Television presenters are normally a glossy lot — all smiles and unmistakable vigour.
So when some of the biggest names in the business gathered en masse this week for a prestigious industry awards ceremony, it’s little wonder that there were whispers of surprise — and even gasps of shock — at the sight of a frail and pallid-looking Eamonn Holmes sitting in a wheelchair.
Several attendees told me privately that they had to do a ‘double take’ to make sure it was Eamonn as he had deteriorated so dramatically that he was almost unrecognisable.
Eamonn, 64, looked a shell of a man — a far cry from his jovial heyday on ITV’s morning programmes, when he would entertain millions on the GMTV breakfast sofa alongside Fiona Phillips and Anthea Turner.
For a once so vital individual, it was a truly sad sight. His changed appearance seemed to extend to his personality, too. Usually a larger-than-life character who revels in chatting to journalists and making general mischief, Eamonn instead was snuck quietly into Mayfair’s Grosvenor House Hotel for the Television and Radio Industries Club (TRIC) awards, where he could be seen at his table nibbling on a fillet beef lunch.
A frail and pallid-looking Eamonn Holmes was seen using a walker at the Television and Radio Industries Club awards in London earlier this week
This was his first public appearance since his television presenter wife Ruth Langsford announced their shock split.
While he has experienced physical problems for some time, largely with his back and mobility, some are now worrying that the couple’s schism is the final straw for his deteriorating health.
Eamonn avoided the red carpet, but did later confess in one candid interview that he was ‘not OK’ and it is ‘not a good time at all’.
Even more concerning, he also said he felt like he was ‘on borrowed time’.
This particular confession is one which will trouble his friends, who have grown increasingly worried for both his physical and mental state since divorce proceedings began last month.
Those physical struggles were all too apparent, thanks to the £800 wheelchair walker he used to go on stage at the TRIC awards which has become a necessity for him in recent months.
The truth, I’m told, is that Eamonn’s difficulty in walking is now a ‘severe problem’. For more than two years, he has been seen using walking sticks, but this was the first time he was seen at an official engagement with a wheelchair.
It was, I’m told, the only way he felt he would be able to attend the ceremony, where he had been shortlisted for an award for his GB News breakfast show in the Best News Show category.
When it was announced that his show had won, guests were then even more shocked to watch Eamonn’s struggle to collect his award, firmly relying on his walker, and aided by his co-star Isabel Webster.
One friend of Eamonn’s emotionally described it to me as ‘a very sad picture’.
There were flashes of the formerly gregarious Eamonn, who did his best to appear pleased that he had beaten off competition from his former employers ITV to pick up the gong.
But as he addressed the audience, he appeared to take a swipe at his soon-to-be ex-wife Ruth, 64, saying: ‘I went for an operation a year and a half ago and it went wrong. So I got two things in my back that I didn’t want, so why not, I will happily accept.’
This statement was widely interpreted to be both a reference to his spinal operation and to Ruth ‘stabbing him in the back’.
His GB News friends say he was furious with Ruth for announcing their split so publicly.
Clearly, then, Eamonn is very bitter about how his marriage has ended after 14 years — especially as it has so drastically changed his lifestyle. The Mail can reveal that he has left his comfortable £3 million family home in leafy Weybridge, Surrey, while Ruth remains there.
He now lives in an apartment close to the Kingston one-way system some five miles away.
Eamonn with his television presenter wife Ruth Langsford, 64, who announced their split earlier this year. Eamonn, 64, is said to be furious at Ruth for revealing their split so publicly
Eamonn has a close friendship with Katie Alexander, a blonde relationship counsellor some 22 years his junior. She is said to have developed ‘strong feelings’ towards Eamonn
A flat near a roundabout perhaps wouldn’t lift the spirits after a hard day onscreen. And it’s notable that Eamonn lives there alone. One friend of the star tells me: ‘It’s all a rather sorry affair. It was only a few months ago he was living in his lovely family home with Ruth.
‘Yes, they were troubled, but she was caring for him and he had some kind of normality.
‘Now, he is alone in a flat living a pretty solitary existence. His marriage ending after such a long time has been something he has found difficult to accept.’
Work provides a much needed routine. He is driven daily to and from the GB News studios in Paddington, West London, by a chauffeur. Dropped at the door, he then struggles to his dressing room using his walker, before sitting down for the entirety of the show.
His fellow television stars are rallying around him — Charlotte Hawkins, his Sky News co-presenter for seven years, was seen embracing him at this week’s awards ceremony.
Those who know Charlotte say she is ‘tremendously sad’ to see the man who mentored her when they appeared on the channel’s daily Sunrise programme in such a vulnerable state.
Meanwhile, his current co-star Isabel, 41, told the Mail: ‘Obviously he has gone through a lot and we are all behind him. I’m looking out for him. It’s hard for anyone to do television if they are going through something.’
But despite support from past and present colleagues, the pressure on Eamonn appears intense. Another colleague at GB News tells me concern has risen in recent weeks.
‘Eamonn has been struggling with his health for many years,’ they told me. ‘When he started here he was in pain, in a bit of a state, but since the Ruth news came out we are really concerned. He is down, he is quieter and he seems to be in even more discomfort. You have to wonder whether it was his split from Ruth that’s contributed to his ailing health.’
Undoubtedly, the separation was the latest blow for Eamonn — who has one son, Jack, 22, with Ruth, and three other grown-up children, two boys and a girl, from a previous marriage.
His troubles began in 2016 when he endured a double-hip replacement operation after living with acute pain for many years.
Speaking about the operation at the time, Eamonn was characteristically confident: ‘Was I nervous? No! It was just like being on television. In the build-up I was stressed — can I do this? Will I handle it?
‘And it was a bit odd the night before when people started paying me tributes, ‘Eamonn, you were brilliant and I’ll always remember when you did this and that.’ It was like dying but not dying.
Following their split, Eamonn is said to be living a solitary existence in a flat while Ruth remains in their £3million mansion
‘Not one nerve or palpitation. Exactly the way I am presenting a live programme — never a nerve in my body.
‘I felt like I was in a movie. Or the hospital drama Casualty. It was like an out-of-body experience — am I going back into my body or am I out of my body now? I didn’t know.
‘I saw a smiling surgeon [after the operation], my smiling wife and someone handing me a lunch menu — and I thought, I must be alive then!’
But after making a full recovery, thanks to a significant amount of time in a rehab centre, Eamonn’s chronic back pain began in spring 2021. It became so severe that he needed a walking stick. Eventually doctors discovered the cause — three slipped discs affecting the movement of his right leg.
In December of that same year, he told how his struggles with his ‘trapped sciatic nerve’ had impacted on his family who had to help him with everyday tasks.
He admitted: ‘It’s been a difficult year. For months now I haven’t been able to walk, sometimes at all, and it has really taken its toll on everyone around me too.
‘I can’t bend down to pick things up so Ruth ends up having to wait on me, and I know my sons particularly are a bit embarrassed by the way I move around.’
In September 2022, he was forced to step away from his GB News show as he underwent vital back surgery to alleviate his chronic back pain.
After that operation, he revealed that, despite intense physiotherapy, his continued lack of mobility prevented him from doing simple things. He described it as ‘soul destroying’ to have to rely so heavily on others.
Then came another blow: a terrible accident just weeks after his spinal surgery saw him fall down a set of stairs at his Surrey home, leading him to break his shoulder. It could easily have been fatal and it was, he said at the time, a ‘massive setback… I’m going to need to take some extra time off to get myself better.
‘It’s been a hellish few weeks. But day by day I’m improving and I am remaining positive and trying to look on the bright side.’
Yet another operation followed in September 2023: a spine and neck-stretching procedure. Doctors used a ‘spinal decompression table’, which allows surgeons to gently stretch the spine to reduce pressure on the discs.
Desperation, clearly, had kicked in as Eamonn admitted at the time that he ‘can’t run, I can’t walk, I can’t do anything except watch TV and eat… I just got problems last year in my back, which I haven’t recovered from. It’s not good, it’s not a good recipe, I have to say.’
Adding to the stress was also a long-running battle with HMRC over his status as a freelancer: his legal entanglement with them has been ongoing since 2018, and he is said to currently owe the taxman some £250,000.
On a brighter note, there is his close friendship with a blonde relationship counsellor some 22 years his junior.
Katie Alexander, who is from Yorkshire, met Eamonn a year ago when it is said his marriage to Ruth was very much over. She has since visited him at his new bachelor pad and is said to have developed ‘strong feelings’ for him.
The pair have attended several events together in the past year — although there are said to be other women with whom he has close friendships.
However, friends of the TV star say that while he is clearly enjoying Katie’s company, he is not looking for love. He simply enjoys female company and always has done.
‘Eamonn loves to have a giggle and a flirt, that’s who he is,’ says one female friend.
‘But that said, the worry is that as he looks more and more in pain, his life will become increasingly lonely.’
