Richard Madeley struggled to hold back tears on Good Morning Britain while paying tribute to a “very good friend” of 50 years who died last year.
The presenter, 69, was co-hosting ITV’s daytime news show on Thursday (29 January) alongside Kate Garraway, where the presenting duo sat down to interview The Split star Stephen Mangan.
As the conversation drew to a close, Madeley decided to pay tribute to television executive Stuart Prebble, who died in August aged 74 of pancreatic cancer.
“I want to pay a short tribute to this interview without paying a very short tribute to a good friend of both of us: Stuart Prebble,” Madeley said, while fighting back tears. “I knew him for 50 years. He passed away [last] year.”
Madeley explained that he and Mangan had met at the funeral, with the Green Wing star adding that Madeley “spoke really beautifully”.
“I was speaking of a very beautiful man. We miss him very much. I just thought it was something I should say,” Madeley said, clearly emotional as Garraway took over the next segment. “Richard, what a lovely, lovely person you are. A lovely person,” she said.
One of ITV’s CEOs in the early 2000s, Prebble created the TV show Grumpy Old Men and went on to found the television production company StoryVault Films. The company is best known for making the Portrait and Landscape Artist of the Year competition series, which Mangan presents.
In the 1980s, he was a producer on the daily news show Granada Reports, which marked the first programme Madeley appeared on alongside his wife Judy Finnigan.
The pair went on to work together on This Morning before landing their own Channel 4 show in 2001. 2026 marks their 40-year wedding anniversary.
Last year, Madeley made another emotional admission while speaking about his mother’s reaction to his decision to leave school at 16 to work at the local newspaper.
“My mum thought it was a very bad move, my dad thought it was great,” he told co-host Charlotte Hawkins on A-Level results day. “My mum hated me as I started work when I was 16 and she insisted that I go to night school and take A-Levels there. So, I took an English A-Level and I got a B, I think.”
The decision turned out to be the right one; Madeley was promoted to assistant editor within two years, and joined the BBC in another three years time.
