Fern Britton was ‘not breathing well’ from chain-smoking after marriage ‘died’ --[Reported by Umva mag]

Fern Britton has opened up about being ‘in a very bad place’ during the pandemic, where she picked up smoking and it left her ‘not breathing well’.

The Celebrity Big Brother star, 67, split from her TV chef husband Phil Vickery after 20 years of marriage, months before the first lockdown in 2020.

At the time, she’d also been grieving her parents, after her mum died in 2018, and her dad in 2019.

‘My mum died and a year later my father died and the next year my marriage died,’ Fern recalled.

The former This Morning presenter said she ‘fell into this era of indolence’ where she ‘just started lying in bed later and later and later’.

‘What was the purpose of getting up and getting dressed or getting showered or cleaning my teeth because I will soon be back in bed.

‘Why don’t I start smoking? Yes. Drinking. Yes, eating yes, the whole thing. And then it took me about a year to realise that I put a lot of weight on, that I was not breathing well.’

Speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, in quotes obtained by The Mirror, Fern added that she ‘had a very bad time’, recalling how she took to smoking ‘like a duck to water’.

She said: ‘It punctuated the day, lets have a fag and then what time is it 4 O’clock? Let’s have a glass of wine.’

‘Looking back I was in a very bad place and gradually I started to pull myself out of it,’ Fern added.

One moment in particular catalysed the change, when she was driving home in Cornwall, but had to stop to be sick in a field after ‘overdoing the nicotine’.

She said: ‘I was in the hedgerow retching so much that I farted, and all I could hear in the car was the girls saying “classy lady” – so I haven’t touched one since.’

She’s since changed her life around, after ‘a lot of mental effort and reflection and some therapy’ and has started ‘feeling back to normal’.

‘I am really happy and contented,’ she went on, adding: ‘Life is good and I’m looking forward to the next phase, whatever that is.’

Fern and Phil announced in 2020 that they were separating, sharing a statement on social media: ‘After more than 20 happy years together, Phil and I have decided to go our separate ways.

‘We will always share a great friendship and our lovely children. We would appreciate it if our privacy is respected at this time. Thank you for your continued kindness and support.’

The pair never shared why they decided to go their separate ways, however she had once described him as her ‘life’s great love… a really amazing husband, partner, friend.’

The former couple, who share one daughter together, originally met on the set of BBC Two’s Ready Steady Cook, and married in 2000.

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