Gaby Roslin shares 'deep sadness' over mother's death and 'toxic' people in TV
Talking to Gaby Roslin is like switching on the sunshine on a rainy day. For more than 30 years the presenter has been bringing her trademark smile and infectious energy to our TV screens, and now she’s hoping to help us all find happiness.
As she settles in to chat about her upbeat new book, Spread The Joy, due out this week, 59-year-old Gaby admits that while she’s had to battle with her share of heartbreak, grief and “deep sadness”, being “unapologetically happy” has also helped her through the darkest times in her life. So passing on her own life lessons felt like a good way of helping people who may not find positivity as easy to come by.
Full of practical tips, advice and exercises, from wearing a pop of colour to simply gazing at the sky, Gaby maintains there are hundreds of simple ways of turning bad days into good ones. And while she admits she doesn’t have first-hand experience of mental health struggles, she has been there to support friends who have.
“I do my best to help other people, but it’s not something I’ve had to cope with,” she says. “I do think people use the words anxiety and depression too readily, though. I think we have to be very careful how we use those words. It would be completely fake of me to say I’d never felt those emotions, but I’m incredibly lucky to be able to be positive about things, and that’s helped me through. Journalists have asked me my whole career how I’m so happy all the time and I used to tell them, ‘Yeah that’s me, I’m so sorry.’”
Gaby Roslin has opened up about the loss of her mum (Handout)
Gaby Roslin has spoken about 'toxic' people in TVLosing her mother, Jackie, to lung cancer in 1997 was a particularly difficult time for Gaby. Jackie was still only in her early sixties when she died. Gaby reveals, “We were told my mum had six months to live. She died six weeks later on Valentine’s Day. Nobody can prepare you for that.”
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To add to her trauma, her BBC announcer father, Clive, was being treated for bowel cancer at the same time. He was given the all-clear by doctors on the day his wife died.
“After my mum died, it was really difficult and I felt deep sadness and grieved for her. I was really upset saying goodbye to my other close family members and friends, too,” says the presenter, who this year also lost her celebrity pal Paul O’Grady.
But this is a woman who sees the good in everything and she tells us that even loss can be turned into a positive. Gaby points out that she is lucky to be here still and says she chooses to appreciate life and enjoy every day.
“I always think about how wonderful it is that I had these great people like my friends and mum and my granny, who I was so close to,” she says. “I was interviewed about my new show Whatever You Want very shortly after mum died and Richard and Judy told me, ‘It’s amazing how you’re so positive.’ I told them, ‘I’m never saying sorry again for being happy.’ I didn’t realise I was going to say it. It was like a bolt.
“A lot of people get angry if you’re happy but that’s about them, so you have to be generous of spirit and work that out. I’m not knocking them for that at all,” she adds.
Gaby found fame in 1992 on The Big Breakfast and smiles as she speaks about her co-presenter Chris Evans, who recently revealed he had skin cancer. However, he was given the all-clear by doctors eight weeks after the diagnosis. She reveals that people remain curious about whether she and Chris ever had a romantic encounter when they worked together on the Channel 4 show – something she has always insisted didn’t happen. But she adds, “I’m not angry in the slightest. It makes me giggle, because Chris and I are still great friends and he texted me recently.”
She has also remained friends with Robbie Williams, who was 16 when they met on ITV kids’ show Motormouth. The singer, who she refers to as Rob, was delighted to write a foreword for her book.
“I told him I was doing it and he gave me a quote and I said, ‘This is so lovely.’ He said, ‘Use it, use it.’ We were speaking the other day. Rob’s a really good boy.”
When we suggest that working with the famous – and infamous – on TV and radio over the decades can’t always have been fun, Gaby reveals her solution for dealing with “toxic” people.
“If you’re able to, then extricate yourself,” she says. “What better way to live than to have good, positive people around you and actually see the people you want to see? I know it’s not always possible, but take yourself out of a situation, even if it’s just by going to the toilet.”
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She also stopped drinking alcohol five years ago. “I used to think I couldn’t be me without a glass in my hand,” she reveals. “Then I decided I love life too much to have a hangover. I did dry January, which merged into dry February, then dry March. I haven’t touched a drop since. I have far more confidence since not drinking.”
She also refuses to let minor matters trouble her, “We shouldn’t be worrying about little things, like whether or not the trousers we bought make us look fat or thin.”
Gaby Roslin attending the Pride Of Britain Awards in 2019 (WireImage)
Gaby Roslin attending the Royal Television Society Programme Awards 2019 (PA)And she’s passionate about the benefits of exercising too. She says, “I choose to go to the gym and do weights and go walking because it’s so important for my mental health. We’ve got an ageing population and we’ve all got to do what we can and keep moving.”
Gaby often meets people who are struggling in their lives, and reveals she’s been a shoulder to cry on for others ever since she was a girl. She says, “It’s been difficult at times to hear people’s stories because I’ve been told some really heartbreaking things. But talking and listening is vitally important. For many people, though, life is unbelievably tough. You have to show your emotions – and feel them – but if you’re struggling, please talk to people or one of the charities I’ve listed in the back of my book.
“I remember after the Queen died, a lady called Iris spoke to me down at one of the areas covered in floral tributes. She was really emotional and I was there to listen and comfort her. I also had a conversation with a young girl who was crying on a bench in Regent’s Park. It was really difficult but I knew that if my daughter had been in that position, I’d have wanted someone to speak to her.”
Gaby lights up as she begins talking about family life with husband David Osman and daughters Libbi-Jack, 22, from her first marriage to musician Colin Peel, and Amelie, 16, whose father is David.
It’s no surprise to learn she encourages her girls to go to her with any worries they have. “Amelie has just done her GCSEs and the night before she was getting her results, she went through a lot of emotions, but me and David kept telling her it doesn’t matter,” she says. “If she had to retake, then she could retake. She got her grades and she was pleased and it was because we all talked about it.”
As for David, Gaby smiles as she speaks about her “wonderful” husband. She laughs, “We like different music, though, which is very funny in this house because I love musical theatre and pop but he likes reggae and punk. Recently I saw a punk musical being advertised and I realised there was finally something we could go to together.”
So is life glorious every day for Gaby? Surely she sometimes wakes to those dark mornings when she dreads the day ahead? But, she says, she has a simple solution. Fake it.
“If I’m not feeling quite myself I smile at the moment I feel myself waking,” she says. “You sometimes have to force a smile at the start but then you fix your brain and it goes into, ‘Oh, I feel good about today.’
“It’s incredible how a smile can change my perspective on the day and I’m prone to even looking in the mirror sometimes and smiling before I brush my teeth, saying, ‘Yeah, I’ve got this.’ It’s that simple.”
Spread The Joy by Gaby Roslin (HQ, HarperCollins, £18,99) is out on Thursday in hardback.
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