Kate is my bosom buddy GMB BEN SAW HIS CO-HOST TOPLESS IN KITCHEN
TV presenter Ben Shephard has spoken for the first time about the moment when he saw more than he bargained for of his co-host Kate Garraway.
Ben and Kate hit it off as friends as soon as they started working together two decades ago and he was at her house one day when he saw her walk through her kitchen completely topless.
Ben’s eyes almost popped out – but Kate didn’t even know he’d seen her.
“I sort of froze, panicked... walked away really embarrassed,” he says. “I couldn’t tell her.”
He kept the memory to himself for nearly 20 years before finally owning up. Kate and
Ben, who are co-hosts every week on Good Morning
Britain, are all giggles as they talk about it now.
Kate says that when Ben confessed “he was sweating buckets... the idea he’s seen me naked all this time and I never knew...we’re like brother and sister. I’m so glad it was before
I had kids”.
The two stars have been happily wed to other people for years but as friends and professional partners their relationship has stood the test of time. They began working together while Ben, 44, was co-hosting GMTV’S Entertainment Today segment. “I lured him over to the sofa,” says Kate, 52.
The duo’s constant banter reveals an off-screen bond as strong as the onscreen chemistry that charms viewers.
Of Kate’s famous untidiness, Ben grins: “It drives me mad. Our cameraman has bought her chocolates since 2000 and as soon as she sits down at her desk the wrapper is already on the floor. “She doesn’t even notice the bin!” Kate, wed to ex-labour Party adviser Derek Draper, quips: “That’s how I know how much he loves me. I don’t think he’d take it from anyone else.”
Ben, who likes everything to be tidy, even clears up when he pops round to Kate’s chaotic home. “I was sat down in her kitchen and she was trying to make some food for the kids,” he recalls.
“In the end I couldn’t bear it any more. I started closing drawers, putting pots away, saying, ‘Look, everything is calmer when the drawers are closed and there’s not stuff on the floor!’
The pair have supported one another through many of the major events in their lives.
Kate tells Ben, who has two boys with wife Annie: “You were single when I first met you and I was married to someone else. We went through all the heartbreak of that, the dating disasters, meeting Derek and getting married, having babies.” Though Good Morning Britain is on weekdays on ITV from 6.00am to 8.30am Kate’s messiness may exasperate him, Ben is full of praise for her calm under pressure. “That’s what I admire so much about Kate. She’s so incisive in those moments. She’s incredibly intelligent, bright and insightful “I know if I’ve dropped the ball, Kate is going to grab g it. She’s so quick at picking p up what’s going on. Equally, I can catch the ball from her.”
Kate adds: “The thing t about Ben is, everyone ry is better around him. hi He makes guests loo look brilliant, co-presenters loo look brilliant.”
As Kate and db Ben compete to share the most comical moments of their careers, high on the list is the moment when he inadvertently flashed the mum of two’s “huge” high-waisted knickers to the TV nation after pretending to throw her into an ice bath.
Referring to her bestselling book The Joy of Big Knickers, he laughs: “I showed the world your pants. You got a book deal off the back of that – and I’ve not had my cut yet!”
Kate shoots back: “You kept saying no one saw – everyone saw! My mum was furious.
“She said, ‘ Why were you wearing nude pants? You could have at least worn something nice and silky.’ ”