Former newsreader and Strictly Come Dancing star Katie Derham is hosting the BBC Proms
Katie Derham has opened up on her grief(Image: Getty Images)
BBC host Katie Derham received a marriage proposal on a first date.
The former Strictly Come Dancing star is a former ITV news presenter but in 2010 she announced she was returning to the BBC where she started her career as a researcher.
Since then she’s worked extensively across radio and she was one of the contestants on Strictly Come Dancing in 2015 when she was partnered with Anton Du Beke and impressed both the judges and viewers, topping the leaderboard and making it through to the final. She returned for the Christmas special two years later which she won with Brendan Cole.
As she teams up with Celebrity Traitors star Nick Mohammed to present the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms on Saturday, September 12, which will feature a Dolly Parton tribute, we take a look at her life offscreen.
Katie Derham’s heartbreak
Katie, who was born in Kent, is now 56 and she admits that her last birthday was a poignant moment for her because her mother Margaret was the same age when she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s.
Margaret died aged just 61, from complications of pancreatitis. Opening up to HELLO! magazine’s Second Act podcast Katie said: “I’ve stopped being quite so angry (over her death) as I was for many years. She never met my second daughter, and she had such a bright and interesting mind.”
She added: “It seems particularly cruel. She was 61 when she died – that’s nothing is it?” Katie also spoke about how she felt she had to “step up” and be the “mother of the family” after Margaret died.
The mother-of-two continued: “I don’t know how she (Margaret) responded to the menopause, I don’t know what she was like as a young grandma – I don’t know what she was like as an older grandma.”
Marriage proposal
Katie met her husband, John Vincent, now the chief executive and co-founder of fast food chain Leon Restaurants, when he caught her gatecrashing the Cambridge University May Ball – and proposed to her.
“It sounds so bad now, in retrospect. But with a big smile and a big twinkle, he said “Well, you know, give me a snog and I won’t throw you out,” she revealed to HELLO!
“It did make me laugh. And we spent the night dancing around, but I thought (proposing) was a joke, I genuinely never thought I’d see him again. But he told his mum and dad ‘I met this girl at this ball and I’m pretty sure I’m going to marry her.’”
They met up again when John took the plunge and called the BBC switchboard during her shift as a financial news researcher in 1992. They went on to marry seven years later and they are the proud parents of two daughters.
Last Night of the Proms: The Finale is on BBC One on Saturday, September 12 from 9pm
