Fern Britton Vows to Avoid Bad-Mouthing Ex Phil Vickery to Their Daughter

Fern Britton has admitted she has struggled at times to maintain a cordial relationship with her ex husband Phil Vickery.

The television presenter, 67, became divorced from TV chef Phil, 64, in 2020 after two decades together. 

Opening up about the painful split, Fern has revealed that she tries ‘very hard’ to not ‘bad-mouth’ Phil for the sake of their 23-year-old daughter Winnie.

Fern shares twin sons Harry and Jack, 31, and daughter Grace, 27, from her first marriage, to Clive Jones, and daughter Winnie with ex Phil.

She said she learned the valuable lesson from her own childhood experience: ‘Winnie adores him,’ she explained.

‘I’m not going to bad-mouth him in front of her; at least, I try very hard not to. I was the child of divorced parents and my mum never bad-mouthed my father.’

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Fern Britton has revealed her parents taught her a valuable lesson following her divorce from Phil Vickery (pictured together in 2017 shortly before their split)

Opening up about the painful split, Fern has revealed that whatever her feelings toward her ex, she tries ‘very hard’ to not ‘bad-mouth’ Phil for the sake of their 23-year-old daughter Winnie

In an interview with Yours magazine, Fern revealed that she has no relationship with Phil, revealing that he ‘hasn’t spoken to me for six years now. As soon as my mum died, he stopped talking to me.’

A representative for Phil has been contacted by MailOnline for comment. 

Fern has previously spoken about growing up without her actor father Tony Britton’s presence in the family home, explaining how she and her sister, scriptwriter Cherry Britton, were always given ‘some convoluted stories about why he wasn’t here.’

Tony and his first wife Ruth, Fern’s mother, divorced when she was just four years. Writing in her autobiography The Older I Get How I Repowered My Life the TV star detailed how she discovered why she had no memories of her father living with her.

She revealed by the time she was born in 1957, her father had already left her mother to be with Eva Castle, the woman who would go onto be his second wife.

She wrote: ‘It transpired that during one visit of a few hours back to see her, he and my mum had temporarily rekindled their feelings and I was conceived. Did he go back to his new partner with a – possibly – guilty spring in his step? How did he manage to explain my eventual appearance to his future wife?’ 

After only finding the secret out when she was aged 55, Fern admitted ‘I was left with a strong feeling of “why did nobody say?” Everyone knew,’ adding that is had left her was lasting trust issues. 

Ruth died in 2018 before Tony also passed at the end of the following year.

She said she learned the valuable lesson from her own childhood experience, explaining: ‘I was the child of divorced parents and my mum never bad-mouthed my father.’  (Fern seen with her late mother Ruth)

The double tragedy reportedly caused Fern and Phil to realise that they had to ‘follow their own paths’, whilst she has also said her children leaving home was a factor in their split.

‘Often, the children leave home and you look at each other and go, ‘Ah, where do we go from here?’ I only wish I was the sort of person who could have persevered through that, but I couldn’t,’ she previously explained. 

The star has kept her private life out of the spotlight since calling time on her marriage but she recently admitted that while she does get ‘lonely’, she is still not looking for love five years on from her split. 

She told Woman & Home: ‘I’m not looking for love – I’m still a bit too wary of losing my liberty. 

Fern has previously spoken about growing up without her actor father Tony Britton’s presence in the family home (pictured together in 1995)

‘There’s nobody to run something past but, on the other hand, I think back to running things past people and it never really worked out, so why don’t I just make my own decision?’

‘Then I’m the only person who can go, ‘I f***ed up there.’ 

In 2020, the Celebrity Big Brother star moved 270 miles from her home in Buckinghamshire to the Southwest coast of England, revealing her relocation helped her heal following her divorce. 

The move has also inspired her to write more, years after the release of her first novel New Beginnings 2011.

Since Covid she has been prolific in her writing, penning Daughters Of Cornwall in 2020 and The Good Servant two years later, with the hotly-anticipated A Cornish Legacy set for release in June. 

She has also had a lifestyle overhaul, losing five stone in weight and recently revealed the turning point behind her dramatic change. 

Fern’s mother died in 2018. Her split from Phil followed the deaths of Fern’s parents, which reportedly caused the pair to realise that they had to ‘follow their own paths’

She told Woman&Home: ‘People often wonder when you lose lots of weight whether you’ve done it naturally. And I can look at you and say, ‘Yes, I have’.’

‘I had my shoulder replacement 18 months ago, and two-and-a-half years ago, when I saw the surgeon, he said, ‘I’m going to totally replace your shoulder, I’ll see you in a year.’

‘I thought, ‘I need to get my life back on track. I need to stop smoking, stop drinking, get eating under control and stop lying in bed feeling sorry for myself’.

‘So I started the Couch to 5k, took about 80 per cent of the sugar out of my life and started to think about what I was eating, which I had never done before.’