Steph McGovern has said that the upsetting stories featured on her Channel 4 daytime show Steph’s Packed Lunch have given her nightmares.
The 32-year-old presenter said that the overwhelming “sad” stories which the show covers have left her struggling not to cry on air.
She told the Daily Star: “I get briefs on what we’ll be featuring on the show and if I read some of the sad ones the night before, I have bloody nightmares about the things that have happened to people.
“With some of them, I can’t read about it until the morning of the show. The ones that make me sad are anything to do with babies or someone dying.”
The Channel 4 presenter noted she occasionally feels “overwhelmed”, saying the effect has worsened since she and her girlfriend welcomed a baby daughter in late 2019.
She continued: “I really have to concentrate on not crying on TV because obviously it’s about them, not me.
“We had a little boy on who is raising money for his brother and sister who have died. He was so eloquent and amazing and I was the emotional one.”
This comes as Steph's Packed Lunch has been taken off air for two weeks in a schedule shake up.
Steph McGovern usually hosts the popular Channel 4 show every lunchtime in the week, but at the end of Friday's instalment, which was an Easter special, she revealed her and the team would be off air for the next couple of weeks.
Fans of the show, which has been nominated for an RTS award, will be pleased to know it is only a brief break over the Easter holidays.
Steph and co would be back on Monday, April 25 for another string of shows, as she confessed to her excitement about getting two weeks off.
!We're off for Easter break for two weeks now, so we'll see you in a couple of weeks. We're going to be back on Monday 28th,” she told viewers before she was quickly corrected and announced it was actually the 25th.
Apologising, she said she was “just too excited” that she was off for two weeks.
Steph's Packed Lunch was extended in November 2021 for another year, after originally being launched in lockdown from Steph's home. She is regularly joined, now in the studio, by guests including Strictly's John Whaite and Denise van Outen.
