GMB host Richard Madeley's life off-screen - dark family secret and strange first encounter with Judy

17.04.2022 - 10:53 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Richard Madeley is one of TV's most well-known faces. He has a decades-long career presenting for Britain's popular chat shows and is now a regular host for Good Morning Britain since Piers Morgan's shock exit last year.

The 65-year-old made his telly breakthrough presenting This Morning with his wife Judy Finnigan. Viewers loved watching the pair so much that fans referred to the show as simply 'Richard and Judy' - which later inspired their own Channel 4 early evening show.

But what has Richard's life been like away from the cameras? Richard grew up in Essex, and his dad, Christopher Madeley, was also a journalist.

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He recently opened up about how his father used to beat him until the age of nine or 10, when his mum Mary intervened. Richard claims he suspects his dad was sexually abused as a teenager when he was sent to boarding school.

He believes that this left his dad "broken" and "f***ed up" and may have been the reason why his dad hit him "five or six times a year" with a bamboo stick, reports the Mirror. Speaking to The Sunday Times Magazine, he said: "I just want to put that in context. I didn’t feel it was out of the ordinary — other boys got hit by their parents — but I didn’t like it. I wish it hadn’t happened.

"My father was basically f***ed up by boarding school. He was a very happy farmer’s boy, but when he was 15 my grandparents discovered he had the beginnings of a girlfriend, which they thought the road to perdition, so they packed him off to this ghastly place."

Christopher died aged 49 while Richard had been on honeymoon with his first wife, Lynda Hooley, whom he married at 21.