TV’S SUSANNA REID ON WHAT’S IMPORTANT
Whether she likes it or not, Susanna Reid has become the TV wife of Good Morning Britain co-star Piers Morgan. Like any faithful partner, she spends much of her time shaking her head at his antics, but she’s also the first to stand up for her much maligned co-host.
Despite this, and the hours she puts into the top TV job, Susanna is adamant that she is not married to her ITV work.
But the 46-year-old also insists dating is not an option right now. Susanna has been single since she split from long term partner Dominic Cotton, father of her three sons, at the start of 2014.
“My priorities are family and I love my work. Genuinely I am saying this, it is not the right time now because relationships are a distraction.
“When you start a relationship it is absorbing and I am absorbed already.
“No, I am not married to the job. I love my work but when I am not working, my family take up all of my time.
“I am very happy. I am in a house with my lovely family. I am completely fulfilled, that is the case.”
Speaking in a sunshine filled room several floors up from the GMB studios, after another morning of fierce debate and keeping Piers in check, Susanna seems as relaxed and content as I have seen her in the last few years.
When we first met at the BBC five years ago there was a raw ambition which helped her do so well at BBC Breakfast, and Strictly Come Dancing as she won millions of new fans.
Naturally she found her split from partner Dominic tough, coming as she moved to ITV amid hundreds of headlines, and she then had 12 months of critique and criticism as Good Morning Britain struggled initially to establish itself.
But fast forward and on April 28 Good Morning Britain will be three years old with rising ratings. Susanna admits it took a while for GMB to find its feet but now the show has a new confidence.
She says: “It’s been amazing. GMB viewers are up, which is fantastic. I think we really know what we are doing now.
“We know the show or the programme that viewers are tuning into watch. Piers coming into the team, people love the relationship we’ve got.
“They find it irresistible, or they think ‘eek one of them has gone too far’. We offer something really distinctive, I do genuinely think that. It is not like anything in breakfast television. I enjoy how viewers react to my relationship with Piers on the sofa. It’s evolving – like any good TV ‘marriage’. He winds me up no end, but I also like him. It’s an impossible-to-predict recipe of mutual respect, irritation, frustration & admiration but it works.”
Despite the on-screen banter and rows, there is genuine warmth in the relationship between Piers and Susanna.
She refused a part in a Comic Relief ’s Love Actually sketch which made a joke about him “still being alive” and clearly appreciates his input into the breakfast show despite the controversy he brings.
Another reason for Susanna’s reluctance to start dating is she has just started a new relationship on screen and increased her workload.
She and chef Matt Tebbutt begin a new show next week Save Money: Good Food, aimed at trying to save families money on the weekly shop. Susanna insists despite earning a six figure salary she still watches the pennies.
“I am pretty careful with my