Ruth Langsford and Eamonn Holmes' first wife, Gabrielle, have reportedly 'joined forces' to support the broadcaster amid his illness. The two are said to have 'put the past behind them' and 'come through' for the 66-year-old after he suffered a stroke in April, but their bond appears to go back further than that.
A Shared History
Gabrielle was married to Eamonn first. Little has been reported about her, but she married Eamonn in 1985 and they had three children together, Declan, Rebecca and Niall, before separating in 1994. Three years later, Eamonn would start dating fellow broadcaster Ruth, but the two took it slow to be respectful to Gabrielle and the children, only marrying in 2010. They had one child, Jack, together and separated in 2024.
A source has told the Daily Mail that Ruth and Gabrielle have both come together to support Eamonn through his illness. The source said: “The thought of Ruth and Gabrielle being on good terms was just as unlikely. Yet here they all are clubbing together and rallying around with the kids to protect Eamonn.”
Mutual Respect
Ruth has previously said that Gabrielle was always at the forefront of her mind when she was interacting with Eamonn's children. She said on Loose Women, when talking about being a stepmum to his children: “I have also over the years been very mindful of their mother and not ever tried to take that role at all. I was more just a friend – daddy’s girlfriend and now wife.”
Though she has not often spoken about Gabrielle, Ruth has shared how much she loves and cares for her three children. She added on Loose Women that she loved being able to connect to them: “The most wonderful moment for me, when I felt ‘they really do like me’, was when they wanted to come to London for the weekend and Eamonn was working, he was really busy, and he said ‘well you can come but I’m not really going to be around, Ruth’s here’ and they said ‘that’s fine’.
“It was an acceptance of me, obviously they saw him, but I spent most of that time with them and I thought ‘well if they don’t like me then they wouldn’t come knowing they’re going to have to spend the next two days with me’.”
Similar Experiences
Ruth and Gabrielle also share some similarities, particularly in their experience of being married to Eamonn. In Eamonn's own words, both Gabrielle and Ruth had to deal with being distant from him due to his work and home balance, meaning they did not get to see him all the time.
In his 2008 memoir, Eamonn said that he would only see Gabrielle on the weekends, making him an "intruder" in her day to day life. "By that stage we tended to be apart during the week because of my job, and I had no trouble with that - though Gabrielle obviously did," he wrote.
"I always believed absence would make the heart grow fonder and, in fact, the commuting heightened my desperation for her, made the time less bearable and longer. But it gave my wife a life of her own, with her children, and come weekends I was intruding on it, y'know."
When discussing his marriage to Ruth to TalkTV, he echoed what he had written about Gabrielle, saying they tended to see more of each other when at work: "Although we live together, we're not really together... Ruth likes her own space [and] when we do This Morning it's a rare time we actually interrelate."
