Seeing those pictures this week of Eamonn Holmes, 64, and his new lover Katie Alexander, 42, at the airport after flying to Barcelona for a romantic cruise on a ship called Scarlet Lady made me wonder.
After all, he was slumped in a self-drive electric wheelchair while she was at his side, elegantly dressed, and carrying his walking frame.
Just what is it that the glamorous double divorcee gets out of this relationship? Is it fame, is it fortune, is it love?
It’s the mystery many of us are trying to solve now smitten Eamonn and loved-up Katie have officially gone public for the first time. What on earth does she see in him?
Eamonn Holmes , 64, and his new lover Katie Alexander, 42, at the airport after flying to Barcelona for a romantic cruise
One of Katie Alexander’s social media pictures – she and Eamonn first made contact when they were both involved in a mental health charity cause on Twitter/X
He’s old enough to be her dad – and still a married man to boot!
It’s one thing to love and cherish a frail, wheelchair-bound long-term partner when he or she falls ill. Indeed, isn’t that what Ruth Langsford did? She’d been with Eamonn for 27 years and was his wife for 14, when he became infirm, observing marriage vows of ‘in sickness and in health’ and all that.
Yet it’s quite another for a newcomer 22 years Eamonn’s junior, someone he reportedly only became intimate with recently, to take on such frankly arduous duty.
In the prime of her life, the mother of three is hooked up with an older man with mobility issues who admits he is curmudgeonly at the best of times.
The facts speak for themselves. Eamonn is far from a hot, fit youthful 64-year-old. After a double hip replacement, back surgery then a fall down the stairs of the home he shared with Ruth, he cannot walk unaided.
Katie looks more like his carer than his lover.
Perhaps the answer to the mystery lies in Katie’s past? Her first husband was coach driver Michael Devine who is 40 years her senior, hasn’t a bad word to say about her and tells us ‘she’s a nice woman, she really is, absolutely brilliant, is Katie’.
Her second former husband is bankrupted bar owner George Alexander who said Katie first met Eamonn on social media in 2015 when she commented on one of his posts and he replied.
Afterwards, her ex husband added, ‘she was swooning after him like he was George Clooney’.
Katie carrying Eamonn’s fold-up wheelchair and a small backpack at the start of their holiday
Katie, who has been married twice and has three children, spends most weekends at Eamonn’s flat in Richmond, Surrey
Maybe when you’ve been married to a coach driver and a bar owner, even Eamonn appears like a catch. Could it be that after two divorces from unglamorous, unfamous men, she simply found the TV star irresistible?
Eamonn’s star may have faded from his heyday of presenting ITV’s This Morning with Ruth to millions of viewers, but he is still a household name, presenting on GB News.
No one had even heard of Katie Alexander before she went out with him. Now coverage of the relationship has catapulted the stunningly beautiful, curvaceous Yorkshire lass onto the front pages.
Eamonn is also comparatively wealthy – despite having had to sell his beloved Belfast home to help pay a crippling £250,000 tax bill plus legal costs after losing a fight with HMRC.
He has an estimated personal fortune of £4million plus an income in excess of £1million, according to reports two years ago.
And that’s before splitting the proceeds of the sale of the £3.2million former marital home, which must surely happen as a result of their looming divorce.
Or, of course, it could it just be love.
Katie is believed to have met Eamonn on Twitter, now X, after both were involved in a mental health charity.
When they became more than friends, is unclear. Her lawyers insist it was not until after his break-up from Ruth this year that they became intimate. Recollections may vary on that point, but that’s her story.
Whatever, now they’re reported to be besotted with each other, spending most weekends together at the Richmond flat he moved to after Ruth – who has maintained a dignified silence – kicked him out when she allegedly found messages from Katie on his home computer.
The little we know of Katie is that she’s a relationship counsellor specialising in ‘affairs and betrayals’ offering in-person, telephone and online therapy sessions at £45 for a 50-minute session.
Eamonn and Ruth announced in May that their 27-year relationship and 14-year marriage was over
Anyone familiar with the world of therapists will know that many charge more than £200-an-hour, and some of the top ones twice that, so without wishing to be uncharitable I’d suggest Katie’s at the more modest end of her profession.
Friends have told MailOnline that Katie is ‘smitten’ with her telly tubby, that they’re ‘in love’ and she’s in it for ‘the long haul’. Interestingly, Eamonn denied recent rumours that the diamond sparkler she sported recently was an engagement ring.
Now they’re cruising the Med in a very public show of affection, Katie making front-page news and beaming with adoration.
As an eternal and unapologetic romantic, I believe it is love and believe that bright, vivacious Katie saw beyond the wheelchair and Eamonn’s infirmity, beyond his occasional grumpiness, to find the real man and fall head over heels.
I just hope, as they sip chilled Chablis together and nibble peanuts at sunset on the deck of the Scarlet Lady, the equally love-struck bloke in the wheelchair isn’t cruising for a bruising.
