Former GMTV star Fiona Phillips has opened up about the collapse of her marriage with former This Morning producer Martin Frizell as she recounted the moment he declared his intention to leave their family home. The former ITV anchor shared insights about her ignorance of the early stages of dementia-a fate that had previously befallen both her parents.

As the couple drifted towards their discreet split, Fiona, 64, admitted to being oblivious to her emerging symptoms, attributing them to menopause instead of considering something more dire. Their union crumbled further as Martin sensed an increasing disconnect between Fiona, him and their kids, as they were regularly arguig, reports the Mirror. Fiona confessed her deepest concerns: "Was I worried that there might be something sinister lurking beneath the surface? That Alzheimer's could one day be coming for me too?"

Furthermore, she expressed her internal battle with denial: "On one level I did think I would get the disease, but there was also another part of me that was in a strange sort of denial about it all. This illness has devastated so much of my life already, surely it's not going to come for me too?' I'd tell friends."

Fiona disclosed that she's convinced the disease was "at least partly responsible" for her marital woes, although neither she nor Martin realised it at the time. She felt herself becoming increasingly disconnected from her family, with Martin accusing her of mentally checking out of their relationship.

She confessed: "But, if I'm honest, I think he was right. I just didn't seem to have the energy for any of it any more. I didn't realise quite how seriously Martin felt about it all until one evening he announced he was moving out."

Despite this, Fiona initially couldn't accept that their marriage was irrevocably finished; instead, she thought Martin was "trying to shock me into behaving differently".

After spending three weeks apart, the couple began texting and eventually agreed to meet at a hotel in Hampshire in a last-ditch attempt to salvage their relationship.

They managed to patch things up, yet Fiona was still plagued by the same troubling symptoms. It wasn't until 2023, when she turned 62, that Fiona learned she was suffering from Alzheimer's.