Good Morning Britain’s early-bird anchor Charlotte Hawkins has described how the “tight-knit” GMB team has rallied around Kate Garraway in the wake of Derek Draper ’s tragic death from long Covid at the age of just 56.
Charlotte told Best Magazine: “When Kate lost her husband, Derek, in January, everyone pulled together to support her. She’s been through an extraordinarily tough time.”
Charlotte said that, having lost her dad to motor neurone disease, she had some understanding of Kate’s grief: “When you lose someone that you love very much, it’s constant pain. You wonder what the way forward will be – it’s not a question of getting over it, but learning to live with it.”
Saying that she’s “full of admiration” for how Kate had handled the cruel loss, Charlotte added: “It’s going to take time for Kate to heal, but she knows we’re all here for her.”
Derek, who had retrained as a psychotherapist after a long career in politics, was hospitalised with Covid-19 in March 2020, and eventually succumbed to the disease at the beginning of this year, after four years of virtually round-the-clock care.
His funeral was attended by friends and colleagues from the worlds of both politics and TV, including former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Susanna Reid, Richard Madeley, and Ben Shephard.
Ben has recently defected from GMB to This Morning, a move that Charlotte jokes has made her “absolutely furious.”
But now, she says, she’s delighted that Ben’s departure has left them with an all-female lineup – “I love that,” she says.
Charlotte, a still-youthful 49, has a little girl of her own at home. Her daughter Ella Rose was born in 2015, shortly after Charlotte’s dad died: “I didn’t want her to feel my sadness,“ she recalls, “so I tried to embrace the amazing joy when she was born.”
Ella Rose has always received Christmas presents from her late Grandad Frank, thoughtfully provided by her mum: “We talk about him and, in a sense, he’s just ‘Grandad who we haven’t seen for a while’.”
Charlotte says that Ella Rose, who is now coming up to 10, fancies a career in journalism like her mum: “When she was seven, she interviewed George Ezra live on GMB. She did brilliantly, but now she asks who’s on the show and if she can come to the studio.
“She’ll have my job before I know it,” Charlotte jokes.