For many viewers, breakfast TV is a refuge thanks to its cozy conventionality, light-hearted subject matter and presenting duos who come to feel like family. But the cheerful legacy of ITV’s flagship show This Morning has suffered a serious blow: first with the scandal that led to the departure of Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby in 2023, and then with today’s news that Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, who left the show presenters will be separated for fifteen years until their departure in 2021 – with pressure from This Morning could be a factor.
A spokesperson for the couple said Holmes and Langsford, both 64, “have confirmed that their marriage is over and they are in the process of divorcing.” Neither has responded individually yet.
However, a source told The Sun that Holmes will share his side of the story on his GB News breakfast show on Monday. ‘Eamonn is always candid on camera and knows it will be strange for him to discuss the news of the day without mentioning the split, so he will say a few words. He puts on a brave face.”
As for that joint statement, it was apparently on Langsford’s orders. Holmes hadn’t wanted to go public yet, but she decided it was time to officially confirm their split. Holmes is said to have said, “Ruth can do whatever she wants, but keep me out of it.” Another source suggested that Holmes knew deep down that the marriage was over, but he is “burying his head in the sand.”
Friends of the couple say their divorce happened a year ago and they are “determined to keep it a secret.” Holmes has now reportedly moved out of their £3.2million six-bedroom mansion in the town of Weybridge, Surrey, and is living in another property nearby.
It’s a sad ending for Morning TV’s golden couple – although, ironically, it was partly the effort to maintain their perfect image that led to this divorce after fourteen years of marriage.
Langsford had previously revealed that Holmes first saw her on TV. “He was at home watching Countryfile on Sunday morning, and I was doing a piece for the camera on a boat,” she told her fellow presenters on ITV’s Loose Women in 2021. “As he now knows, I’m getting awful seasick, but I needed the money. When I met him a few years later he said, ‘Were you on the back of a boat in a red jacket?’”.
This meeting took place in London in 1997, shortly after Holmes’ divorce from first wife Gabrielle. Langsford remembered Holmes’ three children (Declan, Rebecca and Niall) and recalled keeping their budding romance a secret. “I thought it spoke volumes about the kind of father he was and the integrity he had,” she explained. “It made me love him more, not less.”
She even compared them to a Hollywood glamor couple, saying: “Our relationship is very passionate. We look like Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Even though we bicker and argue, ultimately our love for each other and the bond we share is so strong.
The couple had a son, Jack, in 2002 and eventually married at Elvetham Hall in Hampshire in 2010.
Over the years they have also built a successful working relationship, co-presenting shows such as teatime quiz Gift Wrapped, Channel 5’s How the Other Half Lives and of course This Morning. Langsford became a regular presenter of the latter in 2006, after a popular guest stint, with Holmes joining her later that year.
For a time they were Britain’s favorite couple – although even then there was tension, with numerous cutting comments.
During a phone conversation about unreasonable behavior of loved ones, Holmes joked that Langsford always forgot her wallet and made him “pay for everything.” An irate Langsford snapped: “It’s not even funny, and you know it’s not true.” Painful Aunt Maria McErlane even intervened, saying: “I think it’s unreasonable for Eamonn to continue to attack Ruth in this way.”
We also got a glimpse of the differences over their approach to parenting when Langsford recalled the time their son Jack, then six, acted as mascot for Manchester United but burst into tears and refused to leave the tunnel. “You pushed him into it,” she told Holmes, accusing him of “living vicariously” through their son. Holmes argued that Jack inherited an “irrational fear” from his mother.
That bickering continued when Holmes visited Langsford on Loose Women. ‘I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have an argument with Ruth. Ruth would start a fight in an empty room,” Holmes stated. ‘That is not true. I’m just standing up for myself,” Langsford fired back.
Holmes admitted: “When you work together and live together, there is no peace. Other TV presenters have a minor disagreement on set and then jump in their car and go home. With us it can take all day.”
They’re not the only couple to struggle with that level of intensity. Richard Madeley has spoken about how he and his wife and This Morning co-host Judy Finnigan would “have a huge row in the car on the way to Liverpool” where the show was filmed, and then have to film together as they watched it had a hard time hiding their residual anger. “Within 30 seconds of the broadcast, people were calling our phone and saying, ‘They had a fight, didn’t they?'”
But the disagreements between Holmes and Langsford were played out live on air. A source told The Telegraph that everyone at This Morning “cringed” when Holmes put his wife down.
Perhaps that contributed to ITV axing the pair in November 2021 – although a furious Holmes accused the broadcaster of being “devious” and making it appear as if he had already left, rather than been dropped. Langsford remained at ITV and continued her stint on Loose Women. Holmes moved to GB News.
But when their professional partnership ended, it seems their marriage did too, with those different work commitments on rival channels driving them apart – even as they tried to keep up appearances. Both were torn between their long-term brand, linked together as married national treasures, and these new, independent characters. Any problems were magnified by the fact that they operated in the goldfish bowl of television and were constantly observed by the public.
Holmes suggested that Langsford might be better off moving into the guest room so she wouldn’t be woken by his 2:45 a.m. alarm. That went badly. “She glared at me and told me in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t going to move, so I guess that means I’m being left out,” Holmes revealed. “She was dead serious.”
Health issues also became an important focus. Holmes suffered from painful back problems caused by hernias and a dislocated pelvis, which made it difficult for him to move without crutches or a cane. Even then he said wryly, “I don’t walk; it’s more of a wobble.”
Spine surgery in September 2022 left him with weakness in his left leg – and just weeks later Holmes suffered a horrific fall, tumbling down 18 flights of stairs at his Weybridge home, landing on the stone floor and breaking his shoulder. “Blood was pouring out of my mouth and a bone was sticking out of my shoulder,” he remembers.
“It’s really taken a toll on everyone around me,” he added. “I can’t bend down to pick things up, so Ruth ends up having to wait for me.” Holmes also revealed that he had been forced to give up driving, “which felt quite disheartening”.
He couldn’t even attend his mother’s funeral. “That was a terrible low point. As an Irish Catholic it was simply unthinkable that you would not carry your mother’s coffin.” Holmes took four months off work and fears he may never be able to walk unassisted again.
Just this week, Langsford told Woman’s Weekly: ‘I don’t know how much Eamonn’s mobility will improve. He does physio, but this may never be 100 percent correct. In any healthcare situation, it is not always easy.”
Is that an indication that Langsford is escaping a potential long-term caretaker role? Interestingly, her friend and fellow Loose Women presenter Jane Moore announced she was divorcing her publicist husband Gary Farrow in December 2022 – just after Moore spent months nursing him back to health from a broken leg.
It is possible that Langsford and Moore discussed their similar restrictive situations, that they both glimpsed a future in which they would sacrifice their lives to the care of sick husbands in their dotage, and mutually decided to quit and run. Even though that sounds more like a thriller plot from Patricia Highsmith: Loose Strangers on a Train – or The Talented Ms Langsford.
In retrospect, we should have realized that Holmes and Langsford were done. The pair had not been seen together in public since an Instagram skit promoting a Feeling Fabulous fashion and beauty event in July 2022.
But whether on screen or off, it sounds like there’s no chance of Holmes reuniting with Langsford. The only question is how these two very public figures will handle it. We have been privy to every aspect of their marriage; now viewers expect a front-row seat to their divorce.