Trisha Goddard appears on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories this week (Thursday February 25 2021) and relives the highs and lows of her career and personal life – including her three failed marriages and the husband she feared had given their baby HIV.
The former talk show host joins Piers to look back at her life, and shares her feelings of betrayal at her mum for keeping the identity of her biological dad a secret.
Here’s everything you need to know about Trisha’s rollercoaster life and her appearance on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories.
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Trisha’s TV career: the highlights
After finding TV fame in Australia (see below), Trisha returned to the UK and became the host of ITV flagship daytime chat show Trisha.
Trisha’s confessional TV show ran for 11 years in the UK and made her a star.
In September 2004, she left ITV to join Five in a new programme titled Trisha Goddard, which made its TV debut on 24 January 2005.
It never quite reached the viewing figures of her ITV equivalent and was eventually axed.
However, she has since appeared as a panellist on ITV1’s Loose Women.
During her career, Trisha has presented shows on three continents with 40,000 guests.
She has also dabbled in acting – appearing in the 2004 film Shaun of the Dead, and an episode of Fat Friends.
Trisha appears very briefly in the 2006 Doctor Who episode ‘Army of Ghosts’ in a parody episode of her own show entitled ‘I Married a Ghost’.
She has her own talk show on Liverpool radio station City Talk 105.9.
Trisha’s TV career: the lowlights
Channel Five failed to renew Trisha’s TV show in January 2009.
Five announced it would not be renewing her contract, for financial reasons.
On 20 October 2011, NBC Universal Television Distribution announced it would launch an American version of her eponymous talk show to start in September 2012.
They cancelled this version of the programme after two seasons in April 2014.
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Trisha’s years in Australia
Trisha’s early career as an air stewardess led her to settling in Australia in the mid-1980s.
Once there, she worked as a television presenter, most notably on ABC’s The 7.30 Report.
She also hosted the children’s programme Play School.
She returned to the United Kingdom in 1998 and became the host of ITV flagship daytime chat show Trisha.
Trisha’s love life: Is she married?
Trisha has been married and divorced three times.
She married Australian politician Robert Nestdale in 1985, but the marriage was short-lived.
He was rumoured to be gay, and died from AIDS in 1989.
Trisha has said that Robert was abusive to her during their relationship.
She admits she feared he had passed the HIV virus to her who, in turn, could have passed it to her baby.
She says: “I’ll never forget this awful feeling, that I might have been passing on the disease through my milk. It was your worst nightmare.
“When I found out I had tested negative, I broke down and wept.”
In 1993, she wed TV producer Mark Grieve and they had two daughters together.
They subsequently divorced three years later in 1996.
Psychotherapist Peter Gianfrancesco was her third husband from 1998 until their divorce nearly 20 years later in 2017.
She has two children – Billie Dee, born in 1989, and Madison Mae, born in 1994 – with Mark Grieve.
Trisha Goddard life: Is Trisha dating?
The TV star revealed in 2020 that she is dating.
She told podcast Unleashed: The Game Changers: “I’ve really learned with people in general that you can’t just go on their age.
“I’ve met so many 50-year-old guys who are like 80, and my current boyfriend, ‘Boo’ as I call him, is older than me but he likes to play, he’s a child.
“He’s vigorous, he’s 10 years older than my ex-husband but 10 years younger? If that makes sense?”
Trisha has been with her mystery man for nearly three years.
She is determined to keep him out of the spotlight and refers to him publicly as ‘Boo’.
What is Trisha doing now?
Trisha currently lives in Connecticut, USA, after moving to America in 2010.
Despite living in America, Trisha regularly makes appearances on British telly.
Recent shows include Jeremy Vine, Loose Women and Good Morning Britain.
Last year, there were rumours that Trisha was going to relaunch her talk show in the UK.
However, these are unconfirmed.
Trisha’s search for her biological dad
Trisha talks to Piers about finding out that the man she called dad wasn’t her biological father.
Her mother Agnes, a Windrush nurse from Dominica, took the secret to her grave.
Trisha did not discover that the white man who raised her was not her biological father until AFTER her mother’s death.
He was, however, the biological father of her three sisters.
Trisha set out to find details of her biological father in her late-50s, after a genetics expert insisted that her skin colour made it almost impossible for her to have a white father.
Trisha tells Piers: “I felt very angry towards Mum. She could have told me.
“She told her friend it was just a fling at the West Indian Club. I’ve tried to track down that West Indian club.
“I have looked through the ship’s logs, but I’d like to know for my health, like where my cancer comes from.”
Trisha’s battles
Trisha describes her experiences of racism, mental health and surviving breast cancer.
Her younger sister Linda suffered from schizophrenia and died in 1988 from complications arising from self-inflicted injuries.
Trisha battled drug addiction and has attempted suicide on at least two occasions after suffering her own mental health issues.
The TV personality is a breast cancer survivor, having been diagnosed in 2008.
Bullies subjected Trisha to racist abuse and slurs when she was just nine or 10 years old.
She says: “I got really good at my primary school going in the loo.
“You get toilet paper and you stuff it in your mouth so they don’t hear you crying.
“Because if they hear you crying while they’re chanting the n-word outside, then you’ll get it worse.”
How old is Trisha Goddard?
Patricia Gloria Goddard was born on December 23 1957 in Hackney, London.
She is currently 63 years old.
Piers Morgan’s Life Stories episode three features Trisha Goddard and airs on Thursday February 25 2021 at 9pm on ITV1.
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