Peston reveals guilt at finding love again as a widower
TELEVISION presenter Robert Peston has said he felt “desperately guilty” when he found love after his wife’s death.
The journalist, host of ITV’S Peston On Sunday, was left a single father after his wife, novelist Sian Busby, died from lung cancer in 2012.
Peston, a former BBC business editor who made his name during the financial crisis, said he felt disloyal falling in love again and that he discussed it with his grief counsellor “because I did feel desperately guilty”.
He moved in with his girlfriend, Charlotte Edwardes, diary editor of London’s Evening Standard, in the summer. They had known each other after working on The Telegraph in 2003 and met again at a Christmas party.
“I sort of made the first move, by suggesting we have dinner,” he said.
“I was chronically embarrassed, I felt a bit like a teenager again.”
He said that women were “predatory” towards him after he was widowed and added: “I think there is a stalky thing that happens, and I think women [presenters] talk about it more than men normally, but there is definitely a stalky thing that happens for men as well, and you have to be slightly careful.”
He felt Edwardes was different in this regard, as she had barely any idea about his job as she “was having babies at the height of the financial crisis and didn’t have a clue who I was when we met”.