TV presenter bravely reveals to ITV how he coped when his son was stillborn last year
Ben Fogle is best known as the happy face of the British outdoors, but the presenter recently opened up about his heartbreak to ITV’s Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes, when he spoke candidly about losing his son.
Last year, Ben and his wife Marina Hunt’s third child, a boy, was tragically stillborn at eight months.
Speaking to Ruth and Eamonn on This Morning, Ben said: ‘It’s incredibly painful for that reason – it’s someone you nearly met, you dreamed of meeting, you projected what your family would be like, you projected the three children together, you did the nursery, you’d told the children. To have that stolen from you is painful in a way that unless you’ve been through it yourself, you can’t understand, and that’s why we’ve spoken about it.’
He told the presenters that being a celebrity meant that the difficult periods of his life were just as public as the highs. ‘Being in the public eye like I am, I’m not only going to show the golden moments of [my life], because we all suffer highs and lows,’ he said.
He also revealed that the tragedy helped him and Marina make the most of their other two children, Ludovic, six, and Iona, four.
‘My wife and I now appreciate our children,’ he said. ‘We make the most of it, and we get outdoors as much as we can.’
Ben first found fame when he appeared on the reality show Castaway in 2000, where he was marooned with other participants on a remote Scottish island for a whole year. He then went on to present shows such as Crufts and Countryfile, as well as taking on a few mammoth sporting challenges, including sailing to Antigua with Olympic rower James Cracknell, racing across the Antarctic Plateau and running a marathon over the Sahara Desert.
Thea de Gallier
Ben Fogle: Raising Prince George in London will be so tough for Prince William
The post Ben Fogle on his stillborn heartbreak: ‘You dream of meeting them – to have that stolen is incredibly painful’ appeared first on Now magazine.