Fern’s sad secret: I’m going deaf
She’s never looked better but, last week, Fern Britton made a shock revelation...
‘I wear hearing aids now – I could listen to The Archers on the train and no one would know!’
TV presenter Fern is clearly in confessional form lately. best went to see her in London last Sunday, when she opened up about her life to a live theatre audience in Leicester Square.
Discussing the ageing process, the confident 60-year-old revealed the best part was the fact that ‘I really don’t give a hoot any more!’.
But getting older isn’t all roses and rainbows as Fern admitted, for the first time, that she’s losing her hearing.
Confessing that she and her friends struggle to hear each other in noisy restaurants, she pulled a small device out of her ear and said, ‘I’m going to come clean, I wear hearing aids now. They are radio-linked to my phone so, on the train, I could listen to The Archers and no one would know!’
Fern also recalled her tough journey from nobody to top TV host. At a lunch in London, aged 23, the fledgling presenter found herself being propositioned by a sleazy TV exec – something many women are sadly now confessing happened to them.
‘Pudding was finished... and this guy looked at me and said, “I wonder how long it will be before I am having an affair with you...”’
But perhaps one of her most interesting revelations she’s made in recent weeks is how she makes her 18-year marriage to TV chef Phil Vickery work.
Talking recently, the mumof-four – Fern has twins Jack and Harry, 23, and daughter Grace, 20, by her ex husband, and Winnie, 17, with Phil – said one of the secrets to their happy marriage is spending time apart.
‘If I say I’m going away cycling for 10 days, there’s no problem,’ she said. ‘And Phil has absolute freedom to do what he wants. He has a pint with his mates, he works and he does what he loves. If he’s happy, I’m happy.’
Absence sure does make the heart grow fonder, it seems…