Anthea Turner is turning 66 later this month, but she has no intention of slowing down. The former television presenter is embarking on a fresh career chapter, launching a YouTube channel, expanding her beauty brand By Anthea, and planning her wedding to fiancé Mark Armstrong.
New Ventures at 66
“I can take my pension this year so I could say I’m retired and have done with it, but I won’t,” Turner says. “My fame star rose through the 80s and I’m still here 40 years later. I’ve got so many things I still want to achieve.”
This year marks four decades in broadcasting for Turner. Alongside her beauty brand and children’s books co-authored with her sister Wendy, she is preparing to launch a YouTube channel aimed at her loyal over-50 female audience.
“We’re an age group who want to get the best out of our years,” she explains. “The channel will be an extension of what I do already — exercising my passions for the home and lifestyle. Media is a big umbrella now. Work has to come from lots of different pockets.”
Overcoming Being 'Cancelled'
Turner’s career resurgence is a far cry from the late 1990s, when she was labelled a “home wrecker” after entering a relationship with married property developer Grant Bovey. She recalls being “pushed aside” and unable to get work.
“I was ‘cancelled’ before we even had the word,” she says. “When I went through a difficult time, yes, I was absolutely pushed aside — over, done, I couldn’t get arrested.”
After the controversy subsided, the TV industry had changed. “If you weren’t a gardener, a cook, an interior designer or an expert on history or wildlife, you were stuffed,” she recalls. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my goodness me, that’s probably me done.’”
But she bounced back, appearing on Celebrity Big Brother in 2001, hosting Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife on the BBC, and competing in Dancing on Ice and The Jump. The breakdown of her 15-year marriage to Bovey during that period proved formative.
“After my divorce I met myself again,” she smiles. “The me I am now in my sixties is much closer to the one I was in my thirties, only now I have the golden ticket of experience. I did everything I could to keep my marriage to Grant together, but had I stayed in it I wouldn’t be the woman I am now with the freedom I have emotionally and professionally.”
Wedding Plans and Family Life
Turner has been engaged to hospitality businessman Mark Armstrong since 2019, a detail that often makes headlines. “I read about us repeatedly postponing the wedding but you can’t postpone something you haven’t organised,” she says. “We absolutely will get married because I believe in it, but life has got in the way. Covid, then Mark’s mum died, then home renovations. We dropped the ball, but we’ll pick it up again soon, don’t worry.”
She remains on good terms with both her ex-husbands, including her first, former BBC Radio 1 DJ Peter Powell. “There’s absolutely no bitterness. Grant and I had some great years, Peter and I had some great years,” she says. When asked if they will attend her wedding, she replies: “I’m not sure if Grant would come, but I think Peter most definitely will.”
Turner is now a grandmother to two boys, born to two of Bovey’s three daughters, whom she considers her own. Baby Ford arrived in March, and Dexter is one year old. “It’s about carving out time together,” she says. “Everyone’s busy but you make space for what matters.”
Health and Ageing
After a fall down the stairs before Christmas, Turner tore a shoulder tendon and required surgery. “The pain has been horrific,” she sighs. “You come out of surgery thinking you’re fine because of the nerve blockers, then suddenly — oh my God.” Recovery has been humbling: she cannot blow-dry her hair or apply mascara easily. Yet she remains determined, doing shoulder rolls at traffic lights and using her steering wheel like a Pilates ring.
Turner takes a pragmatic approach to ageing. “You do the maths in your 60. You see your mortality,” she says. “It’s not ageing that bothers me. I just don’t want to be a weak old woman.” She walks, lifts weights, and follows the Alexander Technique, which she learned as a teenage ballerina. She uses her own skincare line, has a bit of filler in her cheeks, and gets Botox regularly. “I haven’t frowned since I was 40, which has made a difference because I never got lines in the first place.”
She denies fear drives her efforts. “It’s not about that. When you scrub up and go out, you feel better,” she says. “I’m my own business. It’s about maintaining, not chasing something I was.” She is open to a facelift one day, though her fiancé would likely object.
Return to Live TV
Earlier this year, Turner returned to live broadcasting for the first time in three decades, standing in for Vanessa Feltz on Channel 5. “I was scared witless,” she admits. “But then it started and I realised I still knew how to drive the car. Now being an expert in life is what matters. I’m a standard-bearer for the scrubbed-up over-55s and I wear that mantle proudly.”
Despite global tensions, Turner remains optimistic. “We have every right to feel concerned,” she says. “But do I feel unduly panicked that things won’t sort themselves out? No. This absolutely cannot escalate and cause the world more harm. We have to have optimism in human nature.”
