While the former Blue Peter host has long planned to marry for the third time, she has now postponed her wedding to Mark Armstrong a total of four times.
Friends are now said to be unconvinced the 64-year-old will ever marry her long-term partner, reports the Mirror. Since Mark proposed in 2019, a series of tragic personal circumstances have disrupted the couple’s wedding plans.
Both Anthea and Mark have have lost their mothers in recent years which consequently shelved their wedding plans. Covid also disrupted their schedule, but it is unclear what has caused this fourth bump in the road.
Anthea, who presented Blue Peter for two years, talked to reporters this week at the launch party for Undercroft Mayfair restaurant in London, which is headed up by TV chef Aldo Zill.
The TV presenter said she had put a date in 2022’s calendar to marry the 59-year-old businessman in Italy, but the ceremony was postponed to 2023 with the location switched to Britain.
Speaking at the event in Mayfair, Anthea added: “We keep telling friends, ‘Oh, we will sort it out.’ Maybe we’ll elope and have a holiday and tell everybody we got married on holiday.”
Speaking to the Daily Mail, former GMTV host Anthea said: “We feel like we’re married. But why it hasn’t happened is my mum died, and Mark’s mum died, then there was Covid and then we moved in together properly.”
No new date has been set for the ceremony for Anthea’s third wedding. At age 30, Anthea married her manager, former DJ Peter Powell. They divorced eight years later in 1998.
The TV host then married businessman Grant Bovey in 2000. She split from the former CEO of Imagine Homes in 2012 and divorced in October 2015.
Anthea presented Blue Peter from September 1992 to June 1994, often alongside John Leslie, Diane-Louise Jordan and Tim Vincent. She was replaced by Stuart Miles, who would go on to complete a near five-year stint with the show.
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our newsletterhere.