Gethin Jones has spoken up about his sadness and the dissolution of his marriage to Katherine Jenkins.
The 45-year-old anchor recently spoke out about a particularly tough period in his life during which he experienced a “bad bout of depression.”
Gethin recalls sitting on top of New Zealand’s Mount Cook and “feeling really sad and low,” and how people were perplexed by his poor mood, but he was in a “rut” and couldn’t figure out why.
He was engaged to the Welsh singer for four years before the couple parted in 2011, with Katherine subsequently alleging he was the one who broke things off. Both issued comments expressing their heartbreak at the time.
Katherine and Gethin first met on Strictly Come Dancing in 2009, while she was performing and he was competing with Flavia Cacace.
‘I was engaged and then breaking up, afterwards, or even during that period, it was just awful,’ Gethin told Tom Bryant on The Mirror’s Outdoors in Mind podcast.
‘I remember doing BBC Radio 5 Live and going into the toilet at 5.30am going, “All right. Come on. Just focus for the next three hours, and then you can go back to being sad again.” I definitely had a bad bout of depression during that time.’
The Blue Peter star admitted that he wanted his pals to tell him what to do, but he now realises that he put too much pressure on them when he needed to figure things out for himself.
While he didn’t go into detail about his split with Katherine, he did say it was a ‘horrible’ time, continuing: ‘A lot of what I read about myself wasn’t right.’
He admitted that he was proud of himself for never discussing their divorce in public and instead dealing with his feelings in treatment.
Reflecting on the older generations’ grin and bear it mentality, Gethin said trying to do the same ‘almost broke [him]’.
The star went on to recall how when his close cameraman friend ended their life out of the blue, it had a ‘profound effect’ on him.
During a recent conversation, Gethin recalled on the moment he was wrongfully accused on social media of being the anonymous BBC broadcaster who’d been suspended over claims of improper conduct, and how it was ‘difficult’ to read and he didn’t know what to do.
Gethin has stated openly that he has always wanted to adopt a kid and that it may be in his future after witnessing a buddy do it.
The Welsh presenter began his career in children’s television with series including Popty, Mas Draw, and Uned 5.
Gethin became a Blue Peter broadcaster in April 2005, and this, together with his stint on Strictly, catapulted him to popularity.