschooling. The isolation period, Kate admits, “has been ups and downs”.
The pandemic roller-coaster coincided with a period of massive transition for the royal family – namely, the dramatic departure of Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and their 1-year-old son, Archie, who relocated to LA just before lockdown. The exit of the Sussexes – the only other ‘senior royal’ contemporaries of William and Kate –thrusts the future queen even closer to the centre of the royal family. “Without Meghan and Harry, there is going to be a phenomenal workload on Catherine and William,” says a source close to the royal household. “None of the older [generations] can do it all. The pressure is on the two of them.”
The unprecedented shift has brought renewed scrutiny, including a recent cover story in the UK’s Tatler magazine claiming that Kate felt stressed and overwhelmed by the vacuum resulting from Harry and Meghan’s exit. In a rare statement, the palace promptly blasted the story’s “inaccuracies” and threatened legal action against the publication. Kate “certainly would resent someone saying that she is struggling”, says a close source. “I can understand why she would feel that is a total misrepresentation of the truth, because it really isn’t the case. If anything, she is relishing the role more than ever. And she will do it all to the best of her ability.”
But as the future queen raising a future king, Kate is expected to flawlessly fulfil multiple roles: duchess, supportive spouse, hands-on mum, international bridge-builder, charity advocate, style icon and more. And she now finds herself trying to do it all at a time when the public is re-examining old institutions and their place in modern society. “Those who know her say there is a real core of strength, and she did set her mind to the job,” says Sarah Gristwood, author of Elizabeth: The Queen and the Crown. “But at the same time, she’d have to be superhuman not to feel the pressure.”
Kate’s family know all too well the strain of her royal role. Her mother, Carole Middleton, 65, was portrayed as pushy in the Tatler article. “There is no way you would describe her as that,” says the close source. “She’s an incredibly kind person.” Both Kate’s siblings – Pippa, 36, and James, 33 – have been pushed into the public eye, and in recent years James has opened up about his battle with depression, revealing that he has attended family therapy.
“She is relishing the role more”
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