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GMB host reveals secret split from husband at seven months pregnant and says she’s been a single mum for 12 YEARS
The TV star was partnered with Giovanni Pernice on Strictly in 2020
A GOOD Morning Britain newsreader has revealed for the first time today she has actually been a single mum since she was seven-months pregnant.
Up until now, it was widely assumed Ranvir Singh split from her husband Ranjeet Singh Dehal - with whom she shares son, Tushaan, 12 - shortly before she appeared on Strictly Come Dancing in 2020.
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Partnered with Giovanni Pernice, she told GMB viewers at the time she was going to be appearing on the BBC’s Saturday night show ‘single’.
But today in a shock admission, Ranvir, 47, tells Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast that she has been a single since she was seven-months pregnant.
She tells Kate: “I have actually been a single mum since I was seven months pregnant. I’ve kept that so quiet but I am ok to talk about it now.
“Now I’m at a point in my life where I think that I’m learning to embrace my whole life and to not compartmentalise it as much, to keep everything separate.
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“I’m happy to correct it today. Obviously my friends and family have known. It shows you can keep private whatever you choose to!”
Explaining why she is only just making the admission in public today, Ranvir says: “I feel like I am beginning to mesh my life together and part of that is being able to say, ‘Yes I was single since I was seven months pregnant’. I need to own it. I need to say, ‘It’s not shameful, it’s not something to hide, this is me'. “
Ranvir, who has been dating TV producer Louis Church, 28, for four years after meeting him on Strictly, then admitted she is incredibly proud of the gorgeous person her son, Tushaan, is turning into.
She says: “When I see my son growing up to be and grow into the kind of young man that I was afraid I couldn’t achieve on my own - my heart just goes boom. I feel a massive sense of achievement.”
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But she openly confides it has been tough juggling her busy TV career with motherhood.
Ranvir tells Kate: “I realise that you forge forwards so hard in a single-minded bl**dy desire to make this work and to keep everything going…
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"But I literally say I’m on a unicycle blindfolded juggling fire, that’s how it has felt this whole time!”
Also in the hour-long podcast, out today on all streaming platforms, the GMB star finally breaks her silence on her time on Strictly following the BBC’s decision to uphold complaints against her dance partner Giovanni.
An investigation into the pro was launched after Amanda Abbington made a series of bullying allegations against him.
During the BBC’s probe, reports suggested Ranvir had met up with Amanda and other celebrities, who had been partnered with Giovanni, to discuss their time on the show with him.
In today’s podcast, Ranvir continues to remain silent about what it was really like being partnered with Giovanni, but she does talk about the positive impact taking part on Strictly just after the strict Covid lockdowns in 2020 has had on her career - and why she originally signed up.
Ranvir tells Kate: “You think, ‘They’ve offered it, what if they don’t ask me again?’ It’s a massive moment in your career. I always say it turbo charges a person’s profile.
"People see you in a completely different audience who might never have switched on ITV breakfast, or there are dedicated loyal BBC watchers and the TV never moves from BBC.
"And I understand why. I’m kind of pretty brutal about it - if I wanted to learn how to dance I could go and pay for lessons… I don’t need a career in the West End. There are lots of people who go on there for lots of reasons…
“You can get a part in the West End afterwards. Look at Ore Odube, he has done amazing. It completely changes people’s perception in the minds of commissioners and producers and the audience which obviously matters the most.
“It was the first big live show of the whole year and people were desperate for something [after Covid].
"Strictly was just there, this beautiful shiny thing and 11 million viewers on a Saturday night.
"I said to my son at the time, 'This is going to take me away and it’s going to be really, really hard for us, like it’s going to be really hard but it will do for me in 12 weeks what I would have to spend five years doing’ - the donkey work, the leg work, the trying to go and have meetings, trying to see people, trying to get a bigger audience to get to know you. The bounce you get from that show is absolutely incredible.
“You might never have heard of Chris Ramsey or Chris McCausland, but I tell you what, now you know exactly who they are and you can’t wait to buy tickets for your aunty or your sister. It changes everyone’s perception.”
Ranvir has worked on GMB since the programme launched in 2014 and she has forged close friendships with hosts Susanna Reid and Kate Garraway. Of their friendships, she says on the podcast: “I work with some really strong women.
"I work with Kate Garraway, I work with Susanna, these are legends in their own right, who I’m so lucky to work around and feed off their energy. I think we give each other encouragement and a lot of support… in the breaks, during the competitions, we share.
"Those little nuggets change the way you feel that day. It can put a spring in your step… those work friendships, that support from other women at work has absolutely been integral to my well-being at ITV.”
And during the chat, she also reveals her mum suffered a heart attack in front of her last year. Thankfully, she made a full recovery after undergoing emergency surgery.
Ranvir, whose dad died when she was nine, reveals: “My mum had a cardiac arrest in front of me last year. We said goodbye. I was the only one there. We were actually in A&E, she had a heart attack during the day, like a slow fade heart attack, and the paramedics took her to A&E. I went at half nine at night, and I was still with her.
"Then at 6.30 the next morning, we had been awake all night and all of a sudden, she started to deteriorate in ten minutes in front of my eyes. She went into the resuscitation room. The NHS is incredible when it’s an emergency to save your life.
"All of a sudden, she had this cardiac arrest, that was it. It got to the point she was going grey and she was looking at me, there was all these people around me.
“I was looking at her and thinking, ‘Holy sh*t, this is it. Holy sh*t, she’s dying’. She was still conscious but she was looking at me. I went over to her and put my hand on her forehead and went, ‘I love you, I really do love you’.
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";Two hours later she had a stent put in and she was upstairs in the ward, she was home in three days!”
* White Wine Question Time with Kate Thornton podcast can be downloaded on all streaming platforms today
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