Kirsty Gallacher has revealed that her divorce left her feeling ‘horrendously lonely’ until she met her new boyfriend.
Speaking on the latest episode of Aimee Fuller’s Monday Mile podcast, the radio host opened up about her life after seperating from her former rugby player ex-husband Paul Sampson.
The former Sky Sports News presenter, claimed that she found it difficult to adjust to her new way of life after calling time on her marriage in 2015: “When I got divorced, when I separated, obviously the kids would spend time with their father, and me. I was horrendously lonely, (I was) not in a good place, very sad.
“Because it was completely different and I actually don’t really love being on my own. I like being surrounded by family and noise.”
The 48-year-old radio presenter said that she would eventually come to enjoy the time on her own: “I like my peace now and I’ve grown to like that and enjoy it, probably purely because I’m so busy, so juxtaposed to the mania sometimes of the house, it’s quite nice to have just a minute to kind of breathe.
“But really in the beginning it was very hard to get used to no kids around or just you know a different sort of situation. So I was always pining to meet someone, wanting to have someone around.”
The Smooth Radio presenter admitted earlier in the podcast that she had began to worry that she would never find someone else after her break-up: “I had faith in meeting someone one day, I nearly lost faith and I’m very grateful that I met my bloke and I do think it gets more difficult later on (to meet someone later in life).”
Just last year, it was reported that Kirsty had finally found love again, now in a relationship with ex-rugby player, Darren Clayton. She was previously married to Paul Sampson for five years after they got married in 2010. They have two children together, Oscar and Jude.
Kirsty has seen her career go from strength to strength since first presenting on Sky Sports News in 1998, before becoming a regular feature on the channel for the next 20 years. In the following years, she made many more tv appearances, notably as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing and as a presenter on GB News, before she had to leave following her diagnosis with a benign brain tumour in 2021.