{"id":932959,"date":"2026-05-02T13:20:48","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/932959\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T13:20:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:20:48","slug":"anthea-turner-making-tv-comeback-at-66-ive-got-so-many-things-i-want-to-achieve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/932959\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthea Turner making TV comeback at 66 – ‘I’ve got so many things I want to achieve’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthea Turner is turning 66 this month and shows no signs of slowing down – from launching a YouTube channel and her beauty brand By Anthea, and an upcoming wedding…<\/p>\n

12:00, 02 May 2026Updated 14:03, 02 May 2026<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea Turner is opening up about life in her 60s<\/p>\n

Anthea Turner turns 66 later this month, but has no intention of slowing down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can take my pension this year so I could say I\u2019m retired and have done with it, but I won\u2019t,\u201d she says. \u201cMy fame star rose through the 80s and I\u2019m still here 40 years later. I\u2019ve got so many things I still want to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year Anthea celebrates four decades in broadcasting and is the middle of a fresh career chapter. As co-founder of beauty brand By Anthea, a children\u2019s author alongside her sister Wendy, and with a fiercely loyal 50-plus female Instagram<\/a> following, she is now preparing to launch a YouTube<\/a> channel.<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea Turner turns 66 later this month<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea was married to Grant Bovey<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re an age group who want to get the best out of our years,\u201d says Anthea. \u201cThe channel will be an extension of what I do already \u2014 exercising my passions for the home and lifestyle. Media is a big umbrella now. Work has to come from lots of different pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a far cry from the late 90s when she lost that control almost overnight after entering a relationship with married property developer Grant Bovey. She was quickly labelled a \u201chome wrecker\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was \u2018cancelled\u2019 before we even had the word,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWhen I went through a difficult time, yes, I was absolutely pushed aside \u2014 over, done, I couldn\u2019t get arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time \u201cthe clouds passed by\u201d and she \u201cwalked forward again into the sunshine\u201d, the TV industry had shifted too. \u201cIf you weren\u2019t a gardener, a cook, an interior designer or an expert on history or wildlife, you were stuffed,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI remember thinking, \u2018Oh my goodness me, that\u2019s probably me done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But she wasn\u2019t. She appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2001 then landed the BBC<\/a> show Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife before competing in Dancing On Ice then The Jump, which coincided with the breakdown of her 15-year marriage to Grant. The time was hugely formative.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my divorce I met myself again,\u201d she smiles. \u201cThe me I am now in my sixties is much closer to the one I was in my thirties, only now I have the golden ticket of experience. I did everything I could to keep my marriage to Grant together, but had I stayed in it I wouldn\u2019t be the woman I am now with the freedom I have emotionally and professionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

That freedom now underpins everything, including her relationship with her hospitality businessman fianc\u00e9 Mark Armstrong, who she has been engaged to since 2019 \u2014 a detail that often attracts headlines.<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea is now preparing to launch a YouTube channel<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea is co-founder of beauty brand By Anthea<\/p>\n

\u201cI read about us repeatedly postponing the wedding but you can\u2019t postpone something you haven\u2019t organised,\u201d she says. \u201cWe absolutely will get married because I believe in it, but life has got in the way. Covid, then Mark\u2019s mum died, then home renovations. We dropped the ball, but we\u2019ll pick it up again soon, don\u2019t worry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthea remains \u201con good terms\u201d with her ex-husbands, including her first, former BBC Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell. \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no bitterness. Grant and I had some great years, Peter and I had some great years,\u201d she says. So will they be coming to the wedding?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure if Grant would come,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I think Peter most definitely will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask Anthea what bonds her and Mark and she recalls a conversation she had with presenter Esther Rantzen shortly after her TV producer husband Desmond Wilcox died in September 2000. \u201cShe said to me, \u2018I can go out every single night of the week, but what I miss is somebody to do nothing with.\u2019 That\u2019s the acid test of every relationship. Mark\u2019s very social and luckily I\u2019m not someone who says, \u2018You\u2019re going out again?\u2019 We give each other loads of freedom. That\u2019s the key.\u201d<\/p>\n

That ease is evident in her family life too. Anthea, who made peace with never having kids of her own following fertility struggles and IVF, is now \u201cGranny Anth\u201d to two boys \u2014 born to two of Grant\u2019s three daughters, Claudia, Amelia and Lily, whom she considers her own. Baby Ford arrived in March to restaurant owner Lily, then there\u2019s Dexter, Claudia\u2019s one-year-old son.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about carving out time together,\u201d Anthea says. \u201cEveryone\u2019s busy but you make space for what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea celebrates four decades in broadcasting and is the middle of a fresh career chapter<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2001 then landed the BBC show Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife before competing in Dancing On Ice then The Jump <\/p>\n

A trip to Margate to visit Ford is happening soon, now Anthea is mobile after a painful few months following a fall down the stairs before Christmas<\/a>, which left her with a torn shoulder tendon and needing surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pain has been horrific,\u201d she sighs. \u201cYou come out of surgery thinking you\u2019re fine because of the nerve blockers, then suddenly \u2014 oh my God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recovery has been a humbling experience. \u201cI can\u2019t blow dry my frickin\u2019 hair!\u201d she laughs, adding that \u201capplying mascara is a nightmare\u201d, as is putting on a bra. \u201cYou take all these things for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet she\u2019s approaching it with her usual determination. \u201cI do shoulder rolls [in the car] at traffic lights and use the steering wheel like a Pilates ring, just to keep everything moving and talk my tendons back into life.\u201d<\/p>\n

That same pragmatism is in her outlook on ageing. \u201cYou do the maths in your 60. You see your mortality,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not ageing that bothers me. I just don\u2019t want to be a weak old woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

For decades, health has been a major priority for Anthea, who walks, lifts weights and follows the Alexander Technique, a method to improve poise and flexibility, which she learned as a teenage ballerina growing up in Stoke-on-Trent. Her beauty philosophy is multi-layered too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t find skincare that was natural, affordable yet luxurious so I created my own and it\u2019s transformed my skin,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve done Eva Fraser\u2019s facial exercises since I was about 27 and, thankfully, I\u2019ve got my dad\u2019s defined chin. But I also have a tiny bit of filler in my apples and I have Botox regularly. I haven\u2019t frowned since I was 40, which has made a difference because I never got lines in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea Turner, John Leslie, Diane-Louise Jordan, Tim Vincent, Katie Hill and Richard Bacon attend Blue Peter’s Big Birthday, celebrating the show’s 60th anniversary<\/p>\n

She denies that the driver for all this effort is fear. \u201cIt\u2019s not about that. When you scrub up and go out, you feel better,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m my own business. It\u2019s about maintaining, not chasing something I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, her neck \u201cdoesn\u2019t look quite like it used to\u201d so she is not closed to the idea of \u201cone day\u201d plumping for a face lift, although Mark would likely object. \u201cHe\u2019d probably laugh and go, \u2018Don\u2019t be ridiculous!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As for her 66th birthday plans, nothing is set in stone. \u201cWe normally go to Rome but we haven\u2019t worked it out,\u201d she says. \u201cThere may be a dinner with friends but the chances are we will be on a plane \u2014 as long as there\u2019s some aviation fuel hanging around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Global tensions, particularly the current conflict involving Iran, have made travel uncertain but Anthea refuses to spiral. \u201cWe have every right to feel concerned,\u201d she says. \u201cBut do I feel unduly panicked that things won\u2019t sort themselves out? No. This absolutely cannot escalate and cause the world<\/a> more harm. We have to have optimism in human nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthea\u2019s natural positivity is evident in her social media accounts, where she connects daily to her \u201ctribe\u201d. \u201cThrough Instagram, I found my people and they found me,\u201d she says, adding that being online sometimes has its absurd moments too.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course you always get people sending you pictures of their bits and bobbies,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI just think, \u2018Really?\u2019 And when they send indecent proposals, I think, \u2018Do you really think I\u2019m going to go, \u2018Yeah, take me out?\u2019 It\u2019s very odd.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea remains \u201con good terms\u201d with her ex-husbands, including her first, former BBC Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell<\/p>\n

\"Anthea<\/p>\n

Anthea returned to live broadcasting \u2014 the first time in three decades \u2014 standing in for Vanessa Feltz on her Channel 5 daytime show<\/p>\n

Still, the positives outweigh the negatives and her passion for television also remains. Earlier this year, Anthea returned to live broadcasting \u2014 the first time in three decades \u2014 standing in for Vanessa Feltz on her Channel 5 daytime show.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was scared witless,\u201d shrieks Anthea. \u201cBut then it started and I realised I still knew how to drive the car. Now being an expert in life is what matters. I\u2019m a standard-bearer for the scrubbed-up over-55s and I wear that mantle proudly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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