Anna Richardson, 54, is a broadcaster, writer and qualified hypnotherapist. Born in Shropshire, the daughter of a vicar, she broke into TV in her 20s, producing and presenting shows including The Big Breakfast, You Are What You Eat and Supersize vs Superskinny. She currently presents Naked Attraction and is in a relationship with charity boss Simon Marks. Here, she looks back on the moments that changed her perspective on money, love, her career, and her health
After about a year of being single I said to my friendship circle, “I’m not f***ing about. I’m really ready to meet somebody.”
I refused to do the dating app thing, so I said to my friends, “I’m tired of being single. I don’t care whether they are male or female. What’s important to me is kindness, generosity, a lightness of spirit and good humour. Does anybody know anyone?” And one of my mates said, “I know just the person. He’s going through a divorce but he’s coming through it and he’s ready and I think you two would be really great.”
My friend introduced us – he’s called Simon, and he is just the kindest, nicest, most beautiful soul I’ve ever met. The connection was instant and we’re still together.
Another friend of mine, who’d been single forever and very much wanted kids, was so determined to meet someone a few years ago that she got in touch with all her friends and said: “I will pay handsomely whoever finds me a husband.” She found the guy, got married, has two kids with him, and paid out too.
I always felt my parents were terrible with cash.
When I was growing up there was very little money in our household. My father was a vicar, and my mum was an RE teacher. There was never enough money, there was never any savings, and it was very hand to mouth. It wasn’t their fault, that was just the reality of vicarage life.
We were never really taught how to manage money and we probably didn’t have a very financially healthy childhood and background.
I left university with £20,000 in debt from student loan debt, living and moving to London. I had student loans, I had personal loans, I had credit cards, and it was becoming quite unmanageable.
As a freelancer I’ve never had a staff job ever in my 30-year career. It’s always been contract work so it’s been very unstable, and I’ve had quite a roller coaster ride of it when it came to finances and money.
I had a real #MeToo moment when I sued Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It was a terrible, traumatic event in my life, but it was also transformative and life-changing. [Anna sued Schwarzenegger for libel following claims that he groped her while filming a TV interview with him. Schwarzenegger denied the groping allegations; they settled out of court in 2006.]
I’m glad to say that after three years, we settled out of court, literally on the steps of London’s High Court. If I’d lost, I would have been bankrupt. Without question. I would have lost the flat I co-owned with my partner. It was a huge risk, but I was absolutely determined.
I'm middle class and take home £4k a month – but I still don't feel wealthy
Read MoreSue Perkins hooked me up with a brilliant financial adviser.
Sue said, “listen, sit down, sort yourself out”. Now, I regularly save, and I put the maximum that I can into my pension, because again, as a freelancer, we don’t have any guaranteed pension when we retire, so I now try to be as financially savvy as I can.
My dad has vascular dementia and I recently did a film in association with the Alzheimer’s Society for Channel 4 about dementia.
I didn’t know that it is Britain’s biggest killer, and that there were more than 100 different types, and I didn’t know that most of them are preventable.
I also didn’t know that the signs and symptoms start 20 to 30 years before you start to see any kind of real damage.
Doing that film was pivotal for me not only in my relationship with my dad, but in understanding dementia. It’s made me look a lot more carefully at my health.
I’m pre-diabetic.
There’s diabetes in my family so I am trying as best I can to get my blood sugars under control. I use the Abbott FreeStyle Libre sugar monitor, as I’ve got to keep an eye on my levels.
I’m cutting down simple carbohydrates and increasing my protein. I’ve got to be careful of my cholesterol as well as I have genetically high cholesterol too, so I’m getting on top of that, trying to reduce it through diet and exercise.
Hypnotherapy led me to realise exactly when my weight issues started – and train in a new career path.
When I was doing Supersize Superskinny on Channel 4, I was charged with trying to lose weight using a different diet every week, and I’d have to report back to the viewer. One week, I had to go and see whether I could lose weight just using hypnosis. I was dispatched off to go and see Marisa Peer, who is now a world-famous hypnotherapist.
I was massively sceptical but four hours later I could see very clearly in my mind’s eye where my weight issues started and it was as a four-year-old. My dad had to look after us for eight weeks when my mother was sick in hospital having my little brother. As an expression of love to ease my separation anxiety from my mum, he fed me, and I got fatter and fatter and fatter.
Once that was identified over the next three months, I lost two and half stone, so that was a transformative experience in terms of me realising that if you harness the power of your mind at work or in other areas of your life, then anything is possible.
I have since qualified as a cognitive hypnotherapist and set up a platform called Mindbox, which is an online therapy centre to help people with anxiety and depression. That moment was pivotal in understanding the power of learning, and if the shit hits the fan, I have another profession that I could do. It’s just so important to keep your mind open to other skills you can acquire.
I’m considering fostering and adoption
I was really inspired by The Modern Family Show I hosted last year, which demonstrated the breadth of options available for people wanting to build a family who might not be able to have a family in the conventional way.
Fostering or adoption is a long process because you’ve got to find the right agency and then there are months and months of checks and training. Although I’ve been together with Simon for two and a half years now, at the time it was a new relationship so the process has been delayed for me. But hosting that show gave me hope.
I want to experience being a parent. I want to experience being able to parent a child that’s in need of love. And I would love to be able to get to the end of my life having been a mum, for sure.
Anna is supporting Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre’s study into ‘discrimidating,’ behaviour when it comes to dating people with physical conditions like diabetes
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