Pride of Britain host Carol Vorderman's health scares and finding her 'happy place' with 'special friends'

Carol Vorderman has now been a familiar face on TV screens for more than 40 years. She started out solving maths problems as Richard Whiteley's sidekick on Countdown, soon becoming a presenter and household name in her own right.

Her CV is vast - she's written science books, presented Loose Women, set up her own production company and appeared on reality shows like Strictly Come Dancing and I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! And the Welsh maths whizz is no stranger to an unexpected career move.

Carol was steadily building a broadcasting career specialising in science and education when she caught the eye of the tabloids with her performance as Cher on celebrity Stars in their Eyes in 1998. And in another plot twist fans didn't see coming, she's increasingly turned to political activism of late.

READ MORE: Pride of Britain Awards 2024 winners in full

As Tim Burgess, the lead singer of the Charlatans, wrote on Twitter (now X): “Carol Vorderman helping bring down the government wasn’t on my 2023 bingo card but I’m very much here for it.”

Tonight (Thursday, October 24) viewers will see her returning to our screens to present the Pride of Britain Awards, this year alongside Ashley Banjo. The 25th annual ceremony at London's Grosvenor House Hotel honours and celebrates the nation's unsung heroes- featuring inspiring stories of bravery, selflessness and heroism.

Early life in Wales

Carol was born in Bedford on Christmas Eve, 1960, but spent her early years in North Wales, where she was raised by her mum Jean. She has an older sister, Trixie, and older brother called Anton.

Her mum moved the family to North Wales after discovering when Carol was just three weeks ago that her father was having an affair. Carol told the Guardian that Jean rented a house from her uncle, living in the ground floor flat and renting out the top floor flat.

Money was tight and Carol said her childhood "really was hand-to-mouth". She said in 2011: "You can say, "Poor little me, how dreadful, what a deprived childhood", but I didn't feel that way at all. It's all about the attitude at home. I think it's harder for the parents than for the child because how many children really remember being three?"

Jean went on to remarry when Carol was nine years old. She tied the knot with an Italian prisoner of war, Gabriel Rizzi, who had been posted to a camp in North Wales during the Second World War, and who Carol adored.

Carol told the Mirror that her real dad did not stay in contact with her and she didn't see him until she was 42. She said by that point he was an "old man" and knew she was living a good life so didn't see the point in their reunion.

Her mum battled three different forms of cancer, being diagnosed with skin cancer and kidney cancer, as well as having an ovarian tumour removed, and died in 2017. In a touching tribute to her mum, Carol said the two shared a "very close relationship".

She said: "She had to bring us up by herself in poverty and I was always her baby."

Studying at Cambridge

Carol started studying at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge in 1978, reading engineering. In an interview with The Mirror, she said getting into the university was the "proudest moment" of her life.

She said: "It’s hard for people to understand now just how momentous that was. I’d been at a comprehensive school and I didn’t know anyone in the whole of north Wales who’d been to Cambridge. My headteacher asked why I was applying there and I said, ‘Well, I’m going to be a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force and if I’m going to try to be that, I need the best degree at the best university.'"

According to Carol, her college gave three offers that year to girls from northern state schools and all have ended up with their own Wikipedia pages. She said: "When the offer came through, I don’t think my feet touched the floor for about a week. I went in the third year that the college had started taking girls, and I was one of the first 50 women to study engineering there."

Moving to Leeds and her big break on Countdown

Carol said she had "no ambition to be a television presenter and certainly did not desire fame" but she has her mum to thank for her big TV break on Countdown. Jean went behind her back and put her forward for the job in 1982.

The family had moved to Leeds after Carol's graduation after Jean left her stepfather. Carol said they were "effectively homeless" so they moved to Leeds, where between them they could afford to buy a house in Headingley.

Weeks later, Jean spotted an advert in the local paper for Countdown. Carol told the Guardian in 2005: "I thought applying was a ridiculous idea. After all, people on TV were big stars. Mum wrote an awful letter in my name, which I refused to sign, but she forged my signature and the rest is history.

"I combined the job for a year with one trying to sell computers, but they did not approve of me taking days off to work on TV. When Countdown was recommissioned after a year, it became feasible - just about - to dedicate myself to it.

"Even if things didn't work out, I thought, I could still become an accountant. I didn't want to reach 30 with regrets."

She left Countdown in 2008 after 26 years following a disagreement over her contract. She later claimed she was told she wasn't welcome there, saying: "I have no idea why. Six months after I left Countdown, they had the 5,000th [episode] and I absolutely wasn’t invited. It’s not bitterness – I wish them all the best. Life moves on, doesn’t it? I love my life, I have a great time."

The Countdown rumour fans still ask her about

For years some fans were convinced Carol did her Countdown sums with an earpiece. She has refuted the rumours but admits it might take her some time to get up to speed if she did it again.

She told the Guardian in 2023: "I could see the answer to the numbers. I see it – in the way that some people can see the conundrum. So it’s patterns for me, rather than calculation.

"If you said, ‘Right, you’ve got to go on telly live and do some Countdown games,’ I would be half the speed that I used to be. But if I devoted a week just to Countdown games, I’d get back to speed."

Why she was sacked from Tomorrow's World

Carol said she saw presenters while filming at Yorkshire TV and thought "I could do that" - leading to her starting work in local news and radio. She began to research her own ideas, putting together a format for So We Bought a Computer, which she would present for Channel 4 in 1985.

She was then contacted by a Countdown fan who was putting together a new science programme for BBC2 called Take Nobody's Word For It. She said: "That triggered me to begin thinking about other ideas. I loved presenting education and science shows and I wanted to make that "my thing"."

She started stints doing science on the Wide Awake Club as well as current affairs on other programmes. Realising she would need a back-up plan if presenting didn't work out, she set up a production company making school study and revision tapes.

In 1995 she won the job of presenting Tomorrow's World on BBC One - but things turned sour when she was sacked for doing Ariel washing powder adverts. She told the Guardian: "It wasn't a nice time for me. However, after I came off TW, the ratings fell. In fairness to the BBC, they quickly lifted the ban on me and brought me back to present high-profile shows such as Mysteries."

Becoming Cher left her in tears

Carol's appearance as Celebrity Stars In Your Eyes in 1999 introduced her to a new audience but also to the tabloids. She said in 2005: "When I walked out in smoke, dressed like a tart in leather, the audience screamed so much that I couldn't hear the backing track and I was completely out of key. That's also when I began to lose weight and the papers started to take an interest in my figure and style."

She later said she feared it would ruin her career, telling the Off Menu podcast: "I was on first and there was this dry ice,” she said. “I couldn’t see a thing, and I’d chosen ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’. There’s no musical intro… I came through, everyone went, ‘Ahhh!’ because I’d been little Carol Vorderman on Countdown, here she was, this incredible tart in leather.

“Everyone screamed; I couldn’t hear a thing. And then I thought, ooh, there’s the music, I better start. Whereas by that point it’s too late.

"Literally, the tears were involuntarily falling down my cheeks. I thought, oh my God, I can’t hear the music… It went out months later, I couldn’t watch it, I literally felt sick. I thought my career, that’s it, it’s over.”

Carol said it led to a "lot of analysis about me" in the tabloids, which she found a problem at first but later began to see it as "hysterical and a pile of nonsense". She said: "These days it is part and parcel of the job. Fame is something I've never sought, yet I'm inundated with letters from children just wanting to be on the telly. They want the glamour but this is a facile wish and ultimately pointless."

Cancer scare

Carol said she was a sun worshipper growing up but had a cancer scare when she was around 50 after noticing changes in her skin. Following biopsies, she discovered that some of the skin cells were pre-cancerous.

She shared her experience with Boots as part of a campaign around sun safety, recalling: "When I got to my late forties, I could see there were little bits on my skin which were irregular so I went to a dermatologist.

'[I had] a biopsy and a couple of them were pre-cancerous. You hear that word and it's very frightening.'"

She said she no longer sunbathes, slathers herself in SPF 50 and makes sure she covers up. She also has a check-up every year.

Taking on the Tories and 'using my voice'

Before the general election in July 2024 Carol was vocal in her criticism of the Conservative Government on social media. She had several arguments on X, formerly Twitter, with Tory MPs - leading to her stepping down from her Saturday morning show on BBC Radio Wales.

She made the announcement in November 2023, saying she was “not prepared to lose my voice” after the corporation introduced new social media guidelines. She said management decided that she should give up the show over a breach of the guidelines.

In a statement, she said: “My decision has been to continue to criticise the current UK Government for what it has done to the country which I love – and I’m not prepared to stop. I was brought up to fight for what I believe in, and I will carry on."

Carol has been outspoken on a range of issues, including questioning if the Conservative Party is the “sleaziest in history” and writing on X that the public is “ashamed” about former Home Secretary Suella Braverman's remarks about homelessness.

She also spoke out about the UK Covid-19 Inquiry and claimed “While people died, NHS was on its knees & money was funnelled to the VIP Lane.” In addition she posted a number of critical remarks about Johnny Mercer’s performance as veterans’ affairs minister and called on women’s minister Maria Caulfield to resign after she claimed she could not “be bothered to turn up” to a committee hearing about the menopause.

In an interview with the Times in September 2023, she said it was “fine” if she lost jobs because she criticised the government. She added: “It doesn’t bother me… I’ll tell you why. I’m knocking on 63. I’ve made my money. I’ve been through it all.

“What’s the worst that can happen? That I’ll lose some jobs? Fine by me. Bring it on. They can sling what they like at me.”

Calling out TV 'snobbery'

Carol has never forgotten her working class roots and declared the TV industry is full of “snobbery” and no longer reflects British society, when she gave a speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival. Delivering the Alternative MacTaggart lecture in August this year, she described herself as having been on thousands of shows over decades, “sacked by the BBC – twice – pain in the arse, lover of parties, post-menopausal”, and said she was standing “in anger and without apology” at the media event.

She said: “Our industry is an industry of snobbery – regional snobbery, class snobbery and educational snobbery – and don’t even get me started on the political issues.”

And she added that “working class people feel they are not represented, their situation is not represented, the lack of opportunities and lack of money and jobs is not represented”, with working class people increasingly turning to social media.

She also called television “a mess”, citing Ofcom figures that she said showed the “current decimation of broadcast television”. The media regulator’s research, published in July, found that less than half of young people watch live television in the average week.

Carol added: "Politics, arrogance, snobbery, disillusionment. They are all inextricably linked. The rich and powerful corrupting politics. The upper middles taking broadcast for themselves. The increasingly absurd right wing newspaper headlines being promoted by political programmes. What has this got to do with class? Everything. Literally everything.

“After 14 years of austerity and lying by the privileged political class, this country is in an absolute mess and the TV industry must accept part of the responsibility for that too, including the riots.”

Divorce heartache and her 'special friends'

Carol has been married twice, first tying the knot with Christopher Mather in 1985 when she was 24. They separated just a year into their marriage. Four years later, she wed management consultant Patrick King.

The couple were married for ten years and had two children, Katie and Cameron together. They divorced in 2000 – something Carol has admitted is a regret of hers.

She previously told Woman magazine: "I never said why my marriage broke down and we’d agreed never to talk about it publicly. The divorce is a regret of mine and my mum thinks that we should have stayed together."

She later had a long-term relationship with former Daily Mirror deputy editor Des Kelly but the couple split up in 2006. Carol then dated Red Arrows veteran Graham 'Duffy' Duff.

In 2016 she told the Mirror she was "happily single, freely independent and doing my own thing" and while she keeps her love life private, in 2019 said she had a number of "special friends" and had been dating two of the men for years.

Speaking on This Morning, she said: "For for the last decade or so, I've lived a life which is much freer. I've never felt freer. So I have ignored the looking for one person and I have a number of what I've called 'special friends'."

She added: "They don't know each other, but they know about it. It's a very honest relationship. One of them has gone on for many more years than my marriage."

She opened up on the subject further on Michelle Visage's BBC podcast Rule Breakers, explaining: “The language around a woman of my generation is that if you had more than one partner when you got married you were this, you were that. Everything was derogatory about a woman, that was the environment I was growing up in. It was like ‘she’s desperate’, everything was judgmental.

“It’s a happy place. I hasten to add I’m not into one-night stands.”

Suffering burnout and stepping down from radio show

Carol announced in October 2024 that she was stepping down from her Sunday radio show on LBC after suffering “burn out” from seven-day working weeks. She said she was following the advice of her family and friends after a “health scare” two weeks ago, which saw her spend the night in hospital.

She said in a post on Instagram that she had a “tight feeling in my chest and I was utterly exhausted” but “after many scans and checks, we know that I don’t have any underlying health issues whatsoever”. However, the broadcaster said she was taking the health scare as a “warning sign to slow down slightly”, announcing she has “decided to cut my work back to weekdays for now” after working seven days a week for “I don’t know how long”.

She said in the Instagram video: “I am very fed up about it, but I have made the decision that I can no longer do my Sunday show on LBC which is a very hard decision to come to but I couldn’t see anything else I could do."

She said her time on the radio show had been “really lively and a total joy”, but described it as “one of those things”. “The good news is that I’ll still be part of the LBC family (they’re a good family) from time to time – so stand by for more details,” she added

“I am very sad about it but I shall be continuing to make mischief – just not seven days a week in the future,” she added.

'Workaholic' and why trolls are her 'oxygen'

Carol's willingness to take on political issues online and criticise politicians has made her a target for those who don’t agree with her strong opinions, from public figures and online trolls alike. Former Tory MP Marco Longhi branded her a "person who obviously has bitterness, arrogance and envy in her heart."

However she says she doesn't mind, telling the Press Association: “I quite enjoy it – they don’t realise, bless them, the trolls, that they’re a bit of my oxygen. It’s like when the Tories came after me, I knew I was doing something right – so I’ll carry on, because that’s the way I’m built.

"I won’t shy away from it. Most of the responses from trolls are misogynistic or abusive – there’s no argument, there’s no debate based on fact. It’s just abuse, bless them."

She said she feels she has a “a sense of responsibility” to speak out after being brought up in poverty and now knowing where the next meal is coming from.

She said she worked on construction sites in the 1970s with her stepfather means she’s now “hardened to stuff” – so a bit of online trolling doesn’t faze her.

Carol has also jokingly admitted that she is a "workaholic", saying: "I’ve always been the same – I’m a workaholic. I think they should have group sessions for that, I’d be first on: My name is Carol Vorderman, and I’m a workaholic.

“It’s been my pattern all the way through my life, is I work, work, work, work, work, then I ‘collapse’. That’s very much in inverted commas. But in the past, about every ten years, it’s led to some kind of heart issue or something like that.

“So as you get older – I’ll be 64 in December – you have to be a little bit more careful. I haven’t been remotely careful over the last two years in terms of the amount of work, but I will have to look at that. I just get so passionate about it – that’s the thing."

The Pride of Britain Awards 2024 will be on ITV 1 on Thursday, October 24 from 8pm.