Anthea Turner was instantly "cancelled" and went from "hero to zero" after falling in love with a married man, her sister has claimed.
Wendy Turner-Webster, a journalist and animal rights activist, opened up to the Sunday Times this month about her TV presenter sister, who is best known for her work on Blue Peter and GMTV.
Anthea, 64, first met Grant Bovey in 1998, with both of them leaving their partners before they exchanged vows in 2000. Wendy said it was something that "happens the world over", but that watching her sister's "fall" was "painful".
Wendy said: "It was incredibly painful to watch her fall from the mainstream at the end of the Nineties. I’d read the headlines and have a private cry. She had fallen in love with Grant Bovey, a property developer who was married.
"It happens the world over but it was as if she had murdered someone. She was one of the highest-paid women on TV and she went from hero to zero. She was cancelled on the spot."
Grant split up with his first wife, Della, with whom he shares three children, for Anthea. She was still married to her agent, ex-Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell at the time.
Grant and Anthea later separated in 2012 prior to splitting permanently in 2013. Express.co.uk reported in 2022 that the pair then divorced in 2015 on the grounds of Grant's adultery.
The presenter learned that Grant had been having an affair with interior designer Zoe de Mallet Morgan, who is 28 years younger than him, according to The MailOnline.
In 2017, Anthea said she had worked hard to catch Grant, admitting to checking his text messages after believing something was amiss when they got back to the UK following a trip to Mauritius.
Grant, who was on Celebrity Big Brother, spoke about his relationship with Anthea in 2016, saying: "You probably do think I’m a love rat."
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He continued: "I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. If I could turn back the clock and change things, I would. I can’t deny my history. Maybe I deserve ‘love rat’.
"She doesn’t deserve what happened to her. She has had to put up with a huge amount.”
In 2015, Anthea described her divorce from Grant as her “biggest life lesson” and confessed that her friends had said “I told you so”. Her revelation came five years after Bovey was declared bankrupt.
His buy-to-let firm, Imagine Homes, collapsed after being struck by the 2008 property crash and he was left with debts of £50million, reports the Mirror.
This led to the sale of Barbins Grange, their £10million estate in Surrey, the Mail reported in 2016.
