TV Richard’s lifetime ambition
Richard and Chloe RICHARD Madeley could be on our screens for decades to come – if he achieves his wish of living to 100.
The TV host’s dad, Christopher, died after a heart attack aged just 49.
But Richard, 62, says he is determined to keep fit and eat well, in a bid to live twice as long as the former Ford worker.
Speaking to daughter Chloe, 31, on her fitness podcast, The Bod Cast, Richard said: “I remember I was 49 and four months, passing my father’s timeline to the minute. At the exact point I remember looking at my watch and thinking, ‘OK, I’ve outlived my dad, I want to double that.’
“It was a big moment for me and now my ambition is to live to be 100.”
Essex-born Richard was 21 and on honeymoon with his first wife, Linda, when he heard his father had died.
He said: “Dad had been at my wedding three days earlier. His arteries were furred up because he was eating all the wrong stuff, had been smoking for most of his life and did zero exercise.”
Now Richard, best known Young Richard with his dad for presenting This Morning for more than a decade with wife Judy Finnigan, 70, keeps fit by walking.
But he is going to start pumping iron as well, in between his stints standing in for Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain.
He said: “I got out of the shower the other day, looked in the mirror and said, ‘you need to do a little muscle build-up there, mate’.
“There’s not much between the shoulders and the elbows, frankly.”