Vanessa Feltz reflects on her love life and dramatic weight loss transformation in a new interview.
The presenter, 64, appears on the What’s My Age Again podcast, hosted by comedian Katherine Ryan.
During the chat, Vanessa admits she stayed in ‘ghastly relationships’ because she was afraid of being alone and reveals she had to have her gallbladder removed after losing ‘an enormous amount of weight’ in 2008.
Vanessa says she is ‘reluctantly single’, three years on from her split from her fiancé of 16 years, Ben Ofoedu, after discovering he had cheated on her.
Revealing what her current relationship status is, Vanessa tells Katherine: ‘Questing. Searching. You know I seek him here. I seek him there. You know single, but reluctantly. I don’t like it. I haven’t managed to adjust to it.
‘I come home, and it’s an empty, dark, rather cold house and there’s no one there to say “was it all right”… There’s just no one.
Vanessa Feltz reflects on her love life and dramatic weight loss transformation in a new interview
‘And it’s so boring. It’s so quiet. It’s so tedious. Your own thoughts roam and get bigger and bigger. And I already know my own thoughts. I don’t want to know more about my own thoughts.’
Vanessa says the fear of being alone led her to holding onto ‘doomed’ relationships.
She continues: ‘That’s why I stayed so long in these doomed and hellish, sinister, ghastly relationships, because I just couldn’t face the spectre of being on my own.
‘It was a mistake. I do regret it. I’m not proud of it, and I don’t recommend it to anyone.
‘And I wish I hadn’t done it, but I did do it, and that was the reason why I did it. I just couldn’t bear to come out the other end and just be alone. And now I have to just get on with it, don’t I?’
Journalist Vanessa and Ben first met in 2005 after she divorced surgeon Michael Kurer in 2000 who she discovered had also allegedly cheated on her.
The presenter and Michael were married for 17 years and they share daughters Allegra, 40, and Saskia, 37.
After Vanessa and Ben split, he went on to admit he had been unfaithful for a second time, after she had forgiven him for cheating early on in their relationship.
Vanessa said she is ‘reluctantly single’, three years on from her split from her fiancé of 16 years Ben Ofoedu , after discovering he had cheated on her
Elsewhere in the interview, Vanessa speaks about her weight loss over the years (pictured left last year, right in 2006)
Elsewhere in the interview, Vanessa speaks about her intense weight loss back in 2008.
The presenter lost a staggering three stone but yo-yo dieting led to her having a gastric band fitted in 2010. This was later taken out due to complications and in 2019, Vanessa had a gastric bypass.
Katherine tells guest stars their ‘biological’ age on the show and Vanessa reflects on how years of extreme weight loss might have impacted it.
She says: ‘I did lose an enormous amount of weight, I think it was in 2008.
‘Just through diet and exercise, relentless diet, relentless exercise, relentless privation, relentless, you know all of that.
‘And then I did have to have my gallbladder out. And funnily enough there were pieces in the paper now about the fat jabs, saying some people are having to have their gallbladder out. Presumably because losing weight at speed isn’t good for gallbladders.
‘I’ll say this is the only podcast I’ve ever done where I’ve mentioned my gallbladder. It’s a very intimate part of my anatomy I no longer have. I don’t normally discuss it in public but anyway, the lack of a gallbladder, it’s affected my whole personality.’
