Truth about why Eamonn Holmes fell off his chair: Insiders reveal incidents and bosses' fears to KATIE HIND - and tell of 'very tricky' money and love life woes
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When Eamonn Holmes fell off his chair live on air at 6.15am yesterday, shocking his loyal viewers, there was an outpouring of concern.
But for his GB News colleagues it was a familiar scene – for he had toppled off the chair some weeks ago too, only then the cameras weren’t rolling.
There have been other incidents, some too personal for me to reveal. And earlier this month Eamonn was rushed to hospital in an ambulance after falling at home.
What I can divulge is that his bosses at the channel are becoming increasingly worried for Eamonn’s health, and how long he is going to be able to host his breakfast show which begins at 6am and runs until 9.30am three days a week.
Indeed, I’ve heard that executives have been ‘having a look’ at Richard Madeley – an anchor on ITV’s Good Morning Britain – as a replacement at some point.
Eamonn, 65, struggles so much with his mobility that he is wheeled on and off the set. He has endured a double hip replacement as well as surgery for three slipped discs and has very little feeling in his lower back. He has been battling health issues since an operation in 2022, and in 2023 declared he ‘could no longer walk or look after himself.’
‘He’s in pain all of the time,’ said a friend of the former This Morning presenter. ‘It’s so very sad to watch. Even though he has no feeling at all in his back at times, he is up at the crack of dawn and does three hours of live television which he is, of course, very good at. The viewers love him but you do have to wonder how long this is going to go on.
‘So often there is an incident, something for the production staff to deal with, and it’s hard.’
Last Tuesday, for instance, viewers were left deeply worried when he disappeared from his show 40 minutes before the end and failed to return, leaving his co-host Ellie Costello to anchor alone.
And on yesterday’s programme, guest political commentator Charlie Rowley could only look on in horror as Eamonn fell from his chair while interviewing him.
Viewers couldn’t see the fall but a crash could be heard off screen and co-host Ellie gasped: ‘Oh, my gosh!’
Eamonn, ever the consummate professional, was then heard saying: ‘I’m fine, fine, fine, carry on, carry on.’ Charlie tried to continue but the programme cut to adverts seonds later.
One witness said that it took almost five minutes to get Eammon off the ground and back into his chair. But, after a good six-minute break, he was back on the screen, joking: ‘I’m still alive’, as he blamed the ‘wonky’ wheels on his chair (which, to be fair, other GB News presenters have also complained about).
‘They’re very wonky wheels on chairs we’ve got here, as a matter of fact we don’t really like the chairs here,’ he said to Ellie.
He went on to tell her that a recent accident he’d suffered at home made the chair fall even more agonising. ‘It was a shock for me because I had a fall two weeks ago in my bathroom that hospitalised me and that hit me right in the back. And this hit me again – right in the back. Really, really sore, really sore.’
While fans were quick to wish him well online, just five hours later he was winning attention on social media for very different reasons.
His younger girlfriend Katie Alexander, 43, the therapist he met online at the end of his relationship with his wife of 14 years, Ruth Langsford, had posted a video of her and Eamonn enjoying a day out in the sunshine.
Not only did it show the star beaming with happiness but it was the first time the couple had posted personal pictures on Instagram – or gone ‘Instagram official’, to coin the term used by those on social media to endorse a romance.
With The Levellers’ song What A Beautiful Day playing in the background, Katie captioned the cosy snaps: ‘Lovely weather... Lovely company.’
Then there was a clip of her, dressed in a polka dot dress, as she posed with Eamonn alongside his wheelchair and her dog Dottie.
While the couple were first photographed together on a luxury Mediterranean cruise last summer as well as at several showbusiness events, there has been much debate as to whether they are actually a couple.
Yesterday, a friend of Eamonn refused to reveal how romantic their relationship is but told me: ‘They are very happy. Eamonn is a bright and interesting guy and I can see why Katie finds him good company. She is very intellectually stimulated by him but, yes, it’s an odd relationship. He is aware of that.
‘Is it a full-on one? Probably not. Is it a friendship? Yes.
‘Is there genuine, close affection? Yes there is, and it’s lovely.’
However, it is unlikely that they will live together because Katie has refused to move into his penthouse flat in Kingston, South-West London. Instead, she prefers to stay in her native Yorkshire where she co-parents her two teenage children with her ex-husband. My source added: ‘Eamonn loves female company and he loves spending time with Katie. She looks after him and she keeps him going, she keeps him happy and sometimes that is hard.’
Indeed, Eamonn’s recent troubles have marked a far cry from his days as the king of breakfast TV.
He began presenting ITV’s GMTV in 1993 alongside stalwarts Anthea Turner and Fiona Phillips – breaking the news of Princess Diana’s death in August 1997. After leaving the show in 2005, he spent another 11 years on the early morning airwaves, this time for Sky where he hosted their Sunrise programme between 5am and 9.30am. He went on to host ITV’s This Morning alongside his now estranged wife Ruth Langsford, whom he married in 2010.
He was so popular that magazines such as Hello! and newspapers reported huge spikes in sales when they put him on their front cover. So why, then, does Eamonn continue to work if it is causing him so much discomfort? After all it is not exactly the fairy-tale ending to the glittering career that he once dreamed of. ‘He loves working, his viewers love him, and he has a big tax bill to pay,’ a friend of Eamonn’s told me yesterday.
‘He will struggle to retire, he has too many bills to pay.’
Eamonn has been embroiled in a battle with HMRC over whether he was freelance or on staff while working on This Morning. Eamonn has claimed he worked on a freelance basis and received payments via his company Red White and Green Limited, meaning he paid less tax.
However tax officials ruled he was staff and ordered him to pay years of backdated national insurance and tax bills – which could have come to some £250,000.
Last year he revealed he was forced to sell a property he owned in his native Belfast to pay some of the bill. His friend told me Eamonn feels he has lost everything, adding: ‘As a result, he needs to keep earning. There is no let-up for him and it makes for a very tough life. He can’t see an end point to that at the moment.’
Also on Eamonn’s mind is his increasingly tricky divorce from Ruth – the mother of his youngest son Jack, 23. Ruth was his second marriage, his first was to Gabrielle Holmes whom he married in 1985 and divorced in 2005. They have three children together: Declan, Rebecca, and Niall.
Eamonn and Ruth were once ITV’s golden couple, almost on a par with Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan, and were said by many to be more popular than Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield when they covered for them on This Morning.
They also cashed in on the ‘grey pound’ with lucrative advertising deals to sell products and services aimed at the over-55s.
One was with Revitive, a US firm selling a £300 device to improve circulation, reduce puffy feet and ankles, and strengthen legs. Eamonn also signed a five-figure deal with Age Partnership in 2020, which organises equity release plans for homeowners over the age of 55.
But last May I revealed that they had decided to split after 27 years together and divorce proceedings are ongoing.
Friends of the pair tell me that things have become ‘very, very tricky’ for them as they face selling their beloved £3.2 million house in Weybridge, Surrey.
Those who know Eamonn say he has been left very upset as he believes that associates of Ruth’s are ‘attacking him from all different directions’ and putting the blame on him for the split. He is also furious with Ruth for publishing their separation on social media to confirm my revelation.
‘It seems so unnecessary,’ said one. ‘It was a two-way breakdown and it came to the end of its journey yet there are all of these anti-Eamonn stories being printed everywhere. You have to wonder whether that’s her friends on some kind of campaign.
‘Ruth is now able to get on with her life and Eamonn his. But sadly things are looking like they are going to be a lot more difficult for him.’
