Anthea Turner has hit out at former Countdown presenter Anne Robinson for writing “very spiteful things” about her after her divorce from DJ Peter Powell.
Ex-Blue Peter star Turner, now 66, made headlines after leaving Powell – a former BBC Radio 1 DJ and her manager – for property developer Grant Bovey in 1998. Turner and Bovey married the following year, but split up in 2012 over Bovey’s infidelity.
In a new interview, Turner opened up about the reveal of her affair, admitting that Robinson and tabloid journalist Lynda Lee-Potter “made my life hell”. Robinson had been a columnist for The Express at the time, while Lee-Potter – who died aged 69 in 2004 – wrote a column at The Daily Mail.
Asked what the worst thing written about her was, Turner told The Telegraph in a Monday (27 July) interview: “The end of my first marriage and meeting Grant caused an eruption. I was television’s golden girl, then I had an affair and was vilified.
“I’d [apparently] taken a happily married man by the scruff of his neck, dragged him out of his home and ruined everybody’s lives. Some very spiteful things were written. Anne Robinson and a journalist called Lynda Lee-Potter made my life hell, without, of course, knowing the full story.”
The Independent has contacted Robinson for comment.
Bovey was married with three young daughters when he became romantically involved with Turner, who said last year that she “felt terrible” about breaking up his marriage. She was labelled a homewrecker by the press as a result. “It was vile,” Turner said of the media coverage. “And it was only women. I don’t think a man is capable of writing like that.”
“I gave it to them on a plate,” she continued to The Telegraph. “I owned up to it, because when people split up and say, ‘There’s nobody else involved’, you know damn well there is. I asked a solicitor friend to put out a statement because otherwise they were going to go poking around and something was going to get found out. I look back on it all now, it was a series of unfortunate events.”
The couple split in 2012, two years after Bovey had declared bankruptcy. Turner told The Independent last year she was going through menopause while her now ex-husband’s business was failing. “They were difficult times,” she said. “[Menopause] doesn’t come at a good time in your life. I tried to put into words what was happening to me, but then of course I later found out he was having an affair and wasn’t interested in his sweaty wife.”
Turner, who rose to fame as a presenter on Blue Peter in the early Nineties before hosting GMTV and the National Lottery draw, received a gold badge from the BBC children’s programme for “inspiring the nation’s children”.
