Carol Kirkwood, 62, of BBC Breakfast, has revealed the heartbreaking justification she was made to give up her dream because she acknowledged it was a “source of heartbreak.”
Carol has to live with this one hearbreaking fact(Image: GETTY)
BBC Breakfast favourite Carol Kirkwood has long been a familiar face on our screens, brightening up our mornings with her warm smile and reliable forecasts. But behind the sunshine exterior, the 62-year-old weather presenter has quietly weathered storms of her own – including the heartbreak of a dream she’s had to let go.
In an exclusive interview with OK!, Carol opened up about the emotional pain of not having children – something she once deeply hoped for. “I always wanted to have children. That was my dream,” she admits. It comes after Sharon Osbourne breaks down in tears at Ozzy’s funeral in heartbreaking scenes .
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Carol is well-known for her role as a BBC presenter.
The star, known for her chirpy demeanour and professional poise, reveals that she even looked into fertility treatment before the costs became overwhelming. “It was a source of heartbreak, but we tried and failed.”
The Scottish-born presenter, who grew up in a big family as one of eight siblings, has channelled her love into being an incredibly devoted auntie. “I love them all incredibly,” she beams, referring to her 15 nieces and nephews, as well as several godchildren.
Despite that particular chapter never being written, Carol has found happiness in other areas of her life – both personally and professionally.
After her 2008 divorce from ex-husband Jimmy Kirkwood, a former field hockey player, Carol focused on her career and rebuilt her life with grace. She spent years quietly keeping her love life under wraps, but in 2022 delighted fans when she announced her engagement to long-term partner Steve Randall, a former police officer turned businessman. The pair now live in the Buckinghamshire countryside and recently tied the knot in a private ceremony, with Carol sharing glimpses of the joy on social media.
Professionally, Carol has enjoyed an impressive run at the BBC, having joined the broadcaster in the late 1990s. She became a regular on BBC Breakfast and quickly established herself as the nation’s go-to weather expert. Her warmth, expertise, and genuine connection with viewers made her a beloved household name.
In addition to her work, Carol wowed audiences with her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing in 2015, partnering with professional dancer Pasha Kovalev and charming viewers with her grace and humour. More recently, she’s turned her hand to writing, publishing several romance novels that have earned glowing reviews and flown off shelves.
She claims that being able to recover from heartache has improved her as a writer and person. When you’ve been open and said, “I think you’re great, but romantically, it’s not going anywhere, but you know how it feels,” she says, “You know how it feels when someone doesn’t love you any more and moves on,” in the same way that you probably have done to someone else.
Nine years after her divorce from property developer Jimmy Kirkwood, Carol wed police officer Steve in December of 2023.
“When you’re heartbroken, you cry a lot, you feel sorry for yourself, and you think you might as well spend your entire life on your own, but you don’t,” says one woman. You emerge from that. You develop.
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She now hopes that other women who are suddenly navigating midlife alone are encouraged by her happy ending. When I divorced, I did date other people, and a friend of mine said, “You need to find yourself,” and I was wondering, “What? ” I am aware of myself. I am aware of who I am. However, I didn’t date anyone because I was just enjoying myself out with my friends for a while.
Despite her accomplishments, it is obvious that the absence of children still occupies a tender spot in an otherwise loving life. Carol has embraced it with all respect and dignity.
Lagos, Nigeria – Before his body went limp, the man yelled, “Lord, take my soul, but the struggle continues.” It swung gently from the makeshift gallows, hurriedly built a few days earlier. The prison had last carried out a death sentence during British rule 30 years prior that morning.
It was November 10, 1995.
For weeks, local activists from the small Ogoniland settlement in Nigeria’s lush Niger Delta region had been protesting against oil spills seeping into their farmland and the gas flares choking them. The Niger Delta, which produces the crude that gave Nigeria its 80% of its foreign earnings, was rife with soldiers carrying weapons from General Sani Abacha’s feared military dictatorship. They responded to the protests with force.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, a well-known playwright and environmental activist, faced his fate on that fateful day. A week earlier, a military tribunal had declared his sentence. And just the day before, five executioners tasked with carrying it out had flown in from the northern city of Sokoto.
Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists who were detained alongside him for murder were removed from the army camp at 5am, leaving Port Harcourt, the regional hub a short drive from Ogoniland. There, they were herded into a room and shackled. Then were they followed by a tour of the gallows. Saro-Wiwa went first.
It took five attempts to kill him. The activist yelled out in disbelief after a failed tug: “Why are you treating me this way? ” What kind of country is this”?
The gallows finally worked as intended on the final attempt. By 3: 15pm, all nine men had been executed. Their bodies were placed in coffins, loaded into vehicles and escorted by armed guards to the public cemetery. As soldiers fired tear gas into the air to stifle any notions of rebellion, thousands of horrified people lined the streets to watch the procession. No relatives of the nine men were allowed into the cemetery. No respectful burials or goodbyes from loved ones were held.
Thirty years later, on June 12 this year, Nigeria’s Democracy Day, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu pardoned Saro-Wiwa and the others – the Ogoni Nine as they had become known. He went on to call them heroes and awarded them prestigious national titles.
The pardons were insufficient, but they did have a moving effect for Noo Saro-Wiwa, the daughter of Saro-Wiwa, who is now 49, and other relatives of the executed men. In Ogoniland, it reopened old wounds that remained as deep as when they were first inflicted all those years ago.
The city where Ken Saro-Wiwa was put to death in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, is being commemorated on the tenth anniversary of his execution.
Saro Wiwa, accidental environmental activist
Before his death at age 54, Saro-Wiwa wanted to be known as a great writer.
He had a lot of energy, but books were his true love. More than two dozen books, poems and essays bore his name. His radio and television plays were incredibly successful, particularly one that made fun of the corrupt Nigerian elite, which seized power after independence in 1960. In the short story Africa Kills Her Sun, Saro-Wiwa eerily warned of his killing: A man condemned to death pens a long letter to his lover, Zole, on the eve of his execution, telling her not to grieve.
Saro-Wiwa’s execution made him a martyr for the Ogoni people – the man whose death drew international attention to their plight.
A 17-year-old Saro-Wiwa wrote letters to the government and oil companies in 1958 asking how delta communities would benefit from oil dollars. Later on, his essays highlighted how Ogoniland still lacked infrastructure – roads, electricity, water – despite the oil.
The Ogoni Bill of Rights was presented to the Nigerian government under the leadership of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), which he cofounded in October 1990. In it, the Ogoni people denounced the dominance of the majority tribes (Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo) and the sidelining of minorities like the Ogoni. They called for political autonomy and direct control of oil profits, saying:
The thirty years of Nigerian independence have only revealed the terrible leadership of the majority ethnic groups and their cruelty as they have caused the country to experience ethnic strife, carnage, war, dictatorship, retrogression, and the greatest waste of national resources ever seen, turning generations of Nigerians, both born and unborn, into perpetual debtors.
It marked Saro-Wiwa as a thorn in the side of the military dictators, and from 1992 to 1993, he was arrested without charge several times. He rebuffed the slow death, as he claimed Ogonis were, and continued to do so.
“I accuse the oil companies of practising genocide against the Ogoni”, he wrote in one article. The Nigerian government, he said, was complicit.
In Ogoniland, Saro-Wiwa’s fervour permeated. About 300, 000 Ogonis, out of a population of half a million, marched with him in January 1993 to peacefully protest against the Nigerian government and Shell, the oil company that they said bore particular responsibility for the oil spills in their part of the delta.
One of the largest mass demonstrations ever to take place in Nigeria at the time. Protesters carried signs with messages like: “Assassins, go home”. The protests were so large that the world began to notice the Ogonis and the slight, articulate man speaking for them. Soon, he was addressing the Ogonis case at the UN. Environmental rights groups like Greenpeace noted and supported his activism.
By the end of that year, riots were taking place and enraged protesters had destroyed billion-dollar oil pipelines. Shell was forced to suspend operations. The government promptly deployed a special task force to suppress what is now known as the Ogoni Rebellion. According to reports from Amnesty International, soldiers brutally suppressed protests, carried out extrajudicial killings, raped and tortured scores of people.
Oil is seen on the surface of a creek in March 2011 near an illegal oil refinery in Ogoniland outside Port Harcourt in Nigeria’s Delta region, which has suffered from widespread ecological damage]Sunday Alamba/AP]
Infighting and organized crime in Ogoniland
By 1994 and with soldiers still in Ogoniland, tensions were running high. Splits within the MOSOP leadership were also emerging with one side, led by Saro-Wiwa, calling for a stronger stance against the government and another preaching pacifism.
Saro-Wiwa’s had a close relationship with Edward Kobani as a child. He was also a pacifist who opposed his friend’s mobilisation of young people in rallies that rang with angry rhetoric. Their relationship was changed by his opposition to violence. More broadly, the mood in the region was turning against the pacifists, who were increasingly seen as sellouts colluding with the military regime and Shell although there is no evidence they were working with either.
On May 21, 1994, word spread that some MOSOP leaders had gathered for a meeting at the chief’s palace in Ogoniland’s Gokana district but soldiers had blocked Saro-Wiwa from entering the area. Incensed, rioters attacked those who could lay their hands on as they marched to the meeting point. Four of them – Kobani, Alfred Badey, and the brothers Samuel and Theophilus Orage, who were Saro-Wiwa’s in-laws – were clubbed with everything from broken bottles to sharpened rakes. Then they were engulfed in flames.
The Nigerian military immediately accused Saro-Wiwa of inciting the killings and arrested him the next day. At a news conference, the military administrator of Rivers State, which Ogoniland is part of, declared MOSOP a “terror group” and Saro Wiwa, a “dictator who has … no room for dissenting views”. Nordu Eawo, Saturday Dobee, John Kpuine, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gbooko, Barinem Kiobel, and Baribor Bera were the only MOSOP leaders who were detained.
In detention, the men were reportedly chained, beaten and denied medication or visits. Their trial by a military tribunal was described by Amnesty International as a “sham.” Civilian defence lawyers were assaulted and their evidence discarded. In protest, the lawyers boycotted the hearings.
Reports from the time noted how Saro-Wiwa looked ahead in court without a word or glanced through a newspaper.
Mourners drop offerings in a bowl next to the casket of civil rights activist John Kpuine, executed with Ken Saro-Wiwa and seven other Ogoni activists, during his reburial in Bera in the Gokana district of Rivers State on November 12, 2005]Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP]
The Ogoni Nine are battling for justice.
Noo Saro-Wiwa was 19 and in her second year of college when her father was executed. Born in Port Harcourt, she lived and studied in London. She had no idea that her life had changed until the execution occurred. It wasn’t until late that night that her mother, Maria, managed to reach her on her landline.
She gave a shock as she did. Noo, who is now a travel writer and author based in London, told Al Jazeera in a phone call that it was hard to imagine the man who would amble into her room while she idled on her bed and thrust a book in her face with a “Read this”! could be killed in such a way. After all, Nelson Mandela was one of the influential international voices who pressed for the government of Nigeria to release him.
Noo’s brother, Ken, was in New Zealand to attend the opening of the annual Commonwealth of Nations meeting and press for Nigeria’s suspension. At the time, Nigeria had a significant aid source thanks to the association of former British colonies.
The world, too, reacted with shock. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth, and the United States and several other countries severed diplomatic ties. Noo recalls being unsure why the story was being ran by British news outlets frequently. That’s when it dawned on Noo how great her father’s task had been.
Noo explained that while her family was determined to bring about justice, it was a difficult road. In 1996, her brother and uncle sued Shell, which the Ogoni Nine families accused of complicity by aiding the military. Shell denied the allegations.
The lawsuit lasted until 2009 when the business settled for $ 15 million, which was filed in the US under a law that allows for jurisdiction in foreign disputes. Shell said it was “humanitarian and legal fees”.
Noo noted that the majority of it was used to pay for the legal fees and establish a trust fund that still provides scholarships to Ogoni students. It’s annoying, though, she added, that critics claim her family and the others got rich on the settlement.
“It was a tiny amount”, she said. Who wants their parent killed for a $15 million settlement, even if it weren’t?
Two Nigerians from the Ogoni tribe and other environmental activists protest against Shell in front of a petrol station in Quito, Ecuador in February 1996]File: Reuters]
Noo claimed for many years that she had no control over her feelings when she visited or heard the name “Shell.” The company was also taken to The Hague in 2017 by a group of Ogoni Nine widows with the support of Amnesty International, however, a judge ruled there was no evidence that Shell was complicit in the government executions.
Meanwhile, Amnesty said in a 2017 report that it had found evidence that Shell executives had met with military officials and “encouraged” them to suppress protests. According to the report, the business transported soldiers and “at least one time paid a military commander notorious for human rights violations.”
Shell denied the claims and said it pleaded with the government for clemency for the Ogoni Nine.
Since then, Noo has found the motivation to travel to Ogoniland. She first went back in 2005, 10 years after her father’s execution. The region has become even more volatile as ethnic militias now patrol the creeks, attacking soldiers, controlling oil pipelines and kidnapping oil workers at sea.
Noo stated that the destruction in her home country will be the subject of her upcoming book. Her brother and mother died in the past decade, leaving her and Zina, her US-based twin sister. She claimed that Shell suffered from the losses, but she now frequently travels back home to watch the oil spills, which continue even though Shell didn’t restart operations following the protests in 1993.
Life as a writer abroad contrasts jarringly with her life back home, Noo said. One week, she is walking down the streets of Paris, and the next, she is standing in oil-soaked farms in Ogoniland. However, she continued, her work in Nigeria makes her think of her father’s struggle.
“My father was a real kind of David vs Goliath”, Noo said. The majority of people from that time were unaware of Ogoni. As I get older, I’m just always more in awe of what he achieved. It was quite incredible”.
On the 29th anniversary of the Ogoni Nine’s executions, the Red Rebel Brigade, an environmental activist group, staged a protest outside the Shell Centre in London.
Too little, too late?
Environmental groups claim that Shell’s leaky pipes continue to pump oil into the earth despite these years. The company, which plans to sell its onshore assets and exit the Niger Delta after so many years of controversy, has always claimed its pipes are being sabotaged.
Calculated or accidental, the oily devastation is visible in the eerie stillness of Ogoniland’s mangroves, which should be alive with the sounds of chirping insects and croaking frogs. Old, stooped fishermen cast nets that raise air in murky rivers that are sputtering with oil.
Nubari Saatah, an Ogoni, has long advocated for Ogonis to control their oil wealth, just as activists before him did. Ogonis have remained bitter ever since the rebellion, according to the Niger Delta Congress political movement’s president, primarily because Nigeria has not resolved the broken relationship or rectified injustices by granting Ogonis control of their land.
Saatah, author of the 2022 book What We Must Do: Towards a Niger Delta Revolution, regularly appears on radio and TV shows to comment on the Niger Delta crisis and often places the blame for the region’s instability at the government’s doorstep.
“The violent militancy that engulfed the Niger Delta was a direct reaction to the violence visited on the peaceful methods employed by Ogoni”, Saatah said.
He continued, “Unfortunately for the Ogoni, the executions created a leadership vacuum that hasn’t been filled up to this day.”
A UN Environmental Programme report in 2011 found that more than 50 years of oil extraction in Ogoniland had caused the water in much of the region to be contaminated with extremely high levels of toxic hydrocarbons like benzene. In one village, the groundwater’s benzene content exceeded 900 times the recommended World Health Organization standard.
Cleaning up the devastation and restoring the land would require the “world’s most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up exercise ever undertaken”, the report said.
Although Nigeria and Shell committed in 2012 to a clean-up through the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), more than a decade later, progress has been slow and hard to measure, critics said.
Saatah attributed the lack of results to the government. Abuja, he said, has not funded the programme as promised. That conveys to Ogonis a message that the government is uninterested, he continued. Shell, meanwhile, has contributed $270m to the project. Al Jazeera reached out to HYPREP for comment but did not receive a response.
Saatah noted that there is still some change. When the clean-up started, government authorities installed a sign at the community well in Saatah’s village of Bomu that read: “Warning! Don’t drink this water, please.
People hardly glanced at the post as they fetched their drinking water, largely because there were no alternative water sources. In the past five or so years, however, HYPREP has installed potable water tanks in Bomu. Saatah is concerned about the long-term viability of the project and how much burden will be placed on his neighborhood.
Members of Nigeria’s Ogoni community at a rally in New York in May 2009]Bebeto Matthews/AP]
Some in Ogoniland view the recent pardoning of the Ogoni Nine as suspicious, given that it comes at a time when Nigeria is experiencing one of its worst financial declines and the government is desperate to extract and sell more crude oil.
Resuming active exploration in Ogoniland, which stopped in 1993, could yield up to 500, 000 barrels of crude per day, a MOSOP official, which is still operating, told reporters last year. That would be on top of the current 1.7 million barrels per day produced from other parts of the delta.
According to Saatah, “the lines are drawn between the pardon of the Ogoni Nine and the reprise of oil.” The pardons, he said, were to sweeten the Ogoni people and avoid any opposition.
However, he said that Ogoni communities are unlikely to agree to renewed exploration because, Saatah said, first, locals are still able to control oil profits, and second, Tinubu’s pardoning of the Ogoni Nine has only exacerbated internal tensions, Saatah said.
Rifts that emerged during the 1994 crisis have not healed. The fact that the president’s speech did not acknowledge the four murdered MOSOP members in the mob action that led to Saro-Wiwa’s arrest has angered their families and supporters, some of whom fault the aggressive stance of Saro-Wiwa for what happened.
Noo and the Ogoni Nine families are either dissatisfied with the government’s choice or not.
The national honour was a welcome surprise, Noo said, but the pardons were not enough.
A pardon implies something, such as that a crime was first committed, she said. “But nothing’s been committed”.
For the first time since going public, Kerry Katona and her new boyfriend Paolo Margaglione have been pictured together, but a body language expert claims they look tense together.
A body language expert reveals what is really going on in Kerry and Paolo’s relationship(Image: Channel 4)
Kerry Katona may already be facing issues in her relationship with hunky new beau, Yorkshire-born fitness trainer Paolo Margaglione, after snaps of the pair in Ibiza seemed to show them in a tense exchange. The photos of the pair on the White Isle – their first couple’s trip – confirmed their romance.
But a source claims that, while they’re totally “smitten” with each other, Kerry, 44, is nervous about putting yet another relationship in the public eye – and, with Celebs Go Dating about to hit screens, it could already be causing issues between the lovebirds.
“Kerry is being very cautious with this romance,” they claim. “She has been very wary about going public with Paolo and it impacting their relationship. She’s been down the route of high-profile, public relationships before and she doesn’t want anything to ruin things this time.” It comes after Cat Deeley found moving back to the UK ‘really hard’ before split from Patrick Kielty.
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Kerry recently completed her fourth boob job.
Kerry and father-of-two Paolo, 33, are thought to have met during the new series of Celebs Go Dating, set to air next week. However, Kerry has remained resolutely tight-lipped on her new relationship.
But with each high and low of her previous relationships played out in public, our source claims Kerry is worried to go down the same path as the past. “Kerry’s worries have caused some tense moments as she doesn’t want any exterior drama getting in the way. But Paolo isn’t overthinking it – he’s just really happy to be with her. He doesn’t see the problem and is telling her not to worry, they’re great together and should just enjoy what they’ve got.”
Body language expert Adrianne Carter thinks the couple’s relationship may be sparked by the tension that may be at play in the background, despite the couple’s love-up expressions in their holiday photos. The top half of Kerry’s body is leaning away, which is frequently a sign of disagreement; perhaps they’ve had a little bit of a row or a bust-up because Kerry’s body is slightly angled inward of Paolo’s.
She appears to be ready to disengage her hand, but he appears to be holding her hand more possessively and in a more dominant position with the hands. Her head appears to be swaying or arguing something because of how she tilts her head. Both of their expressions have a tense quality that doesn’t appear to be relaxed.
However, our source maintains that the route of Kerry’s stress could just be the strength of her feelings for Paolo and a strong desire, after so much heartache in the past, to make this work. “Kerry loves being in love – she’s trying to do this the right way. They’re smitten with each other and can’t believe they’ve found one another. They just don’t want anything getting in the way.”
The new couple have also had to face some outside pressure, having come under fire after Paolo’s ex-girlfriend Jessica Smith publicly claimed he was dating her when he signed up for the show, alleging he was solely looking for fame with his TV stint.
Our source adds that Kerry’s loved ones also have concerns. “Friends and family are worried she’s jumping in a bit fast and should maybe take a break from men. But she’s very happy and determined to make it work with Paolo,” they claim.
Ryan and Kerry split last year with Ryan Mahoney and Ryan.
However, Paolo and Kerry, who recently completed a fourth boob job, refuted the accusations and have been dating since the show’s premiere earlier this summer.
Before splitting after two years of marriage in 2004, Kerry was married to Brian McFadden, with whom she had two daughters, Molly and Lilly.
She went on to wed taxi driver Mark Croft, who she welcomed Heidi and Max with, before their split in 2010. And in 2014, she tied the knot with George Kay, the same year they welcomed daughter DJ. George passed away in 2019, two years after the couple split.
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Kerry then found love with Ryan Mahoney, who she’d met on a dating app. The personal trainer popped the question in 2020, but the pair never married and split last November.
However, our source claims that Paolo has given Kerry her back. She believes that this is the real deal. It means a lot to her, really. Hopefully, there won’t be any more turbulence until this time.
Carol Kirkwood, a host of ABC Breakfast, has revealed how her life changed after a “terrible” illness earlier this year, which caused her to lose weight and change her outlook.
Nine years after her divorce from property developer Jimmy Kirkwood, Carol wed police officer Steve in December of 2023.
At the start of the year, Carol Kirkwood was hit by a “terrible” bout of food poisoning, which triggered a lifestyle transformation that changed not just her eating habits, but her entire outlook.
I ate two slices of toast for two days before going to bed. I enjoy snacking. I enjoy chocolate, a glass of wine, and crisps, and I thought, “Right, you don’t need all this food.” Instead of eating only because I can, I now eat when I’m hungry.
While she refuses to divulge exactly how much weight she’s lost (“my weight is a state secret”) Carol admits in an exclusive chat with OK! that she’s now “probably a dress size-and-a-half” smaller and fitting comfortably into a size 10, and sometimes even an eight. “I’ve got lots of clothes from years of doing telly. When I couldn’t get into them, I put them away. Now I can. It feels like I’ve got a whole new wardrobe, but I don’t. It’s old clothes that I’m wearing again.” It comes after Sharon Osbourne breaks down in tears at Ozzy’s funeral in heartbreaking scenes.
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Carol is well-known for her role as a BBC presenter.
The BBC weather presenter and author’s fresh approach to health isn’t about restriction but balance. “I’ve done every single diet going but now I’m not depriving myself of anything. If I want a piece of chocolate, I’ll have it, but then I actually don’t. It’s like somebody’s flipped a switch in my head.”
At 2.45 am, her daily schedule begins breathtakingly early. “At about 9 o’clock in the morning, I’ll have an apple or a banana and then go home and eat whatever the dickens, possibly a toasted pitta with rocket, tomatoes, sweetcorn, peppers, and chicken,” I said. I might have another pitta with hummus in the evening or some peppers with hummus, but I might not feel hungry in between meals because of this.
Some people mistakenly believe Carol must also be using weight-loss injections in an age where they are increasingly popular as a quick fix. It’s obvious you’re doing this, I’ve received a few emails saying. Exactly like their own. I’m not going to judge someone if they want to do that because their bodies and their lives are both affected, but she insists that they should do it.
Carol, 63, credits her cheerful outlook to her “happy upbringing” in Morar, where her “upbeat” hotelier parents Callum and Nancy raised. She is brimming with positive energy. And she is especially upbeat when we speak with her husband, a 51-year-old police officer, the day after her summer break in Cornwall. While away, the couple reconnected with their technology by undergoing a tech detox.
“Like everyone else, I live by my phone and it’s been so busy recently that it was a case of, ‘Let’s reconnect, switch off the outside world and enjoy some quiet time,’” explains Carol, before confessing that she didn’t exactly play by the rules. “It’s really hard. One time I did secretly switch it on when Steve had gone to bed,” she chuckles. “Just a quick check to see what was happening!”
Carol is now back in full professional mode after the holiday. Before returning to the south to promote her fifth novel, Meet Me At Sunset, she takes a train to Manchester to arrive at BBC Breakfast‘s Salford Quays studio at 4am.
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She claims that Steve’s antisocial working hours at the Metropolitan Police, combined with her busy career, are keeping them in the honeymoon zone. We don’t see much each other during the week, they say. We made up our minds that we only see each other for an hour and a half of the day on Monday through Thursday, so we value our time together. It is truly priceless.
Joking that “it’ll be a real shock” when she and Steve finally enjoy limitless time together in later life, Carol quashes speculation about imminent retirement. “Well, I’m 63 and I’m not going to be still doing this when I’m 73, but I’ve got no plans to retire just yet so it won’t be for a while,” she insists.
Since joining BBC Breakfast in April 1998 after stints on BBC Radio, The Weather Channel and HTV West, Carol has seen many Breakfast faces come and go. However, some remain unforgettable, including co-presenter and friend Bill Turnbull, who died in August 2022 at the age of 66, just four years after a prostate cancer diagnosis.
He frequently appears in my photo memories, and I think, “Oh, Billy! ” I’ll always miss him and fondly recall the experiences we shared on Breakfast, in terms of memories and times,” says Carol. He once caused me to laugh so hard. I adore the way that he was both very naughty and very proper.
Bill found “real interest” in Carol’s blossoming relationship with Steve. He asked, “How’s it going, he?” What’s the newest? Any ring formations near the horizon? I’d say, “Billy, no, no.” Not yet. It’s too soon! ‘”
Carol met Steve at a work function in 2021 and they became friends before finding love. She announced their engagement live from the Chelsea Flower Show in 2022, eventually tying the knot in December 2023, 15 years after the end of her 25-year marriage to businessman Jimmy Kirkwood.
Surviving heartbreak, she says, has made her a better writer – and person. “You know how it feels when somebody doesn’t love you any more and moves on, in the same way that you’ve probably done to somebody else, when you’ve been honest and said, ‘I think you’re great, but romantically, it’s not going anywhere,’” she says.
“When you’re heartbroken, you cry a lot, you feel sorry for yourself, and you think you might as well spend your entire life on your own, but you don’t,” says one woman. You emerge from that. You develop.
In 2015, Carol and Pasha Kovalev danced on Strictly.
Now, she hopes that her own happy ending is giving hope to other women who find themselves suddenly navigating midlife solo. “When I got divorced, I did date other people, then somebody said to me, ‘You need to find yourself’ and I was thinking, ‘What? I know myself. I know who I am.’ But I went for a period without dating people, because I was just happy going out with my friends.
When we were both single girls, Sue and I used to travel a lot. She recently split up as well. We would drive across the channel, cross the channel, book a hotel room, and wander the beach. We had dinner at a music festival the night before. We assumed that our dreams were being lived. You simply discover a new life that is also good.
Not having children is another heartache Carol has negotiated. I’ve always wanted kids. She claims that she had a dream about trying to get pregnant until the cost became too high. We tried and failed, but it was a source of heartache.
Carol is one of eight siblings, has 15 nieces and nephews, plus godchildren, and relishes her role as an auntie. She smiles, “I love them all incredibly.” So with her love life looking good, another novel already in motion and a decade since she finished in 10th place alongside Pasha Kovalev in the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing , are any other high-profile TV shows tempting her?
“I would love to do Race Across The World,” replies Carol without hesitation. “When I say this to some of my friends, they say, ‘But would you want to go on an overnight bus for 18 hours across India?’ Not as my main holiday, but as an adventure? Absolutely!”
According to a source, Tina O’Brien, who is dating Adam Fadlé after her divorce from Adam Croft, may be thinking about getting married.
Tina couldn’t have looked more loved-up with her new beau at Jack P Shepherd’s wedding(Image: WireImage)
When Corrie star Jack P Shepherd tied the knot with Hanni Treweek at Manchester Cathedral, all eyes were on the happy bride and groom. But another star of the Manchester-based soap, Tina O’Brien, 41, also attracted her fair share of attention, making her first public appearance at the star-studded nuptials with her new man – and a source claims to OK! that she could even be thinking about tying the knot herself.
The mum-of-two seems to have found love again with interior designer Adam Fadlé, 38, after splitting from her husband of seven years, Adam Crofts. And the pair couldn’t have looked more loved up as they attended Jack’s wedding alongside a host of fellow cast members such as Lucy Fallon, Samia Longchambon, Alan Halsall and Jayne Danson – even going in for a passionate kiss at one point.
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Tina and Adam split after 7 years of marriage and share son, Beau(Image: WireImage)
A source at the wedding told : “There was no mistaking they were an item on the day. Tina looked very much smitten with Adam. She looked radiant and everyone that saw them could see how besotted with each other they were. They were all over each other”. They added, as it emerged Tina packed on the PDA at her co-star’s wedding: “Tina dotes on him – she loves that he’s very calm and is a real gentleman, in every way. She’s head over heels. This is no flash in the pan relationship, they’re getting serious.”
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The Weatherfield favorite is reportedly “besotted” with her new boyfriend and is evening considering tie-the- knot once more, claims our mole, who was inspired by friend Jack’s fairytale nuptials.
“We’ve already been discussing marriage,” he said. There could be wedding bells at some point, but given her marriage to Adam isn’t working out, they may seem quite the U-turn since they both adored Jack and seemed incredibly enthralled by the wedding fervor. Tina is eager to try marriage again.
It’s believed (subs – source in The Sun) the pair met through friends in their hometown of Cheshire, and have already been on a string of dates together and that Tina – who plays Sarah Platt on the Cobbles – is ‘totally mad’ for her new beau.
Their cosy debut as a couple came not long after Tina was seen letting her hair down and enjoying the single life, after it was revealed last month that she and her husband had called it a day, following weeks of speculation.
Since 1999, when Tina was just 16 years old, she has been a staple on the cobbles.
Although the separated couple are known to be on good terms for Beau, 10, their very different lifestyles, with Tina claiming to be enjoying a showbiz party and Adam preferring to live quietly, have had a toll on their marriage.
Tina and her estranged husband first met at a coffee shop in Manchester in 2011, the couple tying the knot in a surprise New Year’s Eve ceremony in 2018. But split rumours began to emerge when she shared a snap of herself at former co-star, Colson Smith’s leaving party.
Taking to Instagram, Tina – just weeks after going on holiday without her husband – donned a stunning red mini dress and without her wedding ring markedly absent on her ring finger. Friends subsequently confirmed that the couple had split, and that after moving house at Christmas had decided to live separately for the time being.
Tina also shares a daughter Scarlett, 16, also an actress on Waterloo Road, with ex Ryan Thomas, who recently returned to Weatherfield as part of Sue Cleaver’s (Eileen Grimshaw) exit storyline.
Tina’s daughter with ex Ryan is Waterloo Road star Scarlett Thomas(Image: PA)
The two soap stars first dated in 2003, welcomed their daughter in 2008, and they ended their union in 2008. They still co-parent Scarlett, who frequently appears on both Mom and Dad’s social media accounts.
Their relationship, however, has been notoriously strained, though in recent times it’s believed the pair have decided to put their differences aside to support teenage Scarlett’s budding career.
Back in April, a source close to the family told : ‘Ryan and Tina have had their rows and disagreements over the years, but now, they are joining forces and pulling out all the stops, as they can see that Scarlett is going to be a superstar.”
This could be a whole new chapter for Tina because her relationships seem to be more harmonious with her ex, her career is on the up, and a potential wedding are on the cards. No one else deserves more long-lasting joy.
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Ben Ramsdale
journalist for BBC Sport
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Son Heung-min, the current Tottenham captain, announced that he would leave this summer after ten years.
The South Korean international signed for Spurs from Bayer Leverkusen in 2015, and he has made 174 goals in 454 games.
When Tottenham won the first trophy in 17 years against Manchester United in the Europa League final in May, he was the captain.
The 33-year-old is currently negotiating with Los Angeles FC in advanced negotiations with the league’s top soccer team. He is contracted with Spurs until 2026.
Son, who is also the new manager, described the decision as “the most difficult decision I have made in my career.”
A young boy who even didn’t speak English came to London as a young boy when I was a child.
Son is expected to start and lead the Tottenham team against Newcastle in a friendly on Sunday, which could mean his final appearance for the club could be in his home country. As part of their pre-season preparations, Tottenham are in Seoul.
Son was described as “one of the greatest players to play in the Premier League” by Frank, who took over as head coach in June as Ange Postecoglou.
What a place to play it in front of his home fans, Frank said, “If that is Sonny’s last game?”
The conclusion “could be lovely.”
I need a new setting to exert myself.
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Son claimed that it felt like I had accomplished everything in order to win a title with Spurs in Europe.
In September 2015, he made his Tottenham debut, making 333 Premier League starts.
Along with former Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who ranks 16th in the league’s all-time scorers list, ahead of Dwight Yorke, Steven Gerrard, and Ian Wright, he scored 127 goals.
Son and Harry Kane, both of whom are currently at Bayern Munich, have a memorable attacking partnership and are the Premier League’s most successful goalscorers.
Son scored 24 goals in the pair’s 47 combined goals, compared to Kane’s 23. In a prolific two-season period – 2020-21 and 2021-22 – they linked up 21 times for goals.
Son became the first Asian player to achieve the Premier League golden boot, joining Mohamed Salah and Mohamed Salah for 23 goals in the 2021-2020 campaign. A year later, Son became the first player from Asia to reach 100 Premier League goals.
He took over as club captain from Hugo Lloris in August 2023 and made an appearance in the Champions League final against Liverpool in the 2-0 victory.
To push myself, I need a new environment. I need a little bit of change, Son continued. Ten years is a long time.
I had these conversations with myself over and over again as I debated whether I wanted to play football in a different setting.
Son also contributed 101 assists overall and has a record for Tottenham’s 71 Premier League assists.
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