Fern Britton Stays Close to Controversial Ex-Co-Host

says she remains firm friends with her former This Morning co-host John Leslie, some 24-years after mounting speculation about the Scottish presenter's private life led to his dismissal from the show. 

Leslie, 61, was already a household name through previous mainstream jobs on and Wheel Of Fortune before landing a prominent hosting role on the ITV flagship alongside Britton in 1999. 

But his career went off the rails after he was erroneously named as ’s alleged rapist, despite Jonsson never publicly revealing the identity of her attacker. 

Days later, photographs appeared in a Sunday newspaper of Leslie taking cocaine, which led to bosses at This Morning terminating his contract and elevating stand-in presenter to full-time host. 

A sex tape was subsequently leaked of Leslie and his then girlfriend, nurse Abi Titmuss, with another woman. Then, a steady stream of women came forward to accuse him of ‘improper sexual conduct’ – all of it denied.

In 2003, he was charged with two counts of indecent assault, but walked free from court after prosecutors dropped the case. 

Discussing her relationship with Leslie on the latest instalment of James O'Brien's Full Disclosure podcast, Britton, 68, recalled how women would openly flirt with the former presenter whenever he was seen in public. 

'I will say that I really like John,' she said. 'I still like John. I have never seen anything that would set my alarms off, nothing. I know that if we nipped over to the pub after a show, girls would be all over him. He's a big, tall, handsome guy, and single, there's a lot of... [attributes]. 

'He's always been acquitted of everything, and he's disappeared, having a life of his own, doing property developments I think.' 

Britton says her bond with Leslie was so strong that he often spent time with her four children and would even accompany her on the school run.  

She recalled: 'He would come home with me - we might be cooking chicken, he loved roast chicken - so he'd come home with me and all the kids were hanging around. They loved him.

'He walked the pram with [my daughter] Grace, who's now 29, down to the school to pick the boys up...  we walked into the playground and it was just people swooning all over the place. 

'So, I have a lot for time for John. He rang me up last year and we might ring every couple of years, and that's it. Lovely.' 

Leslie's position on family show This Morning became untenable when pictures emerged of him snorting cocaine in 2002. 

Allegations of sexual assault - later dismissed in court - would soon follow, and Britton says the entire production team were devastated by his sudden departure. 

'... he was sacked from the show, and everyone on the show, we were all heartbroken, I will tell you that, and really missed him,' she said. 

With Leslie gone, Phillip Schofield was elevated to a full time position alongside Britton, who says she was under pressure to form an instant connection with her new co-host.  

'Phillip had been doing one day a week, so John was doing four before all this happened,' she recalled. 

'We had to get to know each other very quickly. So we sat in my dressing room after the show, I had a bottle of whiskey in there and we drank half of it, told each other everything. We had to fix it from there, so that's how I did that.'