3rd time lucky? Anthea to wed again after 5-month romance
SHE’S been looking for love ever since she split from cheating Grant Bovey six years ago.
And Anthea Turner couldn’t contain her joy at the weekend as she declared that she had finally found it – with a businessman four years her junior.
The presenter, 59, revealed that Mark Armstrong, 55 – her boyfriend of five months – had proposed to her during a romantic trip to Rome.
He is her first serious boyfriend since she split from Bovey in 2013.
Speaking on Scala Radio, where she hosts a show with Chris Rogers, she called in to say: ‘I am here [in Rome]... We came out for my boyfriend’s birthday, that was the whole idea of coming out here.
‘I’ve been looked after very, very well, I couldn’t be with a better person in Rome, because of course he’s half Italian, so he speaks the lingo fluently… He’s keeping me very happy.’
Coyly hinting that she had some exciting news, she then said: ‘You can come to my wedding.’
‘Yes, finally, finally after all this time… To be proposed to in Rome, it doesn’t get much better than that. What a romantic city.’
The former Blue Peter presenter started dating socialite Armstrong after meeting him at The Wellington, a private members’ club in London in March.
Friends of the TV presenter have said she is ‘smitten’ with the entrepreneur.
Sharing two pictures of herself in Rome last week, including one in front of the famous Trevi fountain, she wrote: ‘Sweet life!’ Miss Turner has been single since splitting from her former husband Mr Bovey.
They had met in 1998 and married in 2000 after both leaving their respective partners. They first split in 2012 and briefly reconciled before separating for good in 2013, and were divorced in 2015 on the grounds of his adultery.
The marriage ended after she discovered that Mr Bovey, then 52, was having an affair with interior designer Zoe de Mallet Morgan – who was just 24.
From 1990 to 1998 Miss Turner was married to former Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell.
Four years ago the ex-GMTV presenter appeared on Celebrity First Dates looking for love, and in 2017 she wrote a book called How To Survive Divorce.
In May, Miss Turner said she hadn’t given up on love and was looking for a man to share ‘great sex’ with following the ‘tough’ divorce. Speaking to Best magazine, she said: ‘Getting divorced from Grant was very, very tough.
‘I am dating, I am holding auditions. It sounds very Whitney Houston, but you have to make yourself the greatest love – learn to accept yourself, and then you can bring someone else into your life.
‘I don’t need someone to have kids with or help me buy a house. But I do want someone who’s got my back, to moan with, laugh with, to have adventures and great sex with.’