Anthea Turner

Anthea Turner (born 25 May 1960) is an English television presenter. She was a host of Blue Peter from 1992 until 1994, and of GMTV from 1994 until 1996.

Anthea Turner
Turner at a book signing in 2008
Born (1960-05-25) 25 May 1960
Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England
OccupationTelevision presenter
Years active1986-present
Notable credit(s)Presenting:
Blue Peter (1992–94)
Top of the Pops (1988–91)
GMTV (1994–96)
Perfect Housewife (2006–07)
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1990; div. 1998)​
    ​
    ​
    (m. 2000; div. 2015)​
    FamilyWendy Turner Webster (sister)
    WebsiteOfficial website

    Early life

    Turner was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, and educated at the Roman Catholic girls' school St Dominic's Grammar School in Stoke.[1] She was one of three daughters born to her parents Brian and Jean Turner.[2] One of her sisters, Ruth, died aged 15. Her other sister is presenter Wendy Turner Webster.[2]

    Career

    Turner joined BBC Radio Stoke as a runner, eventually joining breakfast show presenter Bruno Brookes as part of his rap crew. The couple became romantically involved and employed Peter Powell as an agent through his management company.

    Television

    Turner moved into television through Sky Channel and Music Box presenting live music programmes from July 1986 to 1989. Her debut on national television was with the BBC on But First This, which led to her fronting two series for the BBC on the Saturday morning show UP2U.

    During a motorbike stunt that went wrong on UP2U,[3] Turner suffered burns and temporary hearing loss, which led to a successful lawsuit against the BBC.[4]

    She presented Top of the Pops from October 1988 to May 1991, and, for the final 18 months of this period, was the only non-Radio 1 DJ to do so regularly.

    Turner presented the children's television show Blue Peter from 27 June 1992 to 29 June 1994, and around this time was also associated with publicising The Y Plan, a system of exercise developed by the London YMCA. She moved on to presenting on Totally Live on pan-European music channel Music Box, followed by GMTV, which she presented from July 1994 to 24 December 1996.

    Turner was also a host on the first National Lottery draw on BBC One on 19 November 1994 with Noel Edmonds and Gordon Kennedy. She remained as sole host of the National Lottery Live until 20 April 1996, when she joined ITV and the travel show Wish You Were Here...?, becoming the second-highest-paid female television presenter in the UK, after Cilla Black. She was replaced on The National Lottery Live by Bob Monkhouse.

    The relationship between Turner and her GMTV co-presenter Eamonn Holmes was frosty, with Holmes issuing an ultimatum to the GMTV management that he would leave if they did not sack his colleague: as a result, Turner lost her job.[5] After Bovey left his wife Della for Turner, with ensuing tabloid interest, Turner's career went into a decline.[6] Her autobiography Fools Rush In, for which she was paid an estimated £400,000 advance, sold 451 copies in its first week of release in November 2000 and entered the bestseller charts at No. 531.[7]

    Attempting to revive her career, Turner presented BBC One's short-lived Saturday-evening programme Your Kids Are in Charge in 2000 with her sister Wendy Turner Webster. The following year, she participated in Celebrity Big Brother, and was the third contestant to be evicted, after Chris Eubank and Vanessa Feltz.

    In February 2006, Turner made a television comeback on BBC Three in Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife, where she taught disorganised-house women and men how to clean and run their houses. The series was accompanied by three related books. Later in 2006, she appeared as a guest on BBC Two's music-based panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

    In April 2009, Turner appeared on the ITV reality show Hell's Kitchen with Marco Pierre White, alongside her then husband Grant Bovey. Turner also presented the show Help Me Anthea, I'm Infested for BBC Three, as she advised people whose homes have been overrun by pests. Turner took part in the first series of the Channel 4 game show The Jump in 2013. The show saw twelve celebrities take part in winter sports. The show is set in a mountainside in Austria.

    On 23 August 2015, she replaced Anne Diamond and Sian Welby as the host of the Health Lottery draws on Channel 5. Welby later returned on 2 October and Anthea Turner was dropped from the line-up.

    Turner took part in a special celebrity edition of Channel 4's First Dates on 12 October 2015, in aid of Stand Up to Cancer.[8]

    On 20 November 2017, Turner appeared on the BBC show Celebrity Antiques Road Trip in an episode set in Staffordshire and Cheshire. In 2018, she appeared on the Channel 5 show Celebs In Solitary, where she attempted to spend five days in solitary confinement.[9]

    Dancing on Ice
    Main article: Dancing on Ice (series 8)

    In 2013, Turner appeared as a contestant in the eighth series of Dancing on Ice, where she finished in ninth place out of twelve celebrity skaters. She participated in the show with her professional skating partner Andrew Buchanan. In the third week she performed to the Donny Osmond song "Puppy Love", and ended up in the skate-off against Keith Chegwin. They lost the skate-off and were the fourth couple to be eliminated in the series.

    Week Song Judges' scores Result
    Robin Cousins Karen Barber Ashley Roberts Jason Gardiner Total
    2 "Skyfall" 4.5 4.5 4.5 4.5 18.0 Bottom two
    3 "Broken Strings" Anthea Anthea Anthea Anthea Anthea Immune
    4 "Puppy Love" 4.5 5.0 5.0 4.0 18.5 Eliminated
    • Note: Week 3 was a duel, in which the judges did not give scores, instead the celebrities were paired up and the judges chose which performance they preferred, making them immune from the public vote.

    Personal life

    Turner's private life has been covered in the tabloid press. The then-editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan, admitted in April 2003 that the interest of the popular press in Turner's private life had seriously damaged her career.[10]

    After her long relationship with one-time DJ co-worker Bruno Brookes, she married her manager, former DJ Peter Powell in 1990; the couple divorced in 1998.

    The year of her divorce from Powell, Turner moved in with the CEO of Imagine Homes, Grant Bovey. Bovey left his wife, Della, to move in with Turner. He was later reconciled with Della, before leaving her again to return to Turner. Turner and Bovey married on 23 August 2000. Turner was keen to start her own family with Bovey, who has three daughters from his previous marriage.[11][12]

    OK! magazine was sold exclusive rights to the Bovey-Turner wedding[13] for an amount that Turner described as "substantial".[14]. The only photograph released to the media was of Bovey and Turner biting into a Cadbury Snowflake chocolate bar, which had been provided by the magazine.[15]

    Several tabloids ran critical stories,[16][17] but Turner wrote in her autobiography that she believed that the photo that would be released to the media would be a "traditional wedding-day shot"[18] and OK! confirmed that neither Turner nor Bovey had been involved in the picture's release.[19]

    Turner further wrote "The whole thing smacked of us selling our souls for sponsorship, which could not have been further from the truth. We'd never entered into any discussion or financial agreement with the chocolate company: our only link with them had been the box of confectionary that they had sent for the reception. Indeed, the whole concept was absolutely abhorrent to us both. To say I was gutted would be a gross understatement. It just goes to show that even the most experienced of us can be lulled into a false sense of security and caught off guard."[20]

    Turner and Bovey split up in 2012, due to Bovey's extramarital affair.[21][22] After an initial reconciliation, they separated again in August 2013, this time permanently and they divorced in October 2015.

    Books
    • Underneath the Underground: The Ghost of Knightsbridge[23] (1998) – with Wendy Turner Webster
    • Fools Rush In[24] (2000)
    • How to Be the Perfect Housewife: Lessons in the Art of Modern Household Management[25] (2007)
    • How to Be the Perfect Housewife: Entertain in Style[26] (2008)
    • The Perfect Christmas[27] (2008)

    Appearances
    Television
    Year Title Role
    1988–91 Top of the Pops Presenter
    1992–94 Blue Peter Presenter
    1994–96 GMTV Presenter
    1994–96 The National Lottery Draws Presenter
    1996–99 Wish You Were Here...? Presenter
    2000 Your Kids Are in Charge Presenter
    2001 Celebrity Big Brother Participant
    2006–07 Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife Presenter
    2007 Help Me Anthea, I'm Infested Presenter
    2010–11 Dinner Party Wars Presenter
    2013 Dancing on Ice Contestant
    2014 The Jump Contestant
    2015 The Health Lottery Draws Presenter
    2020 Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins Contestant
    2022 The Real Dirty Dancing, UK Contestant
    Guest appearances

    References
    1. Baum, Suzanne (19 January 2018). "Mr Lowe by Anthea Turner". TES.
    2. Anthea. "My family values". Anthea Turner.
    3. "Huge Explosion on a TV Journalist (Anthea Turner) Live". YouTube. 27 January 2007. Archived from the original on 2 July 2011. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
    4. "When live TV turns dangerous". Mirror.co.uk. Mirror Group. 3 August 2016.
    5. "Anthea, the Girl with No Future; GMTV HOST WARNS 'PRINCESS TIPPY TOES' THAT HER CAREER IS IN PERIL ROUND TWO TV'S LIGHTWEIGHT V HEAVYWEIGHT".
    6. "Anthea picture leaves sour taste". BBC News. 29 August 2000. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
    7. Flood, Alison (1 February 2018). "Ivanka Trump, Wayne Rooney and the art of the bad book deal". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
    8. "First Dates SU2C special to feature Anthea Turner and Alexandra Burke". Channel 4. 8 October 2015. Retrieved 11 August 2016.
    9. Celebs In Solitary: Meltdown - Channel 5, Retrieved on October 23, 2018
    10. Byrne, Ciar (14 April 2003). "Morgan says sorry to Anthea". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
    11. Janson, Louise (6 May 2006). "Baby envy — when you want one too". The Times. Archived from the original on 9 August 2011.
    12. "Anthea Turner named in divorce papers". BBC News. 19 May 1999. Retrieved 23 April 2012.
    13. Cozens, Claire (16 March 2001). "'Naive' Anthea hits back over Snowflake wedding pics". The Guardian.
    14. Turner, Anthea (2000). Fools Rush In. Little, Brown and Company. p. 265. ISBN 0316854999.
    15. Turner, Anthea (2000). Fools Rush In. Little, Brown and Company. p. 266. ISBN 0316854999.
    16. Cozens, Claire (16 March 2001). "'Naive' Anthea hits back over Snowflake wedding pics". The Guardian.
    17. "Sue Carroll Column: Stomach Turner. - Free Online Library".
    18. Turner, Anthea (2000). Fools Rush In. Little, Brown and Company. p. 266. ISBN 0316854999.
    19. "BBC News | ENTERTAINMENT | Anthea picture leaves sour taste".
    20. Turner, Anthea (2000). Fools Rush In. Little, Brown and Company. p. 266. ISBN 0316854999.
    21. Simon Boyle (30 June 2012). "Love rival: Is this the woman who broke Anthea's heart?". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
    22. Caunter, Mel (14 January 2013). "Anthea Turner: How Dancing On Ice helped to save my marriage". Daily Express. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
    23. Underneath the Underground: The Ghost of Knightsbridge No. 1 (Picture Puffin Story Books): Amazon.co.uk: Anthea Turner, Wendy Turner, Andy Hunt: 9780140563887: Books. ASIN 0140563881.
    24. Fools Rush In: Amazon.co.uk: Anthea Turner: 9780316854993: Books. ASIN 0316854999.
    25. How To Be The Perfect Housewife: Lessons in the art of modern household management: Amazon.co.uk: Anthea Turner: 9780753512852: Books. ASIN 0753512858.
    26. How to be the Perfect Housewife: Entertain in Style: Amazon.co.uk: Anthea Turner: 9780753513323: Books. ASIN 0753513323.
    27. The Perfect Christmas: Amazon.co.uk: Anthea Turner: 9781905264414: Books. ASIN 1905264410.
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