Katherine Ryan admits her parents feared husband Bobby was a 'gold-digger'

04 September 2023 , 17:37

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Katherine Ryan admits her parents feared husband Bobby was a 'gold-digger'

Katherine Ryan has revealed that her parents were worried her partner Bobby Kootstra was a "gold-digger" and even hired a private investigator to conduct a background check on the former tech consultant.

The Canadian comedian appeared on Loose Women on Monday to discuss her upcoming show about 'controversial parenting' and her current podcast, Telling Everybody Everything, as well as being a mother to three children and her romantic life. A few minutes into the interview, host Jane Moore asked Katherine, 40, to elaborate on a joke she'd previously made about Bobby during one of her razor-sharp stand-up acts.

"Your husband Bobby is very handsome...your parents, when they met him, they thought, this can't be right?" the ITV presenter said, prompting fellow panellist Denise Welch to add, "They had got a private investigator to investigate if something was up because he was so handsome."

Katherine Ryan has revealed her parents feared her partner Bobby was a gold-digger (Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Katherine and Bobby rekindled their romance in 2018 (Dave J Hogan/Getty Images for Ch)

"Well, I've dated ugly men before and no one was worried about my investments," she quipped, sending the panel and audience into laughter. "My dad said, 'Look at him, Katherine, he's either a gold-digger or blind in one eye.'" The 8 Out of 10 Cats star went on to joke that if she and Bobby were Bennifer, "he would be J-Lo" while she'd be Ben Affleck.

Katherine called the difference in their looks "very controversial", explaining that she's friends with "lots of men" in the entertainment industry whose "wives are younger and way better looking" than then. The Duchess star also made a savage reference to British-Sri Lankan comedian Romesh Ranganathan, who's married to Leesa Ranganathan, at the end of her spiel. "No offence, Romesh," she quipped, much to the amusement of her hosts.

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Katherine rekindled her romance with teenage sweetheart Bobby in 2018, two decades after they first dated in high school. They entered a civil partnership in Denmark the following year and moved to London together, where the Canadian star has been based for the past several years.

The couple welcomed their first child, son Fred, in June 2021, before celebrating the birth of their second, daughter Fenna, in December 2022. Katherine also has a 14-year-old daughter named Violet from a previous relationship. Despite now being close to Bobby, the teenager initially objected to his romance with her mother.

"She [Violet] really kicked off at the civil ceremony, but now she loves him and she looks like him, it’s really strange," Katherine said on Loose Women last year. "But he’s been a wonderful addition to our family."

Appearing on Louis Theroux Interviews Katherine Ryan in 2022, she also revealed she'd once promised Violet that she'd never bring another man into their household. The award-winning comic had admittedly planned to be single forever, having grown accustomed to a life without romance for so long.

Emma Dooney