When paparazzi photos emerged of Eamonn Holmes and his new girlfriend enjoying a mini break in the City of Love, even the presenter’s friends started gossiping about their relationship.
As a miserable-looking Eamonn, 65, shuffled around in an e-mobility chair, which he uses due to a crippling back problem, Katie Alexander, 21 years his junior, was at his side, sporting an Hermes scarf worth £1,000 and a £139.99 Hermès bag. Mango faux fur coat and a £1,600 Louis Vuitton bag as they left the Louvre museum in Paris earlier this week.
What baffled Eamonn’s friends was the dazzling ring on psychotherapist Katie’s ring finger, given that the Good Morning host’s divorce from his ex-wife and co-host Ruth Langsford is nowhere near complete, and that his agent had insisted that the couple were only in Paris to ‘visit art and museums’.
I’m told they’re all asking the same question: what would Katie, an attractive and intelligent 43-year-old divorcee, see in Eamonn, who, after his recent health problems, is said to be becoming increasingly grumpy? (Since a nasty fall in 2022, Eamonn finally gave up and used a walker and mobility chair. He also had double hip surgery in 2015.)
Katie is said to spend a lot of time at Eamonn’s new bachelor pad, a penthouse in a modest block of flats on the Kingston one-way system in south-west London.
But my friends tell me they are “too polite” to ask Holmes about the exact nature of their relationship.
Eamonn’s friends are all asking the same question: what would Katie, an attractive and intelligent 43-year-old divorcee, see in Eamonn, who, following his recent health problems, is said to be becoming increasingly grumpy?
“It’s all a bit strange,” said one. “Eamonn and Katie spend a lot of time together and he definitely whispers that things are romantic in nature.
‘Eamonn loves pretty women and has always been a big flirt. He and Katie spend a lot of time together now and, despite what the photos imply, they laugh a lot together.
“Plus, she’s a psychotherapist and he loves to chat, so they have a bond there, but I don’t see them getting married anytime soon.”
Friends say Eamonn and Ruth, who have a 22-year-old son together called Jack, had initially struggled to maintain friendship during the divorce proceedings, but things have recently “thawed”.
Ruth is said to be “worried” about Holmes since he became single and wants to make sure he is “taken care of” as he embarks on a new romance.
It has also been a colorful week for Holmes at work. His GB news co-presenter Isabel Webster, who Eamonn has called his “work wife”, was sacked from her morning show with immediate effect on Wednesday.
But despite reports that Eamonn was left “stunned” by the news of Isabel’s shock exit, sources tell me he is “relieved.” Maybe because, I’m told, she is a close friend of Ruth.
The two women always got along “extraordinarily well” before she and Holmes separated.
Eamonn and Katie were spotted by paparazzi in Ibiza enjoying a luxury cruise around Europe – a gift given to Eamonn after signing a lucrative deal to be an ambassador for holiday company Not Just Travel.
“Isabel and Ruth were close,” says a well-placed source. ‘And that was always going to cause some problems between Isabel and Eamonn.
“They had a lot of friends in common who had to choose sides, Isabel didn’t do it as such, but the separation became complicated. Eamonn and Isabel would argue a bit. They weren’t big fights, just fights, but they added pressure at a difficult time and He didn’t always enjoy working with her.
“He’s in pain at work, so he just needs to get in and out without any discomfort.”
“Eamonn seems depressed when he’s at work,” a GB News source said. “He just sits there looking miserable.”
Bosses hope he will be happy with Webster’s replacement, Ellie Costello, who, at 31, is ten years younger than her predecessor.
“She’s light-hearted and fun, which is something Eamonn really needs right now,” the source added.
In fact, Eamonn and Katie have been dating since the Mail revealed that he had split from his wife of 14 years, Ruth, who met Holmes in 1996. They initially kept the relationship a secret so as not to upset Eamonn’s first wife , Gabriella, with whom Eamonn has three children.
Eamon first met Katie on X (formerly Twitter) in 2015 after she commented on a post and sparked a conversation. And then last October, nine months before Eamonn and Ruth confirmed they had split, they met at a fundraising event in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, for a charity of which Eamonn was a patron and for which Katie had worked.
Friends say Eamonn and Ruth, who have a 22-year-old son together called Jack, had initially struggled to maintain friendship during the divorce proceedings, but things have recently “thawed”.
Katie had recently separated from her husband of two years, George Alexander, who recently confessed that he had “a lot of sympathy” for Ruth following her split from Eamonn.
“I was heartbroken when my marriage to Katie ended,” he added.
It’s unclear when this initial exchange between Eamonn and Katie turned into a friendship, but it was reported that Ruth discovered that Eamonn had been showering Katie with gifts in the lead-up to their split. He had accompanied her on a trip to a safari park with her children and had even given them tickets to a Beyoncé concert.
But anyone who knows Holmes will know that he loves female company. Even when he was with Ruth, his friends told me he flirted shamelessly with other women.
One of those women told me that Eamonn often made appointments and was very supportive of her career. Another said Eamonn would make plans with her, insisting his then-wife Ruth preferred to be home.
“Eamonn always said Ruth didn’t want to go too far,” said a source close to the star. ‘He loved having a pretty girl on his arm to go anywhere. Ruth works hard, she had This Morning and Loose Women as hosts when they were together, plus a really lucrative job at QVC. She didn’t always want to hang out with Eamonn so he found others to hang out with.
But Eamonn’s new relationship seems much more serious than the others.
Katie has already been to Belfast (a place Ruth was not keen to visit) to meet Holmes’ three children from her first marriage: Declan, 35, Rebecca, 32, and Niall, 30.
And their trip to Paris was one more in a long series of romantic dates. On December 5, the couple was seen leaving a carol concert in west London. That same day they had been together at the prestigious Radio and Television Industries Club luncheon.
In the summer, there was a luxury cruise around Europe, a gift Eamonn received after signing a lucrative deal to be an ambassador for holiday company Not Just Travel.
They hopped on a plane to Barcelona and boarded the ship (staying in the £1,500-a-night mega suite) and headed to Toulon on the French Riviera and then on to Marina di Carrara in Italy. They then sailed to Civitavecchia, north of Rome, before heading to Ibiza.
They were spotted by paparazzi in Ibiza and at the airport when they arrived home. I’m told Eamonn hates attention and can’t understand how the paparazzi always know where he will be.
“He can’t understand why it keeps happening,” said a source close to him. “He has a feeling that it might be someone who isn’t a big fan of his, and that clouds the relationship a little bit.”
Maybe that explains why Eamonn doesn’t smile in any of the paparazzi photos. After all, his friends insist that he loves life with Katie.
“A lot of times it may not seem like it,” says a friend. “But he’s happier than ever, he’s getting out there and trying to enjoy his autumn years, even though he’s in a lot of pain sometimes.”
“Again, it may not seem obvious, but he is now free and free of fantasies, and enjoys a certain freedom, traveling a lot with an attractive woman on his arm. It’s a shame he doesn’t smile a little more about it.