Susanna Reid on her new bob, relishing those early starts and why gaffe-prone Richard Madeley doesn’t deserve the sack

JUST a few days after Susanna Reid had her long hair cut into a short, choppy bob, she found herself interviewing Cher on Good Morning Britain.

The Goddess of Pop revealed that her secret to being such a youthful 77 year old was keeping her trademark tresses.

Mark Hayman

Mark Hayman

As Cher vowed to carry on wearing her hair long until she was into her 80s, Susanna, 52, shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat.

“She was saying how too many women think they have to go for a middle-aged chop – which I’d literally just done.

“I think I was hair-shamed by Cher!” she laughs at our shoot today.

“Each to their own, though. It can be tempting to stay with the same hairstyle, and that’s why I decided to go for it.”

It was definitely a good decision. 

The shorter style looks terrific on her – surely women are going into hair salons up and down the country and now asking for “the Susanna”?

“Well, funnily enough,” she says, “Carly, the lady who cut it for me, told me that the following week one of her clients came in and asked if she could have her hair done ‘like Susanna Reid off the telly.’

“It’s actually a little harder to manage when it’s shorter, because it needs to be styled properly. But I love it. No regrets!”

‘Once the alarm goes off, I’m hurtling towards 6am’

As Good Morning Britain anchor, Susanna is used to interviewing icons like Cher one minute and grilling slippery politicians the next.

It’s a relentless three-hour marathon of a live TV show every morning – especially so in the last few years, when there’s barely been time to come up for air between breaking stories, political scandals and the revolving door of prime ministers.

“When you work in news, it’s non-stop all the time anyway,” says Susanna.

“But thinking back to 2016, we had the Brexit referendum, Trump winning the presidency and Leicester City winning the Premier League – as well as that being the year where we had all those celebrity deaths, culminating with George Michael on Christmas Day.

“And then in 2017, we had the terror attacks, the Grenfell fire and Theresa May winning the General Election, and you think: ‘My goodness!’.

“And it has gone on from there – every year has thrown up so much stuff. It has been extraordinary.”

Next year will mark Susanna’s 10th anniversary at GMB, and she’d chalked up over a decade at BBC Breakfast before that.

It means she’s been starting her day in the middle of the night for more than 20 years now and is so used to it that she’s straight up and at ‘em when the alarm goes off at 3.45am.

Well, after hitting snooze just once.

“There’s something wonderful about the fact that once that alarm goes off, I’m hurtling towards six o’clock.

“I need to read all the briefs, to know what’s in all the newspapers and on every main news website.

“I’ve got to be up to date with X [formerly Twitter].

“I need to have my hair and make-up done, see what they’ve got for me [to wear] in wardrobe and I have to attend the morning meeting.

“There isn’t a spare minute, and I love that about the show.”

Has she ever slept in?

“Once my alarm didn’t go off, but somehow I still got in and on-air on time,” she says.

“I’ve never missed a shift, not through sleeping in.

“I lost my voice a little while ago, but I still went into work because it was the morning after the National Television Awards and I didn’t want anyone to think that I’d fallen off the wagon and was in a ditch somewhere!”

A trained journalist who started her career in local radio, Susanna is known for her calm head and ability to take politicians to task – look no further than her BAFTA-nominated interview with then-prime-minister Boris Johnson in 2022 – as well as the compassion and humanity with which she approaches sensitive stories.

Sometimes, she is so deeply affected by a report or a studio guest that she can’t hold back the tears.

“Most of the time I’m completely controlled because I’m on television.

“But there are sometimes moments where I’m overcome with emotion and am moved to tears.

“I think I feel that along with the audience.”

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Undoubtedly GMB’s lynchpin throughout her time on the show, it was Susanna who steadied the ship following Piers Morgan’s shocking exit live on air in March 2021 (they are still friends – “the dust has definitely settled”).

These days, she sits alongside a series of rotating co-hosts including Richard Madeley, Ed Balls, Rob Rinder and Martin Lewis.

Variety is the spice of life…

“Everyone is intelligent and informed and they have different experiences,” she says with characteristic diplomacy. 

“I haven’t worked with anybody I’ve thought: ‘What’s going on here?’”

Nope, not even Richard Madeley, who is prone to wandering off script and is no stranger to a social media storm, thanks to his forthright style and infamous foot-in-mouth moments.

In October, he was forced to apologise after asking Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, who is of Palestinian heritage and has family in Gaza, if there had been “any word on the street” ahead of Hamas’ attack on Israel.

‘Richard Madeley is a broadcasting legend’

There were calls for him to be sacked, but Susanna shakes her head. “Richard Madeley is a legend in broadcasting.

“He’s the founder of This Morning, he’s been doing it longer than any of us and he’s got a particular way with politicians.

“If they don’t want to answer the questions, he’ll end the interview – he did that with Gavin Williamson when he was defence secretary.

“Richard is a bit bolder sometimes with his wording, but I think a lot of viewers wonder why other people get offended by what he’s said.”

She adds: “Layla Moran dealt with that with enormous grace and she wasn’t offended.

“In fact, when she was asked about it subsequently, she said it was a total distraction from the real issue.

“I think Richard brings so much to the programme, including a really loyal audience.”

Former Labour-chancellor-turned-Strictly-superstar Ed Balls has also come in for criticism over his occasional lack of objectivity, but Susanna cheekily suggests that he is the man Matt Hancock desperately wishes he was.

“Ed has enormous experience and popularity,” she says.

“I think Ed is what Matt Hancock wants to be.

“He’s been in government, went into reality TV, became hugely popular and now he can do both the serious stuff and the entertainment.

“And people take him seriously in both roles.”  

Unlike Ed, Susanna is an expert in impartiality, and no one watching could possibly say with any certainty where her political loyalties lay.

She always votes in elections (“We fought for the right and so we use it.”), but would never reveal who for.

“I’d never let my views on politics be known or allow it to colour how I interview someone.

“My only agenda is to get to the nub of the issue,” she says.

‘I try to stay strong and healthy – I want to be a role model for my sons’

Although the job means she has to stay elbow-deep in news every day, Susanna is good at finding ways to clear her head when things starts to feel too heavy.

“There’s a wonderful podcast called Happier With Gretchen Rubin.

Mark Hayman

Mark Hayman

Susanna Reid

“In her book, The Happiness Project, the author and speaker spent a year doing things that she knew there was evidence for improving your happiness.

“Her podcast, which she presents with her sister, is a breath of fresh air.

“So, listening to an optimistic podcast, going out for a walk and spending time with my family… those are all things that keep me uplifted. 

“I try to stay as strong and healthy as I can – I want to be a role model to my boys.

“[When I was growing up], my dad played badminton, golf and rugby, and my mum played a lot of tennis – they’re in their 80s now, but they just keep moving.”

She adds: “Each one of the boys’ grandparents is active, has a social life and some kind of community or friendship group. I’m so proud of them for that.” 

Staying off the booze is another key to maintaining balance.

Susanna gave up alcohol five years ago and, while she wouldn’t describe herself as “teetotal”, the benefits have been endless.

“Occasionally I’ll raise a glass if we’re celebrating something, but the longer I don’t drink, the more I think: ‘Why bother?’. 

“Back in 2018 when I stopped, my skin was bad, my weight was suffering and I just felt cloudy too often.

“Whenever I had a drink, I’d suffer from anxiety.

“Now I have a clear head and more energy. The more I learn about the effects of alcohol on the body, I’m grateful I don’t drink.

“I don’t make any judgements about people who do; I’m just glad that I don’t.”

As a rule, Susanna never discusses her love life and today is no different.

“I just don’t talk about it,” she says politely, but firmly.

She split from partner of 16 years Dominic Cotton, the father of her three sons – Sam, 21, Finn, 19, and 18-year-old Jack – in 2014 soon after reaching the Strictly Come Dancing final.

She went on to date Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish, but that relationship ended in 2019 and she has been very guarded about her private life ever since.

Her only focus, she says, is on her boys (Sam and Finn are both at uni and Jack is still at school) and work.

“At the moment it’s about Good Morning Britain and I still have two of the children at home.

“So it’s balancing all of that together and putting everything into those two main parts of my life.”

And Christmas at GMB is even busier than usual.

Tomorrow sees the launch of GMB’s annual 1 Million Minutes campaign, encouraging viewers to donate their time to charities supporting people who are lonely.

In the seven years it’s been running, more than 117,000,000 minutes have been donated and Susanna is looking forward to another bumper few weeks.

“It’s the most phenomenal campaign, because it reminds people that if they’re on their own or are lonely, not only are there others feeling the same way, but there are also people who can help them, support them and connect with them.

“There’s a danger, especially when people get older, that they retreat into themselves and become more isolated.

“Maintaining a sense of purpose and having connections with others is so important, and some people need support to help them do that.”

‘I love that I can be taken seriously as a journalist, but can also be a cover star’

In among all of that is the matter of Susanna’s 53rd birthday next weekend.

She’s not someone who dreads the ageing process – quite the opposite. 

Mark Hayman

“Getting older is a blessing,” she says.

“I genuinely love what I do and I’m very lucky to have such a terrific job on a great programme where I work with some brilliant people.

“And you can’t continue to do that unless you get older!

“And I also have the chance to do photo shoots like this for Fabulous, where I get my hair and make-up done, and wear some fantastic clothes that someone else has picked for me.

“I love that working on daytime TV means I can be taken seriously as a journalist, but I can also be a cover girl and enjoy that. 

“To be able to do that when I’m about to turn 53? There’s really nothing to complain about.” 

• Watch Good Morning Britain, weekdays, from 6am, ITV1 and ITVX. Get involved with the 1 Million Minutes campaign throughout December.