Begin Again Moments: What Makes a Successful Marriage?

Gary Lineker and Patsy Kensit join Davina for a special Moments episode about marriage, love and life. Full episodes available now wherever you get your podcasts! Sponsored by: Garnier Nutrisse: UK's NO1 hair dye, chosen by 2 million women. Davina is shade 5 Mocha Brown. Find yours: www.garnier.co.uk/our-brands/hair-colour/nutrisse-creme Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Why did you think that marriage was important to you?

• 0:33Speaker 02

  Because I was a hopeless romantic. And that's sort of been something that's carried through all my relationships.

• 0:44Speaker 02

  And, you know, I just seem to have married all my boyfriends. That's really the truth. I mean, I've not. I wish I'd played the field and, you know, been taken advantage of, you know, my youth and the situations I found myself in. But I was just always chose to be married. I was never happier than being married to someone.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  There is a, I mean, it is different being married. There is, you know, I'm thinking about your mom and your dad.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  And how, even though your dad was a complicated man and you really loved him.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  When you were a little girl.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  You know, before you went inside for a while. And your mom, you could see, you understood why what your mom saw in him.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Yes, of course, yeah.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  So when they were together.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  You know, maybe that kind of was an influence for you.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  Does, do you think so? Was it a good example of a marriage or? You know, I think I've become, like I said, at 14, when he'd been away for seven years. And my brother and I were sworn to secrecy about this. So nobody on our street, we'd actually moved to the local council estate by that point. And those, you know, it was very, everyone, you know, everyone's business and quite, it was this sort of close, like Brookside Close a little bit.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Everybody knew.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Everyone knew everything. So my brother and I had to pretend for seven years that, oh, yes, our dad's in South Africa. And that's what we had to maintain. And because my mom said, you can't, that's, this is what you say. You'd say this at school. And they were like, so is your dad going to come? He's in South Africa. It was just that. And then, now, oh, he's back from South Africa. So.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  It's just restrictive that for a kid, like to have to lie about something.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  To have secrets like that.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's big.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Very, they weigh very heavy on a young person's soul. And like I said, I would do anything to protect my mom, to help her, to literally anything for her. And so I just felt like, and she was so beautiful. I looked like my dad. My mom was just this, you know, violet eyes and this beautiful skin and, you know, very Irish, real Irish beauty. And I always thought she could have had a much better life. I didn't, you know, but she did love him very deeply. And we'd be away on jobs and some of the other chaperones or their kids, whatever, we'd be carrying on with crew members and all this stuff.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  My mother was never like that. She really wasn't.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  And when he died and we went to the hospital to see the body and we walked in together and I just remember going, oh, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim. And sort of stroking his face. And I really saw love.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  Love.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was very sweet. It was very sweet, very sad.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  But it also, it also showed you that it was possible, you know, against all odds. It was a very complicated relationship.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  It made me feel.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  I think there are so many couples.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Who get together, they're in love, and then they stay for their kids or whatever.

• 4:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  They don't really love each other anymore. And the kids can feel it.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course they can.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  But for you, your mom loved your dad until his dying breath.

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Yep, it's very rare. And I think it was also, it was a great example to me of a partnership and a patient woman. She was very patient. And it was good for me to see that, that they really had had something together.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  This segment was sponsored by Garnier. Oh, my God. Little lady over there. Hi. What's your name? Shashana. Shashana. We've got a colleague at work, Emma, who wants to have her hair colored. I'm trying to find somebody to come with me to come and color her hair with some Garnier Nutris at work. Yeah, why not? Would you, would you really? Follow me, follow me. So this is the Begin Again Studio. And this is Emma. Shashana seemed really confident. She has colored her friends' hair and stuff before. We've got to put this one into here and shake to activate the color. Shake it like a Polaroid picture.

• 5:28Speaker 01

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• 5:55Speaker 01

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• 6:19Speaker 01

  That's amazing. Are you pleased with it? Do you like it? Love, love, love, love, love. How confident are you now out of 10? Oh, 10 out of 10. That was a lot simpler than I thought. I'm so pleased. We did a thing. We did. Thank you for trusting us. You guys are doing amazing. And thank you, Garnier Nutris. Love you.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  You mentioned earlier about, you know, you'd been married twice. And obviously you and Michelle, I know because I've done it, splitting up with somebody in the public eye is a fucking nightmare.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  It's horrible, yeah.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Because, and you were, you were kind of on good terms with both your exes when you split up. Can you tell me what that's like going through that? Because.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  It's so, it's so difficult to do it because it becomes a public. And I don't understand, you know, people say, well, it's part and parcel of being a famous or a celebrity or whichever way you want to describe it. But, but, you know, personal lives and with your, you know, things.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  And if you've got kids as well, it's really difficult.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  And I look back and I look back. And we had this thing particularly back then where that is really, that's a sight on your, you know, that you get divorced, that's a failure. You're to, someone has to, they used to have this thing that someone has to take the blame.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  Which was ridiculous.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  It's so funny. Someone's got to be at fault to get a divorce.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Exactly. Thankfully, that law has now changed because it was ridiculous. One of you had to admit, and you not only had to say, we had to invent something. We had to invent something for it. It was ridiculous. I mean, I was going to, I took the blame for both marriages, but we had to make up the thing because actually it was just an amicable arrangement. Because, you know, we've been, I look at it as I had two, people say the failures. No, I had two really successful marriages.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, you did.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  Really good. 20 years together, four children, Michelle, Danielle. We had a few years. We split in the end because of children. And, and we're best mates, absolutely best mates now. We see each other regularly. So, and it's, and it works. And, you know, I'm not sure we're meant to be the same people forever. Some people are, which is great, and other people are not. But, you know, going through it in the media and it's front page news and it's like, you know, when you've got kids as well, it's, it makes it really, really hard to deal with. But it is part and parcel of being in the public eye. But I don't think, I don't think it should be, and it is fair.

• 8:53Speaker 04

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